Models of Minority Media Participation In the Baltic States, Belgium, and Finland

Petra Lea Láncos, Peter Pazmany Catholic University, has published Three Models of Minority Media Participation – A Brief Analysis of Language Related Prescriptions in National Media Laws. Here is the abstract.

The present article aims to shed light on the variety of language rules enshrined in national legislation governing audio-visual media from a language policy perspective. The study will show that national legislators often seek to regulate the language of audio-visual media services in order to attain certain language policy goals – which in turn, affect minorities present in the given state. In the following I shall briefly describe three different sets of audio-visual media policy rules governing language use in the media (Baltic states, Belgium, Finland). Next, I will use these examples to develop three models of minority participation in the national media. I will show that the models employed in the national media context depend heavily on national language policy goals. Subsequently, I analyse the individual models upon the backdrop of the 2013 OSCE Guidelines on the use of Minority Languages in the Broadcast Media in order to substantiate that all three solutions meet the international standards of minority protection. Finally, I draw conclusions with respect to the need for further research into minority participation in the media from a language policy perspective.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.