From cultural defence to political culture: media,politics and collective identity in the European Union

Abstract

This paper takes recent EU policy concerning audiovisual media as its initial point of focus, placing it in the context both of the market negotiations of the GATT talks and the various notions of `European cultural identity' to be found in official EU statements and documents. Exploring a number of slippages and tensions, it maps the shifting ground of media and cultural policy in the mid-1990s, particularly in relation to questions of cultural protection, cultural identity and pluralism. Having critically reviewed the current dominance of technological and industrial perspectives and the particular articulation of economy, culture and polity which follows from this, it makes the case both for placing issues of political culture more firmly on the EU agenda and for recognizing the importance of the media in political as well as cultural development.