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Leen d’Haenens | Whither Cultural Diversity on the Dutch TV Screen?
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background. On the other hand in the problem-seeking Premtime, a Surinamese
presenter looks for discrimination and stigmatization in Dutch society and by
doing so, succeeds in portraying this society in a much less stereotypical
fashion than it is the case in the regular current affairs programs such as
NOVA/Den Haag Vandaag (NOVA/The Hague Today).
As far as the employment of ethnic minorities is concerned, in 1995
national and regional public broadcasters and the World Service signed a
declaration of intent striving for equal participation by ethnic minorities in all
functions and at all levels. This resulted in the “More Colour in the Media”
project implemented by Mira Media, a non-profit organization lobbying for
more inclusivity. Towards the end of this project, the Stimulating Labor
Participation of Minorities Act (SAMEN Act) came into force as a successor
to the Act promoting equal employment for immigrant groups, which,
however, terminated in December 2003. Since 2002 the public broadcaster’s
Office for Diversity (formerly the Department of Portrayal), has worked on
implementing the Concession Act for improving the visibility of ethnic
employees within public broadcasting, both on and off screen. Several Mira
Media projects are linked to this aim by acquiring information through
immigrant opinion-leaders and their networks and approaching them (i.e., the
online database “Perslink”) and by training immigrants to become media
professionals (i.e., “Multiple Choice”).
Notwithstanding these initiatives and good intentions, two consecutive
Monitors of Diversity (Sterk/Van Dijck, 2003; Koeman/Peeters/d’Haenens,
2007) showed that overall Dutch television (both public and commercial) is
still far from providing a fair and pluralistic account of society. Furthermore,
by way of a complementary qualitative professional insider’s perspective on the
matter, seven program makers were interviewed in-depth about their views on
visualizing diversity. This research (Aarden, 2006), of which we are providing a
secondary analysis, assesses both the obstacles and opportunities (e.g., media
logic, casting, scenario) experienced by the program makers when working at
the (re)presentation of constituent groups in society on the Dutch public
broadcaster’s fiction output.
4. Recent Research Evidence: Two Examples
As of the beginning of 2000, a need for statistics showing the state of affairs
concerning questions of representation on Dutch television was felt. This
empirical evidence was meant to persuade media professionals to improve
their representation of the multicultural society in all its pluriformity and from
multiple perspectives. A coding instrument was developed (see also Sterk,
Media – Migration – Integration
European and North American Perspectives
- Titel
- Media – Migration – Integration
- Untertitel
- European and North American Perspectives
- Autoren
- Rainer Geissler
- Horst Pöttker
- Verlag
- transcript Verlag
- Datum
- 2009
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-8376-1032-1
- Abmessungen
- 15.0 x 22.4 cm
- Seiten
- 250
- Schlagwörter
- Integration, Media, Migration, Europe, North America, Sociology of Media, Sociology
- Kategorie
- Medien