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Introduction. Cultural diversity policies in Europe: between

integration and security

In Global Media and Communication, Special themed issue on ‘Cultural diversity

policies in Europe’, December 2014, 10 (3), pp. 231-245.

Guest editors: Tristan Mattelart and Leen d’Haenens

Draft. This version is not for citation. Please cite the published version only. Available at: http://gmc.sagepub.com/content/10/3.toc

Tristan Mattelart

University of Paris 8, Saint-Denis, France

Leen d’Haenens

KU Leuven, Belgium

‘One of the great challenges of our time must now surely be to ensure that our rich

cultural diversity makes us more secure – not less.’ With these words, United Nations

(UN) secretary general Ban Ki-moon drew a clear connection between the issues of

cultural diversity and international security (Ban Ki-moon, 2008). Ban Ki-moon spoke

in a peculiar context framed by the 9/11/2001 attacks against the United States or the

Madrid and London bombings of 2004 and 2005, all attributed to Islamist terrorist

groups. In 2005, against the prospects of a ‘clash of civilizations’, the UN had

implemented an ‘Alliance of Civilizations’ (UNAOC) with the co-sponsorship of the

Spanish and Turkish Prime ministers in the hope of building ‘bridges between

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societies’ and appeasing conflicts ‘threatening international stability’ (UNAOC, 2006:

3).

Ban Ki-moon’s statement pointed to an understudied dimension of ‘cultural

diversity’ policies. Indeed, such policies are also meant to ‘build bridges’ between

and within societies with a view to easing tensions that threaten international and

national security. Within this framework the media are seen both as an obstacle to

cultural diversity policies and as a major tool at the latter’s disposal. According to the

UN Alliance of Civilizations the media are forces that shape ‘stereotypes and

misrepresentations’, fuelling antagonisms between communities and raising security

problems, but also instruments able to ‘reduce cross cultural tensions and to build

bridges between [these] communities’ (UNAOC, 2006: 25, 31).

Cultural diversity policies are infused with a rhetoric that makes it difficult to

critically explore their nature: after all, how could one be against diversity? Yet, as

this special issue’s articles show, the polysemic nature of the term ‘diversity’

obfuscates the objectives of the policies that are pursued in its name. There is a

need to go beyond this consensual rhetoric in order to analyze the reality of these

objectives, which in many respects may be in opposition to the semantics of diversity.

Despite the imaginaries of cultural differences conveyed by the notion of diversity,

such policies do not necessarily aim to enhance multiculturalism. On the contrary, as

emphasized by this special issue, in consonance with the growing body of literature

on the subject (synthesized here by Gavan Titley), many recent European ‘diversity’

initiatives work against multiculturalism policies inasmuch their explicit goal is to

‘integrate’ ethnic minorities in the post-9/11 world, such minorities – starting with

those of Muslim faith – being viewed as a growing danger to national cohesion.

Indeed, cultural diversity policies may in many ways be construed as being part of an

overall strategy that seeks to improve the ‘integration’ of ethnic minorities so as to

increase security in Europe by reducing perceived threats.

This special issue focuses on media representations policies dedicated to

ethnic minorities and carried out in Europe under the banner of ‘diversity’. It shows

that these are both in continuity and in rupture with former national policies

implemented in Europe starting in the 1970’s to ‘manage’ migration. In this

introduction we provide a historical overview of European policies conducted in this

field, before putting into perspective some specificities of current diversity initiatives.

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From the right to receive information to the right to communicate

From the very beginning the issue of migrants’ access to the media in Europe has

been placed under the sign of security. Illustrative of this is the fact that the first

official European document mentioning the necessity of improving the media

condition of migrants – or, to use the vocabulary of the time, of migrant workers –

was the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE),

a Conference initiated in times of détente to create conditions of peaceful

coexistence on the continent. Adopted in 1975 in Helsinki by 35 States, the Final Act,

‘recognizing that workers’ migrations have […] given rise to a number of economic,

social, human, and other problems’, urged participating States ‘to confirm the right of

migrant workers to receive, as far as possible, regular information in their own

language, covering both their country of origin and the host country’ (Final Act, 1975:

33-34).

Interestingly, this provision on the migrant workers’ right to receive information

was not part of the agreement’s third ‘basket’ (devoted to ‘humanitarian’ issues) but

of the second one, which specifically dealt with ‘cooperation in the field of economics’

(Final Act, 1975: 14). In such a context the right to receive information granted to

migrant workers was not conceived as a citizen’s right but as a utilitarian need which

was, as Taisto Hujanen put it, ‘directly related to the exploitation of the migrants as a

labor force’ (Hujanen, 1988: 59).

When the Final Act was signed, this migrant workers’ right to receive

information had been established or was being established in most Western

European countries. Indeed a few public radios stations in the early 1960’s as well as

some public televisions channels in the mid-1960’s had already begun to dedicate

special programming to these audiences in their mother tongues, giving them access

to news, to entertainment from their countries of origin, and to practical information

about the country of residence (see the French and the German cases in this issue).

However, in an early review of these ‘special services’, Hujanen dated their

‘remarkable expansion’ back in the second half of the 1970’s. As he emphasized: ‘It

is worth noting that [this] expansion [was] parallel to more restrictive migration

control’ (Hujanen, 1988: 76). These special programmes were at least partially a tool

of such migration control policies. In fact, implemented in an era of economic crisis,

these programmes pursued ambivalent objectives. On the one hand they meant ‘to

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maintain the possibilities of repatriation of migrant workers’ by bringing them news

and entertainment in their native tongues, and on the other hand they aimed to

‘further their orientation towards the host society’ (Hujanen, 1980: 2).

Important as they were, the provisions of the Helsinki Final Act on migrant

workers’ rights for information had their limits. Indeed, they tended to consider

‘migrant workers as mere receivers of information’ (Hujanen, 1980: 23). Based on

this criticism Hujanen set up an ambitious, collective research project on ‘the role of

information in the realization of the human rights of migrant workers’ in Europe

(Hujanen, 1980, 1988)1, funded between 1980 and 1988 by the University of

Tampere’s Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, and supported by

UNESCO.

Revealingly, Hujanen placed his study within the broader framework of the

discussions held at the UNESCO for the implementation of a New World Information

and Communication Order (NWICO). His research drew a parallel between structural

imbalances in the communication field between rich and poor countries on the one

hand, and structural imbalances in the communication field within developed

countries between majority populations and minorities on the other hand. In this

context special programming policies were criticized for not letting migrants become

the ‘actors’ of their own media representations. According to Hujanen these policies

only aimed to bring these audiences some special ‘content’ in limited time slots,

leaving ‘untouched’ ‘the way the communication is structured’. Providing migrant

workers with specific programming was not enough. There was a need for a thorough

‘democratization of communication’, which presupposed changing the media’s

structures of ‘power and control’. Thus Hujanen and his colleagues called for these

migrants to be granted the very right defended within the NWICO framework: the

‘right to communicate’2 (Hujanen, 1988: 44-48).

Politically this objective was crucial as the nature of migration had changed

between the 1970’s and the late 1980’s. While they had long been viewed as

temporary guests – gastarbeiter as they were called in Germany – always meant to

return to their native lands, it became increasingly clear in the 1980’s that many

migrant workers were going to stay in Europe: they had settled once and for all in

their host country with their families. This change in the nature of migration

processes in Europe was well illustrated by the joint study coordinated by Hujanen.

Originally dealing with the media rights of ‘migrant workers’ only (Hujanen, 1980), it

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focused on the broad picture of ‘ethnic minority’ rights by the end of the decade. As

noted in the report of the final conference: ‘The former communication policy

concerning migrant workers needs to be substituted by a new one, which would

focus on a group of people which can be characterized as the new ethnic minorities

of Western Europe’ (Hujanen, 1988: 43-44, his emphasis).

Last, Hujanen’s study’s significance lays in the depiction of the problems

European societies would face if ethnic minorities were not granted more media

space in their host country. It was suggested they try to circumvent the limitations of

the local media by turning to content coming from their countries of origin. Manfred

Oepen’s ‘National report of the Federal Republic of Germany’ (1983) exemplified this.

It stated that given the ‘substantial deficit’ of German programmes aimed at Turkish

‘migrants’, ‘a private video market’ bloomed in this country ‘as a compensation to the

insufficient public supply’, raising fears of ‘media isolation’ – a media isolation that

‘could finally result in social and cultural ghettoization bearing disastrous

consequences for every integration policy’ (Oepen, 1983: 143-144).

Promoting inter-ethnic understanding

In the 1980’s the changing nature of immigration forced national authorities and

public broadcasters in Western Europe to reconsider their media policies towards

ethnic minorities. This was considered all the more important since European

countries were confronted to the rise of various forms of ‘ordinary racism’, specifically

directed against ‘cultural differences’ introduced by immigrants coming from outside

the European continent (Rea, 1998: 12-13). In this context a number of national

governments and European institutions began to think public broadcasters had a role

to play in the fight against racism.

In Germany especially, in the second half of the 1980’s, public broadcasters

and various government institutions held a series of conferences to look at ways of

responding to ‘the pressing issue of “hostility against foreigners”’. The specific

programming policy was seen as unable to address this problem: a new strategy was

needed to enhance ‘inter-ethnic tolerance, based on a mutual understanding which

public-service broadcasters had the duty to promote by providing information for and

about the “other”’ (Kosnik, 2000: 328). Public radios and televisions were described

as having an ‘integrative mission’ to accomplish through broadcasting to ethnic

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minorities as well as ‘the German audience in their efforts to teach people about

ethnic difference’ (ibid.: 329; see also the article by Çiğdem Bozdağ in this issue).

This philosophy was echoed at a European level by the Council of Europe

(CoE). Having closely followed the various discussions held as part of Hujanen’s

study, this institution took an active part in the debates on these issues starting in the

late 1970’s/early 1980’s. It co-sponsored various conferences on the representation

of ethnic minorities in the media, including a November 1988 colloquy on the

relationships between ‘Migrants, media and cultural diversity’ held at

Noordwijkerhout, in the Netherlands (Perotti, 1993: 23-29) – one of the first such

gathering to turn the semantics of ‘diversity’ into a policy imperative.

It was against this background that a major report issued in 1991 by the CoE’s

Community Relations Project (Community and Ethnic Relations in Europe) laid in

many respects the foundations of the policies that were later to be labeled ‘diversity

policies’. The report was based on the idea that instead of ‘a separate […] group’

destined to go back to their countries of origin, immigrants must rather be viewed as

an integral part of ‘society as a whole’: ‘Ethnic, racial and cultural diversity has

become a characteristic feature of European society’ (Council of Europe, 1991: i, 10).

Therefore public policies were needed to improve the conditions in which

‘interaction between the majority or host population and the various migrant groups

or ethnic groups of immigrant origin’ occurred (ibid.: 1). Enhancing interactions within

‘multicultural societ[ies]’ (ibid.: 10) was all the more important since the context in

which the report was written was one of perceived ‘migratory “threats”’. Indeed, the

fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 had ‘aroused the fear of a massive, incontrollable

migratory influx from the east’, and migratory flows from the south were also ‘a case

of anxiety’ (Martiniello, 2006: 317).

Security considerations were not absent from the report. Written in the wake of

the Rushdie affair, it looked squarely at the climate of ‘tension’ in ethnic relations, and

it voiced concerns about a growing sentiment among populations that there were a

‘clash of values’ and an ‘incompatibility of cultures’ in Europe – which fuelled ‘racist

and xenophobic movements’. As a reaction, it pleaded for ‘determined action […] to

try to reduce the risks for the future’ and ensure ‘peaceful coexistence’ between

communities (Council of Europe, 1991: 7, 11, 23, 25).

Despite the fact that it was wrapped in the rhetoric of multiculturalism – and as

such infused to a certain extent with the agenda of British or Dutch multiculturalist

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policies – the report advocated the implementation of an ‘integration policy’ such as

the one then being pursued in Germany. This integration policy would be directed not

only towards ethnic minorities but also towards the population as a whole. It should

help immigrants and persons of immigrant descent ‘adap[t]’ to their ‘new society’ –

‘without, however, being forced to assimilate and to abandon their own ethnic origins’

– while ensuring that the ‘majority population adap[ts] to a new degree of cultural and

ethnic diversity’, which was seen as an integral part of European societies. To be

successful this integration policy had to overcome one major obstacle: the ‘structural

discrimination’ affecting ethnic minorities (ibid.: 16, 28).

Where did the media stand in these policy proposals? Considered as having

‘an effect on all members of society’, they were explicitly designated as hindering the

‘integration’ of minorities. The report stressed that the mechanics of the media in an

increasingly deregulated market – the ‘media tend to concentrate on “spectacular”

events which attract public attention’ – produced a distorted image of ethnic

minorities: the media were accused of strengthening negative ‘stereotyped images of

ethnic and migrant communities, […] without always being fully aware of the[ir]

possible repercussions on community relations’ (ibid.: 67).

To counter such pernicious effects the report advocated various ‘policy

measures’ that were directly inspired by the recommendations of the colloquy on

‘Migrants, media and cultural diversity’. It urged the Council of Europe’s member

States to grant ethnic minorities two types of rights: the ‘right to receive through the

media adequate information appropriate to their needs’ – a right already mentioned in

the CSCE’s Final Act – and the right ‘to express themselves in the media’ (ibid.: 68),

which bore some resemblance to the ‘right to communicate’ defended by Hujanen

and colleagues. To enforce these rights, the report inter alia urged ‘public sector

media’ to offer ‘professional opportunities to journalists and programme-makers of

immigrant origin’, and called for the development of ‘media run by immigrant and

ethnic groups themselves’ (ibid.: 68).

In other words, the time had come for ethnic minorities to be included, ‘in their

own right, in generalist programmes’ of their countries of residence. After being

viewed as ‘a social problem’ that needed to be addressed through a policy of specific

programming, they were now to be considered as ‘an issue concerning society as a

whole’ (Perotti, 1993: 29). However, as noted by Antonio Perotti, the CoE’s calls to

act to improve the image of ethnic minorities remained largely unanswered: its

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actions did not result in a ‘significant improvement of institutional policies in this field’

(ibid.).

The European Union: the media as instruments of ‘integration’

While the Council of Europe’s calls for ‘cultural diversity’ policies in the media mostly

fell on deaf ears, European Union (EU) initiatives launched in the late 1990’s have

given the issue pride of place in public debate on the continent. After gaining

competence in the field of migration policies in accordance with the 1997 Amsterdam

Treaty, the EU has indeed implemented, as part of its broader migration strategy, a

policy meant to promote ‘cultural diversity’ in the media sector, with the explicit

objective of enhancing ethnic minorities’ ‘integration’.

The rationale behind EU migration policies was mostly economics. At the end

of the 1990’s the European Commission came to the conclusion that European

countries were facing ‘growing shortages of labor at both skilled and unskilled levels’

and called for ‘channels for legal immigration to the Union’ to be opened (On a

Community Immigration Policy, 2000: 3). However, migration was too complex an

issue to be tackled from an economic point of view only. To be economically efficient

such policies needed to address ‘the very important human issues involved’ with

migration (ibid.: 3-4). To generate economic benefits from immigration while

containing the possible negative ‘impact of migration policies on the host societ[ies]’,

the EU has designed ‘an integrated approach’ (ibid.: 15), or a ‘holistic approach’

(Communication from the Commission on Immigration, 2003: 17) to migration issues

which aims to manage both the presence of immigrants on the continent and the

flows of immigration coming to Europe. This integrated approach includes various

interconnected policies: the opening of European borders to a regulated, legal

immigration; the ‘reinforcement of integration policies’; the ‘fight against illegal

immigration’, and, finally, the need to maintain ‘relations with countries of origin and

transit’ to ‘reduce push factors’, i.e. factors encouraging emigration (On a Community

Immigration Policy, 2000: 6-7). Integration policies are a key dimension of this holistic

approach of migration. As the European Commission puts it: ‘The successful

integration of immigrants is both a matter of social cohesion and a prerequisite for

economic efficiency’ (Communication from the Commission on Immigration, 2003:

17).

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In the continuity of the philosophy of the aforementioned CoE report, the

European Union understands integration as a ‘two-way process involving adaptation

on the part of both the immigrant and of the host society’. In this context, host

societies have to ‘respect’ – up to a certain point – the ‘cultural and social differences’

introduced by ethnic minorities, while the latter must in turn accept ‘our fundamental

shared principles’ (On a Community Immigration Policy, 2000: 19). The ‘promotion of

diversity’ through the media is seen as having a key role to play in this integrative

framework. The media, as explained in the document that defines EU immigration

policy, have ‘considerable responsibility in this respect in [their] role as an educator of

public opinion’ (ibid.: 6, 22). They should promote ‘a generally positive attitude in the

public towards immigrants’ (Communication from the Commission on Immigration,

2003: 17) to foster their integration.

This objective became crucial in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, which – as

the Commission itself admitted – created a climate of mounting animosity against

ethnic minorities, especially Muslims, hindering integration policies. In 2003 the

Commission noted a ‘growing tendency in the public to blame immigrants for the

insecurity in our societies and general hostility towards Muslims, which has arisen

since the events of 11 September 2001 in the United States’ (Communication from

the Commission on Immigration, 2003: 22). The Commission then urged the media to

present ethnic minorities in a better light: ‘They should set an example for civil society

by emphasizing the value of the contribution immigrants make and ensuring that the

general coverage of integration issues and the tone of the public debate is balanced

and based on accurate information’ (ibid.).

After the Madrid and London bombings, the Commission endowed integration

policies with an even more important function: making Europe safer. In a document

delineating a European ‘counter-terrorism strategy’, written in the wake of London

attacks, the European Council stressed the need to prevent terrorism within

European borders through the promotion of ‘inter-cultural dialogue and long-term

integration where appropriate’ (The European Union Counter-Terrorism Strategy,

2005: 9). And here also the media had a part to play.

The problem was that there was a huge gap between the role they were

supposed to play in favor of integration and the one they did play. A 2002 study

coordinated by Jessika Ter Wal for the European Monitoring Center on Racism and

Xenophobia (EUMC) illustrated how much there was to do in this field. After looking

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at existing research on Racism and Cultural Diversity in the Mass Media in the then

15 EU member States, the study pointed out a few commonalities in the way ethnic

minorities were portrayed in Western Europe. ‘A general problem with the

representation of migrants in the media registered for various countries is that

negative images’ – associating ‘migrants with crime’ – ‘were not compensated by

positive images’. Interestingly, the study also stressed that some populations were

more discriminated against than others in the media field: ‘Stereotypes for Roma and

Muslims were found […] as the most pernicious and the most negative’ (Ter Wal,

2002: 43-48).

According to the Commission the media as instruments of discrimination were

to be turned into integration tools through a proactive ‘cultural diversity’ policy. And

initiatives have proliferated in this field since the beginning of the 2000’s: EU-

commissioned studies, EU-funded conferences, symposiums or seminars, Diversity

Toolkits depicting best practices in media coverage of ethnic minorities, Handbooks

on using the media for integration purposes, etc.

The ‘business case for diversity’

The reader of documents that promote European ‘cultural diversity’ policies is struck

by the faith their authors seem to place in the power of the media. These are

universally viewed as major ‘change agents’ able to achieve ‘the full integration of the

groups of “new citizens” into the national societies’ (Thinking forward, 2004: 10) or

considered, to quote the EU’s third Handbook on Integration, as ‘a powerful medium

for influencing attitudes in society’ (Handbook on Integration, 2010: 26).

This naive assumption as to the media’s ability to foster the objectives of

diversity policies contrasts with a lack of interest for their social, economic, and

political underpinnings. Yet, the ‘ways of financing and organizing’ the media are not

without ‘consequences for the range of discourses and representations’ they convey

(Golding and Murdock, 1991: 15). The organizing logics governing the media should

then be addressed by people intent on enlisting the latter in the promotion of

‘diversity’.

However, the reform of the media structures lies clearly outside the scope of

EU policies meant to improve the representations of ethnic minorities. The goal is to

change these media portrayals while leaving ‘untouched’ ‘the way the communication

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is structured’, to quote Hujanen’s criticism of the shortcomings of the special

programming policy in the 1980’s. EU documents are indeed based on the notion

that such representations of ethnic minorities can be improved simply by ‘raising

awareness’ among media professionals and media organizations (Triandafyllidou

and Ulasiuk, 2011: 7). This means attempting to enhance the visibility of such

minorities in editorial rooms and on television screens without overhauling the

organizing logics that structure the media3.

On the contrary, diversity policies are seen as largely compatible with some of

these organizing logics – especially market imperatives. Far from an obstacle to

achieving diversity in the media, such imperatives are viewed as a contributing factor.

Thus a Toolkit aiming at Making the Media more Diverse (Thinking forward, 2004: 3)

asserts that there is a ‘business case’ for cultural diversity. This rhetoric permeates a

lot of reports published in the name of cultural diversity, including the Diversity Toolkit

produced under the auspices of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which

represents the interests of public broadcasters. Defending diversity ‘makes business

sense and aids social cohesion’ (Diversity Toolkit, 2007: 49).4

Thus the increasing commercialization of the audiovisual sector isn’t at all

considered problematic with respect to the implementation of cultural diversity

policies. As the third edition of EU’s Handbook on Integration states: ‘To survive in a

competitive market, media organizations [“public broadcasters as well as private

media enterprises”] need to ensure that their products are tailored to the needs and

wants of their consumers. […] In this sense, competition presents an opportunity and

a challenge for integration’ (Handbook on Integration, 2010: 27).

Nevertheless, the postulate that ‘market forces’ produce ‘dividend[s] for media

diversity’ is questionable, as shown by a team of researchers coordinated by

Georgios Terzis in the Media4Diversity report. In contrast with the faith in the

‘business case for cultural diversity’ expressed in other parts of the document, the

researchers note in their conclusion that ‘an exclusive or heavy reliance on the

market to deliver diversity often brings bitter competition among the different groups

facing discrimination who are seeking recognition, which usually results to the loss of

the ones with the least appeal to advertisers’ (Media4Diversity, 2009: 75, 89).5

Finally, EU documents advocate the use of domestic, mainstream media –

especially domestic generalist televisions, be they public or private – to foster the

ideals of cultural diversity, while expressing misgivings about ethnic minorities turning

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to the media of their countries of origin, which is seen as a threat to the integration

objective. The Third edition of the Handbook on Integration illustrates this: it

formulates the fear that through satellite television ethnic minorities may come to live

in ‘parallel media spaces’ where they would be insulated from majority population.

‘This may cause intercultural miscommunications in society, which could in turn

impede integration’ (Handbook on Integration, 2010: 26). Yet, empirical research has

shown that this ‘ghettoization theory’ is far too simplistic, as people combine different

media platforms, using them for different purposes (Peeters and d’Haenens, 2005).

The influence of these European initiatives on national contexts should not be

overestimated. This special issue makes it clear that domestic diversity policies are

largely framed by the specificities of the histories of national public policies towards

immigrants and minorities. In France, as Alec Hargreaves and Tristan Mattelart

explain, current cultural diversity policies cannot be understood without taking into

account the way in which the French state used to deal with the cultures of the

immigrants coming from its former empire. Çiğdem Bozdağ studies how German

media policies towards ethnic minorities were shaped by the peculiar context in

which they were elaborated – a context marked, inter alia, by the competition

represented by communist radio stations targeting migrant workers in the Federal

Republic in the 1960s, by the perception of a ‘Türkenproblem’ in the 1970s and

1980s, or by the waves of immigration from former Eastern European communist

countries after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Jiska Engelbert and Isabel Awad show the

extent to which current diversity policies on Dutch public channels are informed by a

‘specific national social history of social difference and pillarization, as well as a

tradition of pluriformity’. In Ireland, as Gavan Titley analyzes, the diversity theme was

first used to celebrate a ‘historical shift from emigration to immigration’, before being

mobilized from the late 2000s on as a ‘resource’ by ‘state integration strategy’.

However, as this last remark suggests, one common feature emerges from the

domestic contexts studied here: in each country, national cultural diversity policies

are at the service of ‘integration’. This is in congruence with the aims the EU has

assigned its own initiatives purported to promote ‘diversity’. Similarly, in these various

countries, true to European orientations, cultural diversity policies in the media

sector, given the key role they are supposed to play in integrating ethnic minorities,

are seen as easing interethnic relations, therefore enhancing domestic security6.

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The contradictions of the migration management policies

Migration policies implemented by the European Union in the 2000’s can be

characterized as ‘migration management’ policies, as defined by Martin Geiger and

Antoine Pécoud. Born out of a ‘perceived migration crisis’, ‘migration management’

policies attempt ‘to turn migration into a mere orderly, predictable and manageable

process’, with a view to ‘making migration economically beneficial’ (Geiger and

Pécoud, 2010: 2-3, 14). Such policies are also marked by their ‘holistic ambitions’,

and as such by their ability to address many different ‘policy issues connected to

migration’ (ibid.: 9).

One striking feature of these EU migration management policies – in definite

contrast with previous policies – is the centrality they give the media. These are said

to be nothing less than ‘critical success factors’ for European integration initiatives

(Handbook on Integration, 2010: 21). The European Union is not the only multilateral

institution that views the media as key instruments of migration management. As

stated in the 2011 report of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which

addressed the pressing issue of Communicating Effectively about Migration,

‘managing migration also implies managing how migrants are perceived in society’.

Accurate information ‘about migration may be the single most important policy tool in

all societies faced with increasing diversity’ (IOM, 2011: XIII).

Such migration management policies resort to cultural diversity measures in

the audiovisual sector in the hope of integrating ethnic minorities living legally within

the borders of the European Union, but they also mobilize the media in order to deter

clandestine immigration. Indeed, since the early 2000’s, as we saw above, the EU’s

approach towards immigration has been ‘holistic’ in nature: it includes both

integration policies and policies meant to ‘fight against illegal immigration’ with the

cooperation of the sending countries. And, among the instruments serving this end,

there are information campaigns – coordinated by the IOM and funded by the

European Commission or European governments (Nieuwenhuys and Pécoud, 2007:

1677) – designed to discourage potential migrants from leaving their country.

Documentary maker Charles Heller’s personal testimony in this issue focuses on one

such campaign, based on the ‘perception management’ principles and conducted by

the IOM in Cameroon in the second half of the 2000’s. He shows how the IOM

employed ‘images of suffering migrants’ to dissuade potential migrants from coming

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to Europe. Interestingly, this campaign meant to influence the perceptions of potential

migrants in a sending country bears some resemblance with cultural diversity policies

designed to manage the perception of EU populations towards ethnic minorities: both

cases evidence a naive trust in the media’s power to solve complex social problems.

As these developments show, the analysis of cultural diversity policies

implemented in the media field cannot be separated from the study of the broader

policies, which they are a part of. As one component of a ‘holistic’ migration

management policy aimed both at integrating ethnic minorities living in Europe and

deterring ‘illegal’ migrants from coming to Europe, cultural diversity policies need to

be viewed as complementing the border control policies enforced by the EU’s

Frontex agency, among other means.

As such, these migration policies are fraught with contradictions. On the one

hand they call for improving the media portrayals of ethnic minorities through various

cultural diversity measures, in order to foster integration. On the other hand EU

policies of ‘integrated border management’ – to use the official terminology – lead to

massive numbers of ‘illegal migrants’ risking death in the hope of a better life in

Europe. Always on the lookout for sensational contents likely to attract large

audiences, the media lap up such tragic stories, propagating representations of

immigration issues that are far removed from those the promoters of cultural diversity

policies are calling for.

The various articles in this special issue further consider the inner

contradictions in European diversity policies. Paradoxically, as pointed out by Titley,

the ‘integration regimes’ such policies are based on are ‘predicated on

categorization, division and stratification’. They pit ‘acceptable’ forms of difference

(which can be integrated into the country’s national culture) against other forms of

difference (that are viewed as endangering national cohesion). Thus in the words of

Engelbert and Awad cultural diversity policies imply ‘both the protection of some

differences and the protection from others’.

Christian Sinclair and Kevin Smet point to another important contradiction: that

between the agenda promoting cultural diversity at a European scale, on the one

hand, and the way the tropes of terrorism have been mobilized to shut down some

minority media, on the other hand. Studying the case of Kurdish transnational

broadcasting, they show how, ‘using to a great effect a discourse of terrorism to

frame its case’ with the support of the United States government, the Turkish State

  15  

successfully stifled the different generations of Kurdish satellite televisions operating

under EU and EU member states’ broadcasting regulations, despite the fact that

these recognize the guidelines of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in

Europe (OSCE, which succeeded to the CSCE), stipulating the right of minorities ‘to

receive, seek and impart information and ideas in a language and media of their

choice’.

Focusing on mainstream media, and especially television, this special issue

does not deal with the way governments and multilateral institutions have tried to

promote the ideals of cultural diversity through information and communication

technologies (ICT). Yet, these have been since the 2006 Riga Ministerial Declaration

on ‘ICT for an Inclusion Society’ endowed by the EU with the task of e-including

migrants and ethnic minorities in European countries, and as such officially entrusted

as cultural diversity tools (Ministerial Declaration on ‘ICT for an Inclusive Society’,

2006). However, it remains to be seen whether the incorporation in diversity policies

of the new communication platforms linked to the internet will radically change the

objectives these policies have been vested with until now. In fact the Riga Ministerial

Declaration is based on the same naïve assumptions of the power of ICT for

‘improving the possibilities for […] integration’ (ibid.: 4) as the ones on which rely the

calls for using television to this end.

Moreover, the internet raises the same kind of fears as those previously

caused by the rise of videocassettes or satellite television, and these anxieties have

resulted in a certain reluctance from the part of domestic authorities, in contrast with

EU’s enthusiasm, to enlist ICT in cultural diversity policies at a national level. As a

study funded by the EU and aimed at exploring ICT use by migrants or ethnic

minorities and their ‘related policy implications’ in the field of cultural diversity states:

‘In the light of the widespread concern that blogs and self-organised communities on

the internet could be a channel of co-ethnic bonding, of information self-segregation

and even of aggressive separation from the host society, a national level ad hoc

policy to support immigrants in accessing and using ICT would likely meet with more

or less strong opposition’ (Codagnone and Kluzer, 2011: 54).

Finally, it should not be forgotten that ICT play a non-negligible role in the

policies of border control, which are, together with diversity initiatives, a constitutive

feature of the EU’s holistic approach of migration issues. Indeed, the European

border surveillance system implemented through Frontex has an important

  16  

technological component, which gives shape to an electronic barrier to fight ‘illegal’

immigration.

Conclusion

In the report he wrote for the Council of Europe on The Challenge of Transcultural

Diversities, Kevin Robins noted that the issue of ‘cultural diversity’ had been, up to

the early 2000s, framed almost exclusively by European governments ‘from the point

of view of the social and cultural integration of minorities into the dominant national

order’ (Robins, 2006: 12). In contrast, he pleaded for a ‘transcultural’ approach which

would break away from the ‘national frame of reference’ and would be more in tune

with the realities of increasing transnational flows (ibid.). However, as our analysis of

European policies shows, far from pursuing a ‘transcultural’ approach, ‘European-

wide policy making’ in the field of cultural diversity has paradoxically stayed in many

respects, as Robins recently put it, highly dependent on ‘essentially national

imagination’ (Robins, 2014: 33).

1. We are grateful to Kaarle Nordenstreng who drew our attention to Hujanen’s

project.

2. This minorities’ ‘right to communicate’ has been since strongly advocated by

John Downing and Charles Husband, who participated to Hujanen’s study

(see Downing and Husband, 2005).

3. Creative media production inevitably entails individual choices by producers

and journalists, who more often than not take their more or less homogeneous

peers as their main reference point. Such practices may hinder truly

intercultural collaboration and production, no matter the regulatory framework

or institutional/managerial infrastructure. In order for transformation to happen,

journalists and producers need to take their multifaceted audiences seriously

(d’Haenens, 2011; Roth, d’Haenens and Lebrun, 2011).

4. For a critique of EBU’s ‘managerial approach to diversity’, see Awad Cherit

(2008) and Horsti (2009).

5. For a further critique of these commodified conceptions of diversity, see

Titley’s and Engelbert and Awad’s articles in this issue.

  17  

6. However, it is important to note as a counterpoint that, in countries where

public authorities did not implement diversity policies towards ethnic

minorities, various social actors use European initiatives as a lever to promote

the need of such policies. See the Spanish case in Navarro (2014).

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Tristan Mattelart is Professor of International Communication at the Department of Culture and Communication of the University of Paris 8, and researcher at the Research institute on Media, Technologies, and Internationalization (CEMTI). He edited various works on media and migration - Médias, migrations et cultures transnationales (Brussels-Paris: De Boeck-INA, 2007), TIC et diasporas (a special issue of the journal tic&société, 2009, on ICTs and diasporas), Médias et migrations dans l’espace euro-méditerranéen (Paris: Mare et Martin, 2014) -, and authored different book chapters published in English on the subject.

Leen d’Haenens is Professor of Communication Science at the Institute for Media Studies, KU Leuven, where she teaches on western media policy, media and diversity, analysis of media texts. Her areas of research include digital media and youth, news media (e.g. portrayal of Islam and Muslims in the news, longitudinal studies on news diversity), media and ethnic minorities (e.g. ethnic discussion forums as a source of social capital for ethnic minorities), and western media policy and governance mechanisms. She edited a special issue of the International Communication Gazette 73(5) on ‘Prospects for transformative media in a transcultural society’ and co-edited a special issue of Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research 32(2) on ‘Media and ethnic minorities in Europe’ in addition to various articles on media and diversity and pluralism issues in peer reviewed journals.