New Media, Old Inequalities: Technological Fixes, National Containers, and the Roma
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| Year of publication | 2015 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Description | Much has been written and discussed about the potential of new media technologies for re-invigorating European democracies in the past 25 years by policy makers, activists, and academics. One of the widely recognized roles of the media in this respect is the provision of a space for public discussion where diverse opinions and representations thrive. This chapter argues that, while in the early 1990s policy makers, at least rhetorically, recognized the potential of new media (Web 2.0, in particular) in creating such a space, the underlying rationale for much new media policy has shifted toward economic and developmental goals. Also, from the onset, policy makers founded their expectations of new media as a technological fix for inequalities on misguided notions. This chapter contrasts the policy expectations linked to new media with the social and democratic roles that underlie policy making related to the “old” technology of public service broadcasting. It uses the example of the Roma, the largest ethnic minority in Europe and arguably the most marginalized one, to suggest that new media technologies do not automatically create an inclusive mediated public sphere. The Roma living in the European Union cannot fall back on a nation-state in which they would form a majority and, because the “national container,” the belief that the nation is the defining unit of political, cultural etc. life, still dominates policy making, more effort is needed to envisage media policies that would serve the Roma minority. |
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