Although there appears to be no firm legal basis in the Treaties for EU legislative action aimed specifically at protecting media pluralism, this book opens a number of promising avenues along which a viable legal regime protecting media pluralism may be achieved in the EU. With particular focus on broadcasting, the book examines existing (albeit fragmented) legislative and regulatory measures in competition law and other areas that contribute to this goal, and sets forth ways to strengthen monitoring and transparency, generate ‘soft law with hard statements’, introduce a ‘pluralism test’ in the EU Merger Regulation, promote more public service media, and foster media literacy. Among many other issues arising in the course of the discussion, the author describes and elucidates the following: various types of integration of media companies and the different ways they affect pluralism and diversity; limitations of must-carry rules and principles of interoperability; the diverging priorities of different European organizations, institutions and bodies; and contradictory lobbying efforts from industry actors. The author places herself on the culture side of the culture/commodity dilemma, showing why it is vital for regulators to preserve media pluralism by counteracting excessive media concentration and safeguarding quality and diversity of content. In this era which is transforming media and communications industries worldwide, with an ever-increasing plethora of delivery means without respect to national borders, this book is an essential resource for regulators and other concerned policymakers, as well as for lawyers working with any aspect of media.
This is the second of two anthologies designed to accompany the Open University course "From Enlightenment to Romanticism", an interdisciplinary exploration of the changes and transitions in European culture between 1780 and 1830. The collection of extracts in this anthology provides primary and secondary sources on changing landscapes, new forms of knowledge, new conceptions of art and the artist and the exotic and Oriential. Each selection is accompanied by a detailed introduction explaining the context and significance of the sources. Extracts in the anthology stimulate questions rather than provide reassuring answers and offer vital insights to the major events, movements and personalities of the time.
This book provides a comprehensive and field-defining examination of the study of religions in Ireland. By bringing together some of the foremost experts on religions in an Irish context, it critically traces the development of an important field of study and evaluates the thematic threads that have emerged as significant. It thereby offers an assessment of contemporary religions in Ireland and their relationships to society, culture, economics, politics and the State. Contributors make connections between topics as diverse as Ireland's Revolutionary Period, the formation of the Irish State, the decline of Catholicism, the rise of migrant religions and New Religious Movements and the effects of secularisation on religions and society. This book emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of the study of religions whilst illustrating the coherent themes that have shaped the development of the field in Ireland, making it unique.
Being a home to more than 80 ethnic groups, Ethiopia has to balance normative diversity with efforts to implement state law across its territory. This volume explores the co-existence of state, customary, and religious legal forums from the perspective of legal practitioners and local justice seekers. It shows how the various stakeholders' use of negotiation, and their strategic application of law can lead to unwanted confusion, but also to sustainable conflict resolution, innovative new procedures and hybrid norms. The book thus generates important knowledge on the conditions necessary for stimulating a cooperative co-existence of different legal systems.
How do countries come to view themselves as being 'multicultural'? Us, Them, and Others presents a dynamic new model for understanding pluralism based on the triangular relationship between three groups the national majority, historically recognized minorities, and diverse immigrant bodies. Elke Winter's research illustrates how compromise between unequal groups is rendered meaningful through confrontation with real or imagined outsiders. Us, Them, and Others sheds new light on the astonishing resilience of Canadian multiculturalism in the late 1990s, when multicultural policies in other countries had already come under heavy attack. Winter draws on analyses of English-language newspaper discourses and a sociological framework to connect discourses of pan-Canadian multicultural identity to representations of Quebecois nationalism, immigrant groups, First Nations, and the United States. Taking inspiration from the Canadian experience, Us, Them, and Others is an enticing examination of national identity and pluralist group formation in diverse societies.
Covering three centuries of unprecedented demographic and economic changes, this textbook is an authoritative and comprehensive view of the shaping of Irish society, at home and abroad, from the famine of 1740 to the present day. The first major work on the history of modern Ireland to adopt a social history perspective, it focuses on the experiences and agency of Irish men, women and children, Catholics and Protestants, and in the North, South and the diaspora. An international team of leading scholars survey key changes in population, the economy, occupations, property ownership, class and migration, and also consider the interaction of the individual and the state through welfare, education, crime and policing. Drawing on a wide range of disciplinary approaches and consistently setting Irish developments in a wider European and global context, this is an invaluable resource for courses on modern Irish history and Irish studies.
This final volume in the Cambridge History of Ireland covers the period from the 1880s to the present. Based on the most recent and innovative scholarship and research, the many contributions from experts in their field offer detailed and fresh perspectives on key areas of Irish social, economic, religious, political, demographic, institutional and cultural history. By situating the Irish story, or stories - as for much of these decades two Irelands are in play - in a variety of contexts, Irish and Anglo-Irish, but also European, Atlantic and, latterly, global. The result is an insightful interpretation on the emergence and development of Ireland during these often turbulent decades. Copiously illustrated, with special features on images of the 'Troubles' and on Irish art and sculpture in the twentieth century, this volume will undoubtedly be hailed as a landmark publication by the most recent generation of historians of Ireland.