Tony Bennett, Differing diversities - Council of Europe

Differing diversitiesexample by Hollinger (1995) who looks at different forms of multiculturalism andmakes a useful distinction between cosmopolitanism, which emphasises the multipleaffiliations of individuals, and pluralism, which emphasises the given boundariesof ethnic groups and preservation of ethnic identities.Audience choice and useThere are comparatively few studies that have taken the minority ethnic audienceas their central focus, still fewer that examine diasporic communities. Those thatexist have focused on a variety of different minority ethnic groups, have been conductedin different years, and with different constellations of satellite and cablechannels available to migrant viewers. Thus generalisations about findings areextremely difficult to make, and the following extrapolations should be used withcaution.The available research suggests the following:i. “non-native” groups tend to be heavy media users, with almost universalaccess to radio and television, almost complete saturation of video in Britain(Sreberny, 1999: 16), high rates of access to cable, although comparable to the“native” pattern, but higher ownership of parabolic antenna in Belgium(D’Haenens and Saeys, 1996: 171-172);ii. “non-natives” tend to watch television more regularly than “natives”, and towatch more of it (ibid.);iii. reasons for choosing to access “home-country” channels include a desire tokeep in touch with events in the homeland, as well as poor command of thenew host language, especially by first-generation women; the second generationwere often pleased that parents could keep in touch, although they themselveswere fairly indifferent to this access, at least at first (Hargreaves andMahdjoub, 1997; Sreberny, 1999: 63);iv. when available and accessible, own-language channels are the most popular:the Turkish state-owned station TRT-International for Turkish respondents inBelgium (D’Haenens and Saeys, 1996: 174), TRT and TDI, a German-basedTurkish-language station for respondents in Germany (Hargreaves, forthcoming),“home” country satellite channels, and other Arabic-language channelslike the Egyptian-based ESC and the news-led MBC from Britain amongstMaghrebi respondents in France (ibid.: 175). ZEETV was popular amongolder viewers in Britain, mainly for the Indian soaps it showed;v. the linguistic link between language knowledge and channel preference is evenmore marked for radio (D’Haenens and Saeys, 1996: 171);vi. Maghrebi viewers also make considerable use of French-language programming,rather than Dutch, in Belgium (ibid.: 175);vii.second-generation and third-generation viewers with their own sets tended towatch more “local” domestic channels (although sometimes it was simplybecause of lack of connection to satellite/cable); they were also very keen on160