Titley, Gavan, Kerr, Aphra and King O'Riain, Rebecca (2010) Broadcasting - in the new Ireland. Project Report. Broadcasting Authority of Ireland , National University of Ireland Maynooth.
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Abstract
The inward migration of the late 1990s and 2000s has changed
the fabric of society in Ireland. It altered the composition of media audiences
for Irish broadcasters, and raised questions as to how broadcasters
discuss migration and related issues; incorporate new audiences into
their programming; and deal with questions of media representation
and production.
Investigating the significance of media in a changing society
demands a multi-layered approach to research. This two-year research
project involved research interviews and surveys with media producers in
public, commercial and community radio and television; in-depth qualitative
research with Nigerian, Chinese and Polish research participants
nationwide; and an analysis of media policy nationally and comparatively
in Europe.
Irish media channels – in all sectors – have responded to this
changed social context through programming and a range of initiatives
concerning multiculturalism, interculturalism, and diversity. Part 1 of this
report discusses the background to these ideas in media policy, media
theory and wider public debate, and provides a basis for interpreting and
evaluating their use and significance in Ireland. It illustrates how these
ideas must be understood as relatively open discourses shaped by their
use in different contexts, rather than as set ideas or policy frameworks.
The regular media use of Nigerian, Chinese and Polish participants
discussed in Part 2 integrates local, Irish national, home-country national,
diasporic and transnational channels. This daily integration is facilitated
and limited by a range of material factors, notably newspaper circulation,
access to terrestrial Irish media, and Internet access. This integration is an
ongoing process influenced by language proficiency, length of time living
in Ireland, orientations towards past experiences and future horizons,
and cultural capital. Integrated media use involves relational viewing and
engagement, in which Irish media and other sources are compared and
contrasted, and organized in relation to each other according to different
needs, political readings, and pleasures.
A feature of daily, integrated media use is a fluid understanding of
local/national/international media. International news featuring issues/
contexts of interest is often intimately evaluated, and frequently seen
as being as consequential as representations of migrants in Ireland. The
presence of UK-based media in the public sphere in Ireland relativizes what
is understood as Irish media. For participants from countries as relatively
large and regionally complex as Nigeria, China and Poland, the national
horizons of Irish news were often understood as local or parochial, and
the scope of international news as being similarly limited;
Media monitoring and evaluation is more pronounced among
Nigerian participants, however all focus groups discussed the assumed
consequentiality of representations of migrants for their acceptance in
Ireland. As well as having a responsibility to provide fair and accurate representation,
many participants commented on the need for an increased
plurality of sources, perspectives and foci in Irish media.
This increased plurality was discussed in relation to news, and
also the spectrum of general programming available on television. This
understanding of diversity contrasted with the institutional idea of diversity
underpinning some public service broadcasting. Programming dealing
with multiculturalism – though frequently not primarily aimed at migrant
audiences – was often not received and interpreted as such. This understanding
of diversity does not preclude the importance attached by many
discussants to seeing increased diversity of people on Irish television.
Both mainstream Irish media and media aimed at national migrant
populations in Ireland were felt not to represent the internal diversity
and differences of migrant populations. Diasporic and transnational
media are centrally important for many participants across the focus
group streams, but not in obvious or predictable ways. News, lifestyle
and fictional programming on these services are watched relationally
and critically, and discussed according to a range of aesthetic, affective
and political criteria.
Much television use has migrated to Internet platforms, almost
to the same extent as newspaper use. This shift is a part of the pervasive
importance of Internet use for many participants. This viewing and listening
was integrated into a range of other multimedia and communicative
practices online. However Internet use is restricted for many by cost and
opportunity, and for those with the means, by widely criticized connection
speeds and coverage.
RTÉ has engaged consistently with the need to develop relevant
programming and institutional policies. Part 3 documents the development
of policy; the shift in radio programming away from first-wave
programmes – mainly aimed at representing migrant lives and experiences
to a mainstream Irish audience – to a still evolving emphasis on integrating
diversity into programming; the shift in television programming towards
a reliance on hybrid reality formats to normalize multiculturalism for a
national public audience
Community radio has been an important medium and space for the
development of migrant-produced programming, however the quantity and
scope of this programming has declined in 2009, for a variety of reasons.
Community television currently offers significant possibilities for both
migrant-led programming and for the integration of a broad spectrum of
perspectives and voices in media production
TV3 and TG4 regard specific policies in this area as overly rigid and
potentially counter-productive, and instead argue for an idea of diversity
emerging organically from the scope and focus of their programmes on
society in Ireland. The commercial radio sector is open to ideas and initiatives,
however pragmatic concerns regarding economies of scale and
the relationship between investment and return has meant that few such
initiatives – or radio programmes – have been developed. Exceptions to
this general trend are discussed in Part 3.
International, comparative research would suggest that broadcasting
in Ireland, particularly public service broadcasting, has reached
a point where first-wave programming primarily aimed at mainstream
audience understanding is no longer relevant, but where the challenge
of developing more integrated approaches to programme development
and media production – under the rubric of diversity – is only beginning
to take shape. The overarching conclusion of this report suggests that
this challenge involves a fundamental shift in considering how audiences,
and the public, are composed.
The recommendations of this report discuss different aspects
of this challenge by building on issues raised in the audience research.
In particular, the research emphasizes the need to focus as much on the
diversity of genres, programmes, and perspectives broadcast as the more
conventional idea of diversity as involving the representation of diverse
identities. This important difference in emphasis raises critical questions
concerning the current shift to frameworks of diversity as they are currently
understood and practiced in the different broadcast institutions.
The conclusions draw attention to the current and future importance
of training and the active inclusion of minorities in programme
development and production. While cognizant of the difficulties, pitfalls
and political controversies surrounding such issues, research suggests a
basic, if complex, relationship between the plurality of media workers and
a plurality of perspectives. The recommendations aimed at broadcasters
draw attention to a variety of ways that this could be done.
Item Type: | Monograph (Project Report) |
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Keywords: | Broadcasting; Ireland; |
Academic Unit: | Faculty of Arts,Celtic Studies and Philosophy > School of English, Media & Theatre Studies Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology |
Item ID: | 2362 |
Depositing User: | Gavan Titley |
Date Deposited: | 18 Jan 2011 11:49 |
Publisher: | Broadcasting Authority of Ireland |
Funders: | Broadcasting Authority of Ireland |
URI: | https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/2362 |
Use Licence: | This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here |
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