Media Policy and Globalization - Blogs Unpad

BROADCASTING POLICY 87
Across broadcasting policy debates, the pull towards a liberalized audiovisual
industry without the strings of social accountability is challenged
by claims for representation and recognition in the production
of cultural goods. ‘Culture’ as a terrain where these claims are expressed
and experienced becomes a core, albeit contested, component in global
policy. In the case of broadcasting policy, debates about culture and identity
function around claims for the recognition of difference in contrast
to the universalizing tendencies of the market. At the same time, the
claims for the recognition of cultural presence and existence against the
standardizing effects of much of the internationalization of capital are
ab/used for fascist and other totalitarian and reactionary agendas across
the world. 1 In these cases, ‘culture’ and ‘identity’ are used to express
new forms of racism, sexism and xenophobia, advocating the ‘purity’ of
cultural practices as opposed to the polluting character of globalization.
Therefore, although the underlying demands for ‘recognition’ (of the validity
of non-dominant cultural positions) become more prominent than
those of redistribution in the realm of broadcasting content and meanings
(of the democratization of the mode of production and ownership of
cultural and media industries), they echo some of the problems cautioned
by Fraser (2001), such as the treatment of culture and identity as fixed
and clearly defined and the failure to address domination within national
‘traditions’.
In the following pages we explore the changes in the policy field of
the European Union where two forms of organization of audiovisual
media with particular effects for content, the system of public service
broadcasting and the development of non public media, appear to be
in conflict. We turn our attention to the contexts and conditions within
which driving assumptions about policy have been adopted and contested
against the background of the global liberalization of telecommunications
(Chapter 3). In the case of broadcasting policy, we focus on the European
Union because it serves as the most politically integrated institutional site
of global governance, allowing for some measure of democratic deliberation
in contrast to the WTO or even NAFTA. Furthermore, broadcasting
is the field where the struggle for cultural hegemony becomes most visible
and acute, not only for competing corporate interests within national
economies but also among policy-makers at an international level. These
issues are attracting increasing attention in studies of communication policy
from a regional perspective (for example, Harrison and Sinclair 2000;
Iwabuchi 2002). For our discussion, the role of the European Union is
of particular interest to civil society and policy actors in favour of a protective
climate of cultural survival through the defence of cultural goods,