Diversity, Broadcasting and the Politics of Representation

Sarita Malik (Brunel University)

Introduction

This chapter addresses issues of representation raised by the shifting emphases on how multiculture should be mediated in contemporary Europe. It foregrounds questions of representation, as a key concept in cultural and media studies, in order to offer a critical overview of the relationship between public service broadcasting, cultural diversity and European societies. One of the main objectives is to consider how lived multiculture is managed and mediated by the broadcasters. Whilst an important dimension of this 'management' is around the area of audio-visual policy frameworks (the dominant approach in current work around diversity and public service broadcasting in Europe (Rumphorst 2004; Freedman 2005), there are important issues of representation that do not relate directly to public policy.

So my interest here is with how the thread of representation runs through two, overlapping areas: first, audience representation (which considers the notion of provision, complex audience involvements with mediated communication and the rise of 'post-national' diasporic TV); and second, textual representation (the ways in which meanings associated with cultural diversity are made on-screen). A third dimension is involved here: the politics of cultural recognition in public communication (pertaining to the idea of how the 'public' of PSB might be defined). Representation is regarded here as a historical, institutional and political process. Media and cultural analysis highlights how, rather than simply reflecting or presenting 'reality', the work of representation constructs 'reality' and, more than that, serves an important role in how social relations develop and in how ideologies are constructed. The various 'ways in' to understanding the meaning of representation, can help us to understand public service broadcasting as a principal signifying system in contemporary society, which actively and continuously depends on the representational process.

The overview presented here considers the broader sociopolitical contexts against which such developments are occurring. Primarily this involves mapping the major European-wide paradigm shift from principles of multiculturalism to social cohesion; and asking what the possible implications are for these various orders of representation – audience developments, textual representations and the politics of cultural recognition. A set of questions begin to emerge here: how have multicultural audiences been implicated in the move away from multiculturalism? What kind of picture of cultural diversity is painted by the public service broadcasters? And what bearing does this have on both the politics of difference and the politics of recognition for Europe's diasporic groups?

Specifically, the chapter will address issues of ethnic minority representation in relation to broader political and economic developments in public service broadcasting since the 1990s. The specific dimension of cultural diversity that will be reflected on will be ethnic minorities, because their case has been especially caught up in the difficulties currently facing public service broadcasters. The relevance of the ethnic minority case study has a wider significance for what we consider the role of public service to be in a diverse Europe. Other chapters in this book take a range of European countries including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Belgium as their national case studies. Although this is a general, thematic chapter which aims to explore some of the overarching themes related to representation, particular reference will be made to the United Kingdom. The rationale for this is that the United Kingdom has typically been at the vanguard of academic debates around the politics of representation and diversity in contemporary Europe (Cottle 2000; Malik, S. 2002). PSB was pioneered in the United Kingdom in the 1920s and has, since then, operated a particularly strong and globally recognized public service framework. Whilst the UK context is discussed here, many of the issues addressed are common ones that are pertinent to the dilemmas currently being faced by other public service broadcasters across Europe (see Malik 2010). This is not to divert attention from the nuanced and national characteristics of the different European public service broadcasters that are dealt with in other parts of the book.

Running parallel to the intensifying Europe-wide retreat from multiculturalism, ethnic minorities have also altered their response to PSB as a form of media governance. This is currently a scenario which indicates the 'autonomous' production and circulation of 'ethnicized' representations targeted at distinct ethnic groups led by cable and satellite systems that have what McQuail in his discussion of the principles of media structure, calls a 'premium on diversity' (McQuail 2010: 224). The textual representations which are offered by these transnational communication outlets appear to flaunt a more culturally intelligent and nuanced mode of representation and address (for example in terms of language, geographical setting and genre). They may also draw on a more diverse set of editorial practices, values and ideologies (see Creeber 2004). But the seeming diversity in provision also...