Media Policies & (Ethnic) Minority Voices: Comparing National Approaches & Rationales

Abstract

German political philosopher Juergen Habermas is well-known among communication scholars for his concept of the public sphere. However, very little of his writing treats the practical dimensions of how such a sphere is to be established where the electronic media are concerned. I examine how the public sphere operates through those media for ethnic minority groups in Australia, The Netherlands and Sweden. I compare their histories and present situations, structures, modes of financing, types of program material offered, probable audiences, and future prospects. I then attempt to answer the question of whether Habermas' public sphere is an attainable goal.

Introduction

...In my application of the Habermasian concept of the public sphere to the realities faced by ethnic minorities working through the electronic media, I have separated policy and institutional form so as to make their component parts clearer. They are of course intertwined, but not always in ways that one might have predicted, or even that the policymakers may have intended or that the institutions themselves may have anticipated. My definition of "policy" admittedly is quite liberal, including as it does not only presidential decrees, major court decisions, laws passed by legislative bodies, etc., but also the actions of government-or license fee supported broadcasters, as well as commercial operations, in developing specific program services for ethnic minorities, codes of practice mentioning their on-air depiction, etc. I have defined practices as including both structural and programming components.

My research is guided by four basic questions:

1) How do the electronic media serve as part of the public sphere where ethnic minority participation is concerned?

2) What sorts of policies have governments developed to assist ethnic minority participation in the public sphere, and how have those policies shaped the nature of ethnic minority participation?

3) What types of program-making activity have characterized ethnic minority participation?

4) How "public" is ethnic minority media participation in the public sphere? Who participates in it, who doesn't, and why or why not?

My aim in searching for answers to those questions is to discern more clearly what sorts of effects the structural elements of policy and institutional form appear to have on participation and on program type and content. The answers should help ethnic minority groups to identify the sorts of media policies (including those yet to be formulated or enacted) and institutional forms are likely to be most helpful in meeting the goals they set for themselves as they prepare to participate in the public sphere, or as they consider altering their present practices.

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