Iñaki Zabaleta

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT, KNOWLEDGE AND USE AMONG JOURNALISTS OF EUROPEAN MINORITY LANGUAGE MEDIA

This article investigates the perception journalists of European minority language media have about personal and colleagues’ knowledge of the minority language, its quantitative use in the newsroom, degree of journalistic development and, likewise, the accomplishments, problems and strategies they observe in the journalism–language nexus. Results are based on a quantitative and qualitative survey administered to a weighted and fairly representative sample of 230 journalists of press, radio and television, from 10 European linguistic communities (Basque, Catalan, Galician, Corsican, Breton, Frisian, Irish, Welsh, Scottish-Gaelic, and Sámi) as defined by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. This empirical study takes the linguistic community as reference, rather than a political framework (nation-state).

BETWEEN LANGUAGE SUPPORT AND ACTIVISM

This article outlines the extent to which journalists working in European minority-language media believe that their journalistic role within the community is strictly professional or alternatively should incorporate a complementary function as language supporters or activists. A weighted and reasonably representative survey of 230 journalists from 10 European minority-language communities (Basque, Catalan, Galician, Corsican, Breton, Frisian, Irish, Welsh, Scottish-Gaelic, and Sámi) indicates that journalists favour a journalistic professional activity which incorporates a role as language-backing actors. This may underlie the idea of a contextual approach to the concept of journalism.

European minority language media and journalism: Framing their marginal reality:

This study explores the traditional media systems (press, radio and TV), the distribution and number of full-time journalists and the relative weight of those variables with reference to the speaking population in 10 European minority languages with at least a minimum press and/or broadcasting system, at the end of the first decade of the new millennium. The 10 communities that represent the often invisible reality of minority language Europe are Basque, Catalan, Galician, Corsican, Breton, Frisian, Irish, Welsh, Scottish-Gaelic and Sámi. The unit of analysis is the linguistic community. Presumably, it is the first systematic and comparative analysis focused on European minority language media.

Future Business Innovation in Minority Language Media

This article investigates innovation in the media business models that some European minority-language news organizations are implementing in these times of economic crisis. It entails a shift in the underlying business and service philosophy which interpellates the community and pleads for a change in their mutual relationship. The research is based on the case studies of two private media companies from the Catalan and Basque language media systems that were experiencing economic and financial difficulties. Conducting inspirational advertising campaigns, the news organizations issued a call for readers and non-readers to make a funding commitment to the project, a pledge to provide new revenues and liaisons, while retaining and enhancing the standard income streams. In brief, it is about going back to the basics of active community projects and involvement.

Facts and transformations in European minority language media systems amid digitalization and economic crisis

This article investigates the reality and variations of the European minority language media systems between 2009 and 2016, a period of serious economic crisis and accelerated digitalization process. To that aim, several parameters were measured: structure of the media systems and changes during that period along the variables of media type, ownership and reach; presence and relevance of major media in each of the communities; number and variation of full-time journalists; and the density or relative weight of the media systems with regard to the speaking population. The 10 minority languages under analysis (Basque, Catalan, Galician, Corsican, Breton, Frisian, Irish, Welsh, Scottish-Gaelic and Sámi) represent a wide range of communities. The relevance of the study lies in its direct comparative nature and in the fact that it thoroughly updates previous scholarly literature, measuring the changes which occurred within the 10 media systems.

Memory and Yearbooks: An Analysis of Their Structure and Evolution in Religious Schools in 20th Century Spain

Along the 20th century, the majority of religious schools in Spain, ruled by religious orders and congregations, published school reports yearly. The richness of these annual reports as a primary source is obvious as they are documents created by the schools that provide really rich information about their evolution, the buildings, the school activities, sports and some other ludic activities, the evolution of the teachers, short stories from the students, photographs of the scholar groups, commercial advertising, religious activities, catholic groups, etc. In this paper we analyse the structure and the evolution of the school reports produced by a wide group of schools belonging to diverse religious institutes (Escolapians, Marianists, Marists, Lasallians, Salesians, etc.) since the 1930s until the end of the 20th century. As a conclusion, the school reports provide the possibility of reconstructing the history of a certain school as well as transmitting an institutional representation that turns itself into a discourse, a representation of a shared universe between the schools and their receivers.