The Italian broadcasting system between politics and the market

Silvio Berlusconi's success in the European elections of 1999 reopened the Italian debate over the leader of Forza Italia's conflict of interests in the media and politics. This question is one among many that currently concern the relationship between the media, the market and politics in Italy. The Italian broadcasting system has long been subaltern to the political climate and its idiosyncrasies: in the past, the incapacity or lack of desire to regulate the development of the system made the formation of Berlusconi's broadcasting trust possible;in the present,an excess of political sensitivity prevents thoroughgoing reform.The development of digital pay-TV,coupled with the resistance of the state broadcaster,Rai,to return to a mission of public service,provide good examples of some of the contradictions that mark the Italian path to the globalization of communication.     

Rhetoric in the Representation of a Multi‐Ethnic Neighbourhood: The Case of Via Padova,Milan

This paper analyses how the neighbourhood of Via Padova in Milan, Italy has been represented and problematized by the media and the last two municipal administrations over the last decade. Since the late 1990s, Via Padova has undergone a significant socio‐demographic transformation, one which has eventually characterised the area as one of the most multi‐ethnic and diverse districts in the whole city. However, this transformation process and the upcoming new framework for the neighbourhood have been explained and approached in very different (and contested) ways. The aim of this paper is to compare the different narratives provided by both the media and also governmental institutions during the formerly right‐wing and current left‐wing administrations, and the implications of this, both in the shaping of a collective image of the area and in the development of local policies.     

Creating twenty-first century Korean bodies: public movement education practice,cultural policy and therapeutic ethos

This article focuses on the public movement education practices of a group of middle-class, Korean dance instructors at the Korea Laban Movement Institute (KLMI), a recently established civil institution in Seoul, South Korea. The KLMI classes promote self-directed and well-rounded Korean bodies through student-centered and egalitarian movement instruction. In recent years, these classes received public funds from the culture and arts foundations supported by the state’s cultural policies, as well as attention from Korean public media. This research introduces the public movement education practices that have aligned well with the state’s early twenty-first century cultural policies by making culture and arts education more accessible to the average Korean. In addition, the study shows the broader impact of KLMI’s public movement education practices, which have merged into the political and social landscapes of contemporary South Korea.     

UNDERPOPULATION, TELEVISION ECONOMIES, AND THE POWER OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION

This article addresses the power of popular geographical ‘imaginations’ and ‘knowledges’ to foreclose public debate and, in the process, to reinforce often contentious policies or practices. It argues that historically, a prominent example of such a powerful geographical knowledge has been that of ‘ overpopulation’. The concept of ‘underpopulation’, meanwhile, has been much less discussed, but in this article I argue that it, too, needs to be queried in much the same way that critics have examined claims of overpopulation. I make this case first at a generic level, describing some of the main situations in which notions of underpopulation are popularly invoked, before substantiating it in much greater detail in one specific context: that of the television economy in New Zealand, a country, it is frequently said, with ‘too few people’ to support a publicly funded broadcaster. I show that in this particular instance the underpopulation thesis is backed by flawed arguments, but that none the less it is widely accepted and seldom countered, hence serving to protect its protagonists from disclosing in public debate the real reasons for the television policies they pursue and which the idea of underpopulation actively allows.     

‘A Repository,a Switchboard,a Dynamo’: H.L. Beales,a Historian in a Mass Media Age

The historian H.L. Beales (1889–1988) managed to propagate a wider interpretation of nineteenth century social history through non-academic means. Whilst Beales failed to write much in the way of history, his parallel career as an adult education tutor, radio broadcaster and editor of Pelican books meant that he acted as an important propagator of the subject. This, combined with wide influence over a considerable proportion of the younger generation, means that he should be considered as a singularly important historian of the period, who realised and adapted to the potential of new mass media to reach new audiences.     

Defining public service beyond broadcasting: the legitimacy of different approaches

The development of public broadcasters’ Internet services has compelled practitioners and researchers alike to ponder public service beyond broadcasting. Yet, for public service as a key cultural policy tool, rethinking is also needed on the level of regulatory definitions. Are we witnessing a policy transformation into a media‐neutral public service concept? If so, what are the implications for the legitimacy of public service beyond broadcasting? Relating the current situation to a wider policy context, this article scrutinizes different regulatory approaches, tentatively characterized by (1) extending broadcasting, (2) adding to broadcasting and (3) demoting broadcasting. The approaches are illustrated with three cases: Norway, Germany and the UK. Assessing the different approaches, I discuss advantages and pitfalls, and the implications for the legitimacy of public service freed from broadcasting rationales. As policy actors strive to create stable conditions in an unstable situation, I argue, they should keep in mind both the risks of succumbing to details or pursuing exhaustive lists in basic definitions, and the linguistic and cultural characteristics of each polity.     

Broadcasting after devolution: policy and critique in the Welsh media landscape 2008–2015

This essay examines the provision of media (especially broadcasting) in Wales and considers recommendations made in key reviews and reports which have sought to bring about change in how the media serve people in a devolved Wales. It provides a critical insight into how these debates have developed since 2008 and reveals how some of the monumental economic, policy, production and technological changes that have affected broadcast and digital media internationally have taken shape in Wales specifically. The chief aim is to identify how a distinctly Welsh media policy agenda is developing in the context of devolution. This research is timely given the growing political pressure from several parts of the UK both for greater accountability of broadcasting to the nations of the UK and also for substantive devolution of powers over broadcasting to their governments. The essay argues that media scholars need to pay further attention to how policy evolves in the context of multi-governmental levels such as those existing in the devolved nations of the United Kingdom.     

契约华工在南非(1904-1910)--兼论南非华、印侨工之比较

本文以19世纪末、20世纪初世界经济转型和劳动力大迁徙为国际背景,记载了1904-1910年南非契约华工的历史.文章主要围绕契约华工赴南非的历史原因,中、英两国政府的相关政策,华工在南非金矿的劳动和生活状况以及南非契约华工的历史影响与贡献等方面进行分析与阐述.此外,本文通过记述劳动力迁移过程中,南非契约华工与印度侨工的不同经历,比较了二者在迁移类型和生活境遇上的异同;并针对其产生差异的原因作出分析.     

Gender,Traditional Authority,and the Politics of Rural Reform in South Africa

The new South African Constitution, together with later policies and legislation, affirm a commitment to gender rights that is incompatible with the formal recognition afforded to unelected traditional authorities. This contradiction is particularly evident in the case of land reform in many rural areas, where women’s right of access to land is denied through the practice of customary law. This article illustrates the ways in which these constitutional contradictions play out with particular intensity in the ‘former homelands’ through the example of a conflict over land use in Buffelspruit, Mpumalanga province. There, a number of women who had been granted informal access to communal land for the purposes of subsistence cultivation had their rights revoked by the traditional authority. Despite desperate protests, they continue to be marginalized in terms of access to land, while their male counterparts appropriate communal land for commercial farming and cattle grazing. Drawing on this protest, we argue that current South African practice in relation to the pressing issue of gender equity in land reform represents a politics of accommodation and evasion that tends to reinforce gender biases in rural development, and in so doing, undermines the prospects for genuinely radical transformation of the instituted geographies and institutionalized practices bequeathed by the apartheid regime.     

A quota for the outsourcing of television programmes: an economic analysis of its effectiveness

A European Directive stipulates that at least 10% of programmes broadcast by each European broadcaster must be produced by an independent producer. By stimulating independent productions the European Union and the Dutch government aim to improve the quality of television programmes. In 1997, the Netherlands increased this requirement to 25%. This paper evaluates the policy, using a unique Dutch dataset that includes all independent productions appearing on public television from 1996 until 2000. We show that: (i) the producers are highly specialised; (ii) programming is volatile; (iii) entry of new firms is substantially reducing average rates of turnover; (iv) the producers who lobbied for the higher quota were losing market share and were relatively well‐organised. Therefore, the outsourcing requirement does not lead to the desired levels of stable production by individual producers and it is unlikely to be an effective instrument.     

Radio Ministries: Religion on Australian Commercial Radio from the 1920s to the 1960s*

This article examines the first forty years of religious broadcasting on commercial radio in Australia, a subject largely neglected by historians of Australian religion and the media. It reveals the diversity of religious broadcasting on Australian commercial radio, the ambiguities of the regulatory framework within which it operated, the influence of American religious broadcasting in Australia, and the challenges confronting religious broadcasters, particularly in the decade between the introduction of television and the emergence of talkback radio. The article concludes in the second half of the 1960s, when religious programming faced mounting commercial pressures, as well as a new opportunity in the shape of “talkback” radio.     

Regulating commercial public service broadcasting: a case study of the marketization of Norwegian media policy

This article looks at the issues facing the regulation of commercial public service broadcasting in Norway. A document analysis of the 2010 renegotiation process to renew TV 2’s public service licence illuminates how a general marketization affects the regulation of the television sector. This process comments on Hallin and Mancini’s model of democratic corporatism in the Nordic countries regarding the power of the state to regulate private media enterprises as cultural institutions. As such, the process of commercialization should include not only the broadcasting sector, but also the political sector. As part of a solution to retain TV 2’s licence agreement, the government effectively had to re‐regulate the cable distribution sector. This case study demonstrates not only the enduring strength and value of the public service institution in a political context, but also the extent to which regulation is guided by technical and economic forces to sustain democratic considerations.     

The China factor in the US–South Korea alliance: the perceived usefulness of China in the Korean Peninsula

Over the past 10 years, South Korea has chosen inconsistent strategies with respect to the US–South Korea alliance. On the one hand, Seoul disagreed with Washington about the extended role of United States Forces Korea and the deployment of US missile defence systems in East Asia. On the other hand, these problems ironically coincided with South Korea's strong support for the USA in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. What explains the inconsistency of South Korea's alliance policies? Major schools of thought in international relations have offered explanations, but their analyses are deficient and indeterminate. This article looks at the South Korea–China–North Korea triangle as a new approach to explaining the puzzling behaviour of South Korea. The model shows that South Korea's alliance policies are driven by two causal variables. First, North Korea is an impelling force for South Korea to remain as a strong US alliance partner. This encourages Seoul to maintain cooperation with Washington in wide-ranging alliance tasks. Second, South Korea's policies are likely to reflect the way the nation perceives how useful China is in taming North Korea. The perceived usefulness of China causes Seoul to accommodate China and decrease cooperation with the USA. This might strain the relationship with the USA should South Korea evade alliance missions that might run contrary to China's security interests.     

Social divisions carved in stone or cenotaphs to a new identity? Policy for memorials,monuments and statues in a democratic South Africa

Popular protests in 2015 in South Africa around statues and memorials, sparked off by the #RhodesMustFall campaign, drew attention to heritage policy and practice in the country since the advent of democracy in 1994. The protests and commentary in social and other media revealed the extent of polarisation along racial fault lines in South African society. They also exposed the apparent failure of official policy implemented for more than 20 years of promoting heritage for the purposes of nation building and social cohesion. Numerous writers have analysed heritage in South Africa since the transition to democracy, but none has traced the details of the evolution of heritage policy within the ruling party and government. This study seeks to shed light on the current debates on the politics of heritage in South Africa by examining the various policy processes and practices within the ruling African National Congress and the government. It argues that many of the heritage practices and policies in South Africa are rooted in the apartheid past and that failure, especially by decision-makers, to critically interrogate these has led to the stunted transformation of society and the current ferment.     

媒介-空间辩证法:创意城市理论新解

本文采用思辨方法,以作者对现代城市空间的观察,以及"媒介物"和"媒介表征"在城市空间的渗透,作为出发点,探讨媒介与城市空间的辩证关系,增进有关媒介和城市及其相互作用的认识。文章指出媒介-空间辩证法的知识基础,来自于新兴交叉学科"媒介与传播地理学";然后对媒体的空间性和空间化过程及其在城市空间的具体表现和可能影响,进行了初步分析,建立了媒体与城市空间的交互分类体系;通过借用"媒介的物化"和"物的媒介化"思想,将媒体与城市空间的辩证关系,与创意城市的理论探讨相关联,指出媒介-城市空间辩证法对于创意城市的理论建构,具有重要的启发意义。     

Feminist Perspectives on the Internationalization of The State

Abstract: The state is often described in transition: public spaces are rearranged by private companies, national social welfare is being privatized to some extent, and supranational institutions have more influence on national policies. “A view from the kitchen” (Diane Elson) is helpful for understanding the changing dynamics of states and societies because different women are affected by these policies in different and often ambiguous ways: women of the globalized South migrate to the North, creating global care chains, while women in Western industrialized countries are confronted with changing welfare regimes, leaving mainly highly educated women to profit from this situation. This article contributes to feminist debates on economic globalization and state internationalization. Our feminist materialist perspective allows a critical view on dominance and power in “governance”. Thus, the article adds to feminist debates on globalization from the perspective of state transformation and to debates on governance from the perspective of state transformation grounded in gendered social relations.     

Borders,planning and policy transfer: historical transformation of development discourses in the Finnish Torne Valley

European Union spatial policies have become a key institutional context in which to study policy transfer processes in European border areas. These policies are, however, only the most recent part of these transformation processes which raises a need for more historically sensitive approaches. An historical perspective is important, since border regions are historical processes with particular path-dependent development trajectories and power structures. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion concerning the transformation of European border regions by looking at the policy transfer of regional development discourses in the Finnish Torne Valley. The study material consists of strategic development documents produced by the Finnish border municipalities and the municipal-based co-operation organizations from the 1930s to 2013. The examination, based on critical discourse analysis, shows that the transformation process is driven by national trends and the dominant planning discourse. Nevertheless, the particular border setting and local discourse on ‘united Torne Valley’ have also intertwined with political and economic processes during different time periods.     

Femininity, Race and Treachery: How 'Tokyo Rose' Became a Traitor to the United States after the Second World War

Based on archival and printed sources, this article revisits the ordeal of Iva Toguri d'Aquino (1916–2006), the Japanese American woman who became trapped in the myth of 'Tokyo Rose' and was tried for treason in 1949. It retells the tale by weaving together the various narratives of her story and pays particular attention to the ways in which the media constructed her story. The larger purpose is to explore why the federal government and the mainstream media deliberately ignored the other available narratives that explained Toguri's actions as a broadcaster for Radio Tokyo during the war. An analysis of the alternative narratives in conjunction with the stories of other female announcers who were  not  prosecuted ('Manila Rose') or who did not gain the infamy of 'Tokyo Rose' ('Axis Sally') will help us better understand how treason is gendered and orientalised.     

Listing and protecting culturally significant events: intangible cultural heritage and policy considerations for hockey broadcasting in Canada

ABSTRACT

Listed events are policies enacted by states to protect the free-to-air rights of specific television and radio broadcasts that are identified as being of particular national significance. Some states (including the UK, Belgium, and Argentina) have begun to adopt these listed events policies, typically regarding significant national sporting events. We re-conceptualize listed events as a practical means by which to protect the intangible cultural heritage of states – an issue addressed by international institutions such as ICOMOS and UNESCO. Furthermore, we engage in a critical analysis regarding both the merits and potential problems involved in the possibility of Canada adopting listed broadcasting events policies, specifically involving hockey broadcasts.     

In Search of an Innovative State: The Development of the Biopharmaceutical Industry in Taiwan,South Korea and China

Recent developments in the biopharmaceutical industry in Taiwan, South Korea and China bear witness to the transformation of these states in nurturing an innovation‐based industry. This article argues that the segmentation of the value chain of the biopharmaceutical industry has provided industrializing countries with a window of opportunity. These East Asian states have modified their former catching‐up approaches by establishing a more effective institutional platform that can attract knowledge‐creation players to the industry. Through case studies, the authors show that the Taiwan state's promotion of the biopharmaceutical industry has been based on an incremental approach; existing state policies have been modified to cope with the demands of the industry, which has resulted in the continuation of its SME‐based industrial structure. The methods of the Korean state have been more radical, in that the policies that previously favoured the chaebols have gradually been reoriented toward the promotion of smaller, science‐based firms that now co‐exist alongside the chaebols. Finally, the Chinese state and local governments have sought to promote this innovation‐based industry by building biotech parks. This approach has resulted in a boom in new science firms, which have become increasingly isolated from the flourishing domestic SOE‐led market.