Jiska Engelbert

Double differentiation in a cross-national comparison of populist political movements and online media uses in the United States and the Netherlands

In a context of highly visible and politically influential populist movements, this study considers the online self-representation of the Tea Party Patriots (TPP) in the United States and the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands. A multi-methodological approach was adopted to compare the discursive manifestation of key populism concepts: leadership characteristics, adversary definition and mobilizing information. Analyses reconstruct and account for similarities and differences in discursive framing strategies of ‘double differentiation’ through which both movements attempt inclusion in and exclusion from the political establishment, and, in doing so, mobilize communities of support. Altogether, this study advances the understanding of what constitutes ‘unmediated’ content that is presented through user-generated media production, and how self-determined media spaces have facilitated shifts in populist media legitimation and political representation in two politically unique countries.

A threat to impartiality: Reconstructing and situating the BBC’s denial of the 2009 DEC appeal for Gaza

In January 2009, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) denied a request from the Disaster’s Emergency Committee (DEC) to broadcast an emergency appeal to relieve human suffering in Gaza in the wake of the Israeli ground offensive ‘Cast Lead’. The decision marked the first time in the over 40-year relationship between the two organisations that a request was refused by the BBC, but an appeal went ahead. BBC Executives argued that airing the appeal could pose a threat to public confidence in the BBC’s impartiality. This article, both descriptive and exploratory in scope, first reconstructs a chronology of this ‘impartiality argument’, providing a detailed overview of the key players, the (historical) relationship between them, and the run-up to and aftermath of the BBC’s decision. The second part of the article analyses the BBC’s denial of the DEC request and explores how the BBC’s concerns over impartiality articulate its new ‘wagon wheel’ approach to impartiality. Finally, the authors study the BBC’s decision and the – rekindled – centrality of impartiality within the context of the BBC being increasingly bound by the nature of its brand and the visibility of the Middle East conflict.

Securitizing cultural diversity: Dutch public broadcasting in post-multicultural and de-pillarized times

This article reconstructs the post-2008 response of the Dutch public service broadcaster, Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO), to political pressures to reconsider its remit vis-à-vis diversity. It focuses on NPO’s reliance on pluriformity – a trope that describes hegemonic categories of cultural belonging in the Netherlands – to define which ideological differences deserve support. Pluriformity works because it incorporates and accommodates attacks on the value and remit of public service broadcasting. However, this achievement comes at a price. Through the way in which NPO strategically imagines its public remit, segments its audiences and produces diversity programming, the broadcaster reinforces a hierarchy of cultural difference. In this hierarchy, only those groups in society whose differences can be reduced to non-structural and hegemonic convictions are entitled to representation and recognition by the public broadcaster. As a result, cultural diversity is being securitized in and through the very institution that should protect minority representation.

Capitalising on the plasticity of impartiality: the BBC and the 2009 Gaza appeal

This article focuses on the British Broadcasting Corporations (BBC) decision to deny a request to air a Disasters Emergency Committee Appeal for Gaza in January 2009. The BBC argued that airing the appeal would threaten its impartiality. Despite the centrality of impartiality to the BBC, the concepts meaning is anything but unequivocal. An exploration of a media offensive, which BBC executives launched in response to public outrage over the decision, seeks to reconstruct what definition of impartiality is inferred by the BBCs rationale behind not airing the appeal. The analysis illustrates how the BBCs justification engages dialogically with the critical position of others and, by doing so, draws on diverse understandings of impartiality. We argue that this ‘semantic plasticity’ of impartiality does not point at institutional confusion, but rather at BBCs executives capitalising on the rhetorical potential this plasticity affords.