Friday, April 24, 2009

Expanding the media for colonist youth

Shaping the media

In The Netherlands the media are traditionally divided up between social groups such as liberals and religious groups. Since the 1960ies broadcasting organisations which are more or less solely commercial have been added.

A commission that develops Dutch Media policy (visitatiecommissie van de Nederlandse Publieke Omroep) has advised to expand the radio bandwidth for FunX. FunX (Dutch) is a subsidized radio station which broadcasts in the major cities, with large Muslim colonies. The radio station targets immigrant youth with their content and is popular amongst the target population.

The NPO commission argues that it is essential to increase the reach of the radio station, as it creates a channel to communicate with immigrant youth, while the current allocation does not cover demographic reality.

Media and the national state

Political Scientists have argued that the growth of the strength of the national state in the 19th century was possible due to the development of media which created a new, secular, language-based "imagined community".

Due to the fact that it is cheap and easy to start up new digital media, new media have been profilated since the 1960ies. As a result audiences are becoming more and more splintered. At the same time transnational elites have weakened the national state and allowed ethnically and culturally foreign colonies to settle in Western nations, especially in the urban areas.

Disintergration of society

Developing media especially for immigrant youth furthers this trend of societal disintergration and polarisation. It emphasizes the idea that the foreign youth are, well, foreign.

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