National Conversations

Description

Public service broadcasting is in the process of evolving into 'public service media' as a response to the challenges of digitalization, intensive competition and financial vulnerability. While many commentators regard public service as being in transition, a central dimension of its mission - to integrate and unify the nation while respecting and representing plurality - is being reemphasized and re-legitimated in a political climate where the politics of migration and cultural diversity loom large in public debate. Through a series of thematic chapters and in-depth national case studies, National Conversations examines the reshaping of public service media and the concomitant development of new guiding discourses, policies, and program practices for addressing difference and lived multiculturalism in Europe.

 

Introduction: National Conversations: Public Service Media and Cultural Diversity in Europe – Karina Horsti, Gunilla Hultén and Gavan Titley

Section 1: The Rise of Diversity and Transition to Public Service Media: Complementary Perspectives

Chapter 1: Diversity, Broadcasting and the Politics of Representation – Sarita Malik (Brunel University)

Chapter 2: The Cultural Diversity Turn: Policies, Politics and Influences at the European Level – Karina Horsti (University of Jyväskylä)

Chapter 3: Public Service Media and Cultural Diversity: European Regulatory and Governance Frameworks – Tarlach McGonagle (University of Amsterdam)

Section 2: Policies, Practices and Future Directions: National Case Studies

Chapter 4: Between Diversity and Pluriformity: The ‘New Style’ of Dutch Broadcasting – Isabel Awad and Jiska Engelbert (Erasmus University, Rotterdam)

Chapter 5: Struggling With Multiculturalism? Cultural Diversity in Flemish Public Broadcasting Policies and Programmes – Alexander Dhoest (University of Antwerp)

Chapter 6: Ireland, the ‘Migration Nation’: Public Service Media Responses Between Discourse and Desire – Gavan Titley (National University of Ireland, Maynooth)

Chapter 7: A Vulnerable Diversity: Diversity Policies in Swedish Public Service Media – Gunilla Hultén (Stockholm University)

Chapter 8: The Politics of a Multicultural Mission: Finland’s YLE in a Changing Society – Karina Horsti (University of Jyväskylä)

Chapter 9: The Multicultural Mission in Public Service Broadcasting: The Case of Norway – Gunn Bjørnsen (Volda University College)

Chapter 10: Estonian Broadcasting and the Russian Language: Trends and Media Policy – Andreas Jõesaar and Salme Rannu (Tartu University)

Afterword: ‘And That’s Goodnight From Us’: Cultural Diversity and its Challenges for Public Service Media – Andrew Jakubowicz (University of Technology, Sydney)

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Película fotográfica
• Reference
• Large-screen television technology
• Cultural studies
• Politics
• Media studies
• History of film
• Film

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783202867
• Langue: English

Extrait

National Conversations
National Conversations:
Public Service Media and Cultural Diversity in Europe
Edited by Karina Horsti, Gunilla Hult n and Gavan Titley
First published in the UK in 2014 by
Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2014 by
Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street,
Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2014 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover designer: Stephanie Sarlos
Copy-editor: Emma Rhys
Production manager: Tim Elameer
Typesetting: John Teehan
ISBN 978-1-78320-175-4
ePDF ISBN 978-1-78320-285-0
ePub ISBN 978-1-78320-286-7
Printed and bound by Hobbs the Printers Ltd, UK
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: National Conversations: Public Service Media and Cultural Diversity in Europe
Karina Horsti, Gunilla Hult n and Gavan Titley
Section 1 The Rise of Diversity and Transition to Public Service Media: Complementary Perspectives
Chapter 1: Diversity, Broadcasting and the Politics of Representation
Sarita Malik (Brunel University)
Chapter 2: The Cultural Diversity Turn: Policies, Politics and Influences at the European Level
Karina Horsti (University of Jyv skyl )
Chapter 3: Public Service Media and Cultural Diversity: European Regulatory and Governance Frameworks
Tarlach McGonagle (University of Amsterdam)
Section 2: Policies, Practices and Future Directions: National Case Studies
Chapter 4: Between Diversity and Pluriformity: The New Style of Dutch Broadcasting
Isabel Awad and Jiska Engelbert (Erasmus University, Rotterdam)
Chapter 5: Struggling With Multiculturalism? Cultural Diversity in Flemish Public Broadcasting Policies and Programmes
Alexander Dhoest (University of Antwerp)
Chapter 6: Ireland, the Migration Nation : Public Service Media Responses Between Discourse and Desire
Gavan Titley (National University of Ireland, Maynooth)
Chapter 7: A Vulnerable Diversity: Diversity Policies in Swedish Public Service Media
Gunilla Hult n (Stockholm University)
Chapter 8: The Politics of a Multicultural Mission: Finland s YLE in a Changing Society
Karina Horsti (University of Jyv skyl )
Chapter 9: The Multicultural Mission in Public Service Broadcasting: The Case of Norway
Gunn Bj rnsen (Volda University College)
Chapter 10: Estonian Broadcasting and the Russian Language: Trends and Media Policy
Andreas J esaar and Salme Rannu (Tartu University)
Afterword: And That s Goodnight From Us : Cultural Diversity and its Challenges for Public Service Media
Andrew Jakubowicz (University of Technology, Sydney)
Index
Acknowledgements
The editors would like to thank the Publications Committee of the National University of Ireland for their generous grant in support of this publication.
Introduction
National Conversations: Public Service Media and Cultural Diversity in Europe
Karina Horsti, Gunilla Hult n, Gavan Titley

Introduction
This book is shaped by an awareness of the somewhat paradoxical position of public service broadcasting (PSB) and public service media (PSM) in Europe. As has been the case in most western European contexts since at least the 1980s, PSBs face a significant and intensifying range of challenges: digitalization and convergence, audience fragmentation and transnationalism, fragile funding models and ideological relegation. However, the consistent and often intensive contest over their relevance and mission, even in a world of communicative abundance, suggests that for many they still represent a normative vision of what mainstream media ought to strive to achieve in terms of pluralism and societal representation. In-depth examination of PSB and PSM institutions, strategies and programmes remains critical to media analysis, both because of their continuing centrality in national polities, but also because discussions of public service, by their nature, open up a range of further interesting questions about society, media ecology, technology and politics.
One such critical question is that of recognition and representation in societies characterized over time by migration and settlement, and by public debates about difference, belonging and legitimacy. This book aims to explore the shifting landscape of PSB and PSM in relation to migration, sociocultural change and the politics of diversity . Focusing on how public service media have re-interpreted their general mission to foster both national conversations and a pluralist spectrum of perspectives in migration societies, it positions media developments as a lens on sociopolitical change, and as implicated in some of the most fractious political debates in contemporary Europe. In turn, by examining how institutional shifts towards diversity and integration policy and programming are inseparable from wider pressures relating to digitalization, neo-liberalism and audience fragmentation, this book positions the politics of diversity as a lens for understanding the ongoing transformation of public service broadcasting and media.
The thematic chapters in the first section place contemporary issues and debates in an historical context in Europe, and develop the political, theoretical and policy issues engaged in the empirical studies gathered in section two. These nationally-focused empirical case studies analyse the responses of public service media to the politics of representation shaped by migration and cultural diversity, in a context where economic and technological changes have further complicated the ethos of public service broadcasting, and where the dominant European political emphasis on integration (see Guild, Groenendijk and Carrera 2009) manifests specific demands for national broadcasters.
All that is solid?
Central to the development of national radio, and subsequently television services in the early to mid-twentieth century, public service institutions have proved remarkably resilient. It has been a commonplace in both academic literature and public debate for decades that their marginalization, if not demise, may be inevitable. In part this is because the dominant organization of public service broadcasting through significant national institutions has resulted in structures that are symbolically associated with the western nation-state itself, and with the public culture of representative democracies. A combination of monopoly conditions and ideological conviction allowed for several postwar decades of national pre-eminence in most sites, where, as Hallin and Mancini note, broadcasting has been treated as part of the res publica, as an institution whose influence on society is too great to be left under the control of private interests (2004: 164). Even allowing for distinctive national differences, the centrality of a public interest mission has been based, according to Jay Blumler s early 1990s summary, on the shared foundations of comprehensive remit, generalized mandates, emphasis on diversity, pluralism and range, and a self-consciously cultural and political role (1992).
The cluster of reasons for the relative weakening of public service broadcasters, and the unsettling of the paradigm of public service, are also well known. As relative monopoly conditions rapidly dissolved in the 1970s and 1980s through broadcast deregulation, intensified and ideologically buoyant commercial competition, and the fraying and extension of national media spaces through cable, satellite and media globalization, the broadcasting landscape shifted irrevocably. According to Papathanassopoulos and Negrine:
While in the past they [PSB] might have been regarded as part of the infrastructure of informed democratic polities, untouchable and permanent, they have long ceased to be the only organizations of broadcasting that matter [ ] as these others [commercial competitors] provided news, sport and entertainment, the position of public service broadcasters began to erode, as they often lost their share of the audience, and their sole access to sources of public funding could be questioned.
(2011: 25)
This line of questioning has, of course, intensified in a digital media era where the rapid convergence of information and communication technologies (ICTs), telecommunications and broadcast media raises profound questions as to how public service remits could be re-shaped and meaningfully delivered in a multi-platform era. The ethical and pragmatic futures of public service in a digital era have, unsurprisingly, dominated both recent academic research and public discourse. In many sites, and particularly in the Nordic countries, commercial competitors have argued that the mission creep of public service broadcasters into digital platforms and online services extends the historical unfairness of the compulsory licence fee into a convergent media environment where advertising is increasingly shifting online, and all revenue generation models are contingent and fragile. As against this, proponents contend that PSBs utilize long established methods of audience feedback and outreach, and that new modes of participation deepen an existing commitment to connecting with the audience. The - uneven - digital strategies shaped in a context of competing for audiences in a multi-platform media environment, while seeking legitimacy for this expansive renewal, have resulted in the emergence of the label Public Service Media (PSM) (see Donders 2012; Iosifidis 2012 [2007]).
The concept of public service media is not a precise analytical term or institutional description, and for this reason the studies in this book employ the concepts of public service broadcasting and public service media dependent on the context, content