Tony Bennett, Differing diversities - Council of Europe

Reasearch position paper 2The evaluation and advocacy methods developed by watchdog groups have thepotential to increase diversity if applied to mainstream cultural organisations.Analyses of newspapers to compare discourses of multiculturalism and assessthe collective claims of migrants, ethnic minorities, and indigenous peoplesQuantitative and qualitative content analyses of samples of print media have beenused to compare discourses of multiculturalism and differences in official culturaldiversity policy between countries (Luchtenberg and McLelland, 1998).A variation of “protest event analysis” (Olzak, 1989; Rucht, Koopmans andNeidhardt, 1998) has been used to evaluate the collective claims of migrants, ethnicminorities, and indigenous peoples drawn from a content analysis of dailynewspapers. Acts are included if they involve demands, criticisms, or proposalsrelated to the regulation or evaluation of immigration, minority integration, multiculturalism,and access to cultural products or resources. Description bias is controlledby coding only the factual coverage of statements and events and selectingquality newspapers. For example, for Maori the agenda is not only to maintain culturalindependence within the sovereign New Zealand state and resist assimilation,but also to challenge the legitimacy of that state and that majority culture. Thisagenda is reflected in their collective claims and may be witnessed through contentanalyses of newspapers and other media. This evaluation strategy also may beused to compare the claims made by migrants, ethnic minorities, and indigenouspeoples from different jurisdictions or countries.Comprehensive economic impact assessmentEconomic impact is seen as an indirect measure of cultural policy effectiveness, anindicator of public engagement and participation, and as an analytic tool for evaluatingpolicy. Comprehensive economic impact analysis of the arts and culturalinstruments is useful in two ways: to help policy makers and donors determinetheir return on investments (ROI) and allocate resources and to create evidencethat justifies funding for the arts.The economic impact of immigrants and ethnic groups is being recognised interms of increased demand for new cultural products and substitute products (forexample, ethnic movies and TV programmes), and the influence of these groupson shifting government funding to diverse communities from mainstream culturalorganisations. Conventional economic impact analysis, however, usually focuseson how arts and cultural tourism affect the local economy by attracting outsideincome. It does not consider how the arts influence the economy by affecting localresidents, including culturally diverse groups, and their quality of life. Since comprehensiveeconomic impact analysis is essential, evaluators are now linking contingencyvaluation techniques (Thompson, 1998) to traditional economic impactstudies and supplementing audience surveys with participatory evaluation methods,as well as with public opinion and attitudinal surveys (Balfe and Peters, 2000)focused on specific target audiences, such as diverse groups.101