Tony Bennett, Differing diversities - Council of Europe

Reasearch position paper 1directly achieving several of the cultural diversity goals mentioned earlier and thesupport of European Union policy is increasingly important towards this end.In general it can be said that European media policy is ambiguous and potentiallycontradictory in respect of cultural diversity. Harmonisation and increase in size ofthe media market tend to encourage uniformity and concentration, in the absence ofcounter measures. On the other hand, cultural subsidies and support for new and independentaudiovisual production are expressly designed to resist this very tendency.Media cultural diversity research issuesResearch in this whole area has been quite diverse and also very uneven, driven bydivergent concerns, but certain main topics can be identified. These are describedunder a number of headings, as follows.Americanisation, globalisation and European cultural identityThe perceived danger of Americanisation of European television was first signalledby the research of Nordenstreng and Varis (1974) into the imbalance inglobal communication flows. However, the issue was again highlighted because ofthe expansion and commercialisation of European television since the early1980s. 1 In addition the European Commission has regularly monitored the effectsof its “quota” policy 2 and others have also evaluated European media policy. 3 Thefindings defy a brief summary, but key points to note include the following:– the dominance by American imports is especially marked in respect of fiction– films and drama series. It has remained at a constantly high level as a proportionof European television output, especially as a low-cost filler of theever-expanding number of hours of transmission. Researchers tend to emphasisethe negative cultural consequences of dependence on imported images,regarding fiction as of especial significance because it is so popular andengages the imagination;– other things being equal, audiences prefer to watch their own national (or cultural)production and more of this is being produced and scheduled in primetime hours; 4– when it comes to importing fictional content, American material is stillfavoured over the production of other European countries. To some extent itprovides the most widely shared (popular) culture of Europe. One result is thattelevision is not really a medium of cross-cultural European exchange; 5 77__________1. Key publications include: Sepstrup, 1989; Thomsen, 1989; Biltereyst, 1991, 1992, and 1995; Kellyand De Bens, 1992; Hemel, Mommaas and Smithuijsen, 1996; De Bens and De Smaele, 2001;Moragas and Prado, 2000.2. See, for instance, European Commission, 1998.3. See, in particular, Biltereyst, 1998; Machet, 1999.4. See De Bens and De Smaele, 2001; Moragas and Prado, 2000.5. Smaller European countries tend to be at a double disadvantage, since they may also be dependenton the cross-border transmissions from large neighbours, as in the examples of Wallonia and France,Flanders and the Netherlands, Ireland and England, Austria and Germany.