Communication and Social Justice: Controversial contents and
regulation practices in Hungary
- A proposal for policy research and initiative
by Ferenc Hammer
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The goal of the proposal is twofold. Firstly, the research will identify
major ways democratic societies (in various media regulation environments)
tackle content regulation issues regarding media (especially television)
representation of low-income segments of the society. Secondly, after examining
relevant similarities and differences between Hungarian and Western media
environments, the research will identify key elements of a policy process
which might cope with media representation concerns successfully - based
on local features of media, politics and society. The research's aim is to
attain these goals through the following steps:
1. Problem statement #1: What is fundamentally wrong with the ways the
poor are represented in television programs? In this part we will contrast
normative concerns regarding democratic functions of the media, with representation
strategies regarding social differences and inequalities, prevailing in
commercial and public service television programs.
Contemporary post-communist examples for intimacies in the relationship
between power and the media have occupied a relatively stable position in
international newscast. These examples have included stories about slain Ukrainian,
Russian and Tajik journalists, news about Czech, Polish or Hungarian government
efforts to turn public service television channels into government PR departments,
or business news items about shiny cable/telecom vistas in the region. In
our view though, there is another, largely neglected topic in the post-communist
power/media discussion, that is, the symbolic (therefore matter-of-fact)
production of social and cultural differences in the region's societies.
Our line of argument is the following (in a thesis-like manner):
- Cultural citizenship (meanings people associate with their and with
others' life) is a key issue of power in late modernity when societies create
and change norms of (i) inclusion and exclusion, (ii) justice and equity,
(iii) acceptable level of risk.
- After the Cold War, as a discursive enterprise, there has been a
tabula rasa in the post communist setting to decide publicly what is serious/ridiculous,
"normal"/"sick", risky/secure, respectable/shameful, nearby/far away, mainstream/marginal,
private/public, possible/impossible, and truth/half-truth.
In terms of stages of circuit of culture (Stuart Hall), poverty as a symbolic
enterprise can be constructed in the following way:
- Representation. Media texts of poverty: personalization, dramatization,
fragmentization, stereotypization, infotainment, moral panic, victim-blaming.
The poor on the screen: New orientalism?
- Production. Conflicting norms of professional responsibility,
and market realities in the newsroom.
- Consumption. East Central European traditions of perceiving
poverty vs. screen rhetorics.
- Identity. Media and the habitus of poverty. Cultural embeddedness
of economy.
- Regulation. Content regulation issues. Public service functions
of commercial news programs vs. "social voyeurism".
Hungarian experiences might add the following concerns to the list above:
- Programs covering minority issues are often poor in their professional
quality, their contents are controversial in terms of style, information
and message. Minorities are often excluded from the production of their programs.
More balanced contents are often transferred to off-peak times of the day.
- In their preference in the process of representation of individual
responsibility over societal responsibility, they enhance "blaming the victim"
and scapegoating sentiments.
In summary, contrary to their ideal functions in promoting a culture of
liberal democracy these programs work generally against principles of an open
society, because they:
- Prefer discourses of exclusion over inclusion;
- Fail in constructing solidarity, compassion and tolerance;
- Fail in expanding the moral imagination of the audiences.
- Contribute to the solidification of social injustices and to the
emergence of a culture of panic and helplessness.
2. Problem statement #2: Can content be regulated meaningfully
at all? (In this part we will identify major schools in content regulation.)
Having known that the major approach in resolving content issue concerns
in market democracies is to identify coordination processes among those
involved in the issue (organizations of those affected by the content, independent
media watch organizations, government media regulation bodies, media companies,
media professionals' organization, etc.), instead of resolving content concerns
with direct regulation. We will take into consideration the British, the
US, the German model, and the relevant media regulation instruments in the
EU.
3. Policy/Action
Having identified hypotheses about the nature of television texts in question,
we outline a policy strategy made up of the following steps:
- Identifying favorable changes in the representation of the poor.
- An assessment and evaluation of current Hungarian content regulation
policies and processes, with special attention to their applicability to
those proposed changes above.
- Contrasted with findings of the research, current content regulation
processes and institutions (Broadcasting Act, National Radio and Television
Commission, its Complaints Committee) will be evaluated with the help of
an outlook to Western experiences.
- Identifying concrete alternative coordination processes and actions.
- Content-related recommendations will be formulated in the contexts
of various media and policy environments: Roundtables for TV producers,
media professional awareness raising, courses for media companies and media
schools, "critical television reading" courses for school children, preparing
best practice manuals and ethical codes with the help of media workers and
NGOs of those effected by the research subject, organizing media monitoring
activities.
- An assessment of application possibilities of the research findings
to another Central and Eastern European media, audiences and policies.
- Connecting these proposed initiatives to existing Soros Network activities
in the region.
Budapest, July 4, 2001
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