Minority language broadcasting: an institution between bridge-builder and imagined community?

Public broadcasting constitutes one of the major political institutions of minority language communities, both in terms of resource allocation but also salience amongst the broader society (Cormack, 2000; Guyot, 2007). Whilst contribution to minority language maintenance or revitalisation is a core goal, the policy behind these institutions usually also relates to constituting a public sphere and visible representation for the region or community in question as well as goals linked to linguistic normalisation (Cormack, 1998; Jones, 2007; Amezaga et al., 2013). Existing research has mostly focused on the effectiveness towards the former rather than the latter, with the cultural policy goals of public service broadcasting acting as a cross-linguistic-community facilitator under assessed. Therefore, this paper aims to tackle the question: to what extent public broadcasting in a minority language can provide common cultural reference points and contribute to an alternative imagined community among speakers and non-speakers of the language? In doing so, the paper focuses on the two full public broadcasting channels in a minority language in the UK, namely BBC Alba and S4C, broadcasting in Scottish Gaelic and Welsh respectively. The two broadcasters are situated in devolved regions / nations of the UK, yet broadcasting competence remains at the state level and thus ultimately controlled by Westminster. Moreover, the two are in vastly different linguistic settings in terms of number of speakers. These elements shaped the way the two broadcasters came into being, under contrasting conditions both politically and also the timeframe in which they were both created. Drawing upon broadcaster’s data on viewing figures and attitudes, as well as 14 expert interviews with practitioners in the two contexts, this paper identifies the content which is most popular with the non-speaking audience and attempts to understand why this is the case and how this relates to attitudes towards the broadcaster. The paper therefore argues that the broadcasters have created new common cultural reference points which differ from the rest of the UK, contributing to a different imagined community which has helped to build cross-community bridges and in turn boost the status of the language. References: Amezaga, J., Arana, E., Narbaiza, B. & Azpillaga, P. (2013) ‘The public sphere and normalization of minority languages. an analysis of Basque television in light of other experiences in Europe’, Trípodos, 32, pp. 93-111. Cormack, M. (1998) ‘Minority language media in Western Europe: Preliminary considerations’, European Journal of Communication, 13:1, pp. 33-52. Cormack, M. (2000) ‘Minority languages, nationalism and broadcasting: the British and Irish examples’, Nations and Nationalism, 6(3), pp. 383-398. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1354-5078.2000.00383.x Guyot, J. (2007) ‘Minority language media and the public sphere. In Cormack & Hourigan (eds.) Minority Language Media. Concepts, Critiques and Case Studies. Clevedon, Buffalo, Toronto: Multilingual Matters, pp. 34-51. Jones, E. H. G. (2007) ‘The territory of television: S4C and the representation of the ‘Whole of Wales’. In Cormack & Hourigan (eds.) Minority Language Media. Concepts, Critiques and Case Studies. Clevedon, Buffalo, Toronto: Multilingual Matters, pp. 188-211.