Media Diversity and Cultural Identities

Abstract

It is often suggested that new media may provide a new means to preserve the diversity of cultural identities in an increasingly global media environment. In order to address this suggestion, this article first analyses different conceptions of new media/multimedia and how the dominant discourses at a national and European level tend to focus on the economic and technological potential of multimedia rather than its wider social or cultural role. The article continues by analysing how these wider discourses and trends interact with more local factors to shape the form and content of multimedia artefacts produced in four organizations based in Ireland. These organizations were attempting to produce multimedia artefacts specifically designed for Irish, French and German users. The article explicates the processes by which global technologies are actively shaped within local production and consumption contexts and highlights a number of important political, economic and social factors which actively shape attempts by organizations to develop diverse forms of multimedia content.