Tony Bennett, Differing diversities - Council of Europe

Differing diversitiesbound up with that of region and the most successful current examples of regionaltelevision relate to cases where place and language coincide (for example SC4 inWales, TV3 in Catalonia, ETB in the Basque country, TG4 in the Irish Gaeltacht,Omroep Fryslan in Friesland).However, language and place may not be enough on their own. Guyot (1998) hasdescribed the case of the Breton language, where despite the fact that in BasseBretagne, 24% are Breton speakers, there is little Breton media provision. Theobstacles are social and economic, with most speakers older and not commerciallyinteresting to advertisers. New cable and satellite channels are directed at theyoung and affluent. There is little financial viability. Hoffmann-Riem (1996)stresses that policy cannot regulate for diversity of content directly with muchhope of success. There have to be structural provisions, of the kind built into publicservice broadcasting. Guyot argues for co-ordinating different kinds of culturalpolicy as a way of achieving results in a given region.Minority language situations vary enormously from country to country. Accordingto Cormack (1998), the chances for minority languages depend not only on obviousthings like the number of speakers, but also on the degree of political support,the relative symbolic value of the minority language (as in Ireland) and the mountingof campaigns of support. Lately, there has been a more favourable trend inEuropean support for regional and minority media (the concept of “Europe of theRegions”). There are potential benefits as well as threats from changes in themedia. Cormack (1998) suggests that the cause of minority languages may behelped by the larger threat to many national European languages from the internationalimperialism of the English language. 1 Advocates of minority languages andopponents of English language dominance share a common cause and can benefitfrom the same protective measures.Immigration and ethnic minoritiesA fair amount of research has been carried out on the media provision for immigrantsin various European countries and media needs and uses of immigrantminorities. 2 For many members of ethnic and language minority groups, newmedia developments have strengthened cultural ties with countries of origin, evenif the parallel goal of integration may be less well served. However, in general, agenuine “multiculturalism” of society is more likely where ethnic minorities haveautonomous bases of identity. This was the original concept, for instance, behindthe pillarised society of the Netherlands and it is consistent with policies to protecthistoric subcultures in European national societies. The situation in relation todominant mass media is less positive. 3 It is hard for ethnic minority members togain access on equal terms to the media of the host country. The news values of themain mass media have a persistent tendency to “problematise” if not penalise the__________1. See also Findahl, 1989.2. See Frachon and Vargaftig, 1995; Hargreaves and Mahdjoub, 1997; Husband, 1998; Downing andHusband, 1999; Browne, 1999; Dijk, 1999; Ogan and Milikowski, 1998; Sreberny, 2000.3. See Downing and Husband, 1999; Dijk, 1999.80