Tony Bennett, Differing diversities - Council of Europe

Differing diversitiessure for the most relevant forms of diversity has to come from people themselves.In turn, this requires that there have to be means for expressing demands, opportunitiesfor access and responsiveness on the part of media.Policy, whether European or national cannot fundamentally “engineer” culturaldiversity or keep it in place by legislation, because it is of its nature dynamic andunpredictable in the forms it might take. But policy can be supportive and protective,can set some limits to anti-diversity tendencies of media structure, and signaldesirable objectives. Often the most effective measures are to encourage smallscale and grass roots initiatives. Policy can keep a space free for the “publicsphere” and maintain the legitimacy of the principle of intervention in media forsocial or cultural purposes. Until now, and in some degree, so far these goals doseem to have been achieved at European as well as at national level despite theespousal of market aims and ideologies. But there is no guarantee of continuity.Research of an open and flexible kind with clear goals can help in identifying thepoints of most effective action. However the rapidly changing cultural face ofEurope and of the media landscape makes it hard to draw lessons from even theimmediate past and policy action for cultural diversity is always bound to be insome sense experimental.ReferencesAlasuutari, Pertti (ed.), 1999, Rethinking the Media Audience, London: SagePublications.Andersson, Magnus and André Jansson, 1998, The blurring of distinctions: mediause and the progressive cultural lifestyle, Nordicom Review, Vol. 19, No. 2,pp. 63-77.Baehr, Helen, 1995, Women in Television, London: University of WestminsterPress.Becker, Jörg, 1998, Multiculturalism in German broadcasting, MediaDevelopment, Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 8-12.Biltereyst, Daniël, 1991, Resisting American hegemony: a comparative analysisof the reception of domestic and US fiction, European Journal of Communication,Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 469-497.–––––, 1992, Language and culture as ultimate barriers? European Journal ofCommunication, Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 517-540.–––––, 1995, Qualitative audience research and transnational media effects: a newparadigm? European Journal of Communication, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 245-270.–––––, 1998, Television programming dynamics and policy responses, in L.D’Haenens and F. Saeys (eds.), Media Dynamics and Regulatory Concerns in theDigital Age, Berlin: Quintessenz, pp. 69-90.86