Cottle, Simon (1998)." Making ethnic minority programmes inside the BBC: professional pragmatics and cultural containment." Media, Culture and Society. pp 295-317

     Simon Cottle is a professor of Media and Communications in the Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies program at Cardiff University. Shortly before completing his PhD in Mass Communications at Leicester University, professor Cottle worked as an education advisor teaching in Sudan and Italy. He has researched and written widely about issues pertaining to news production, the sociological aspects of journalism and mediated conflicts in books such as Mediatized Conflict: New Departures in Media and Conflict studies and The Racist Murder of Stephen Lawrence: Media Performance and Public Transformation.

     His article titled Making ethnic minority programmes inside the BBC: professional pragmatics and cultural containment examines the multicultural production enviornment and professional practices of ethnic minority producers creating ethnic minority programs inside the BBC. He has accomplished this by conducting a series of open interiews with BBC producers to help readers understand pressing matters that ethnic minority producers continue to face.

     The British Broadcasting Corporation has publicly committed itself to "enhancing the representation of Britain's ethnic minorities both on and behind screen" according to the Equal Oppurtunity Policy and its own promise to "promote good practice within the TV industry" (p. 295). However to what extent has this policy been effectively implemented if we think about ethnic minority producers at BBC remaining relatively small (4 %) within the predominently white workforce structure, the limited multicultural programs offered (as only African-Caribbean and Asian programs have existed) and the dual role minority producers play in not only serving minority groups but seeking high profile mainstream status.

     BBC, a predominantly white, male, middle class structure has been dubbed  unproductive not only for its lack of oppurtunities granted to minorities in the workplace but its unprogressive nature resulting from communication barriers between program controllers and program producers. Cottle has come to label this structure a "Byzantine Bureaucracy." This communication gap and the overall refusal of "corporate culture" to allow producers to be innovative and challenge established mainstream programming has limited oppurtunties for ethnic producers. In addittion, such constraints have caused minority producers to feel subjected to racism with BBC's technical staff, which contradicts the efforts of the Equal Oppurtunity Policy noted above.

     Cottle also talks about professional pragmatics to help us understand how "producers manage and professionally rationalize their program making activities" and what "practices" are employed when it comes to creating ethnic programs. In practice Cottle says, production is minimal due to the "rigid corporate culture and hierarchy" at BBC (p. 301). Even though producers are constrained to a selective program enviornment at the BBC, ethnic minority programs are still seen as effective in not only trying to serve the interests of the people and communities but also playing an active role in turning thier program ideas into action.

     Cottle claims that ethnic minorities have a greater tendency to associate themeseleves with mainstream programs that ethnic minority programs. This is because ethnic minority producers have been forced to create media content to fulfill mainstream media desire. If they don't do this and focus on ethnic programs instead, their work is often defined as "ghetto programming" which is typically viewed as second rate, targeted towards small audiences and is of poor quality. The fear ethnic producers have of being labeled "ghetto programming" perpetuates a stagnant, constricted and conservative programming style that ethnic producers adhere to. This has caused ethnic producers to produce mainstream programs placing minority producers in a difficult position, producing non-ethnic content (p. 304). Once ethnic producers create mainstream content though, that cultivates a large audience and achieves the notoriety neccessary to gain professional status under the mainstream flag, then ethnic producers can create programs they think will benefit ethnic groups specifically. This is only because now they will be "taken seriously."

     Cottle continues by discussing the phrase "burden of representation." An example of the "burden of representation" was examined with black filmmakers who currently combat one constant issue; reversing mainstream ideologies that inaccurately reflect ethnic minority interests, culture and life. BBC producers who were interviewed argue that there is a 'proposed solution' to represent ethnic groups fairly and such can occur with the idea of "increased volume and range of programming" (p. 306). This means providing more content that contradicts mainstream programming. However such goals have not been seen as immediate but rather "long-term objectives." Cottle continues by arguing, if a person was to label a certain program genre negative, for example documentaries this inherently constricts adaptability, change and a producers ability to create new content.

     Equally important is to recognize that there are many ethnic minority producers who have also developed a 'mantle of disinterested professionalism' where they just don't see challenging mainstream programming as important. It is critical that ethnic minority producers not only create programs that reflect the cultures and communities that consist of numerous elements; religion, language, family origin, generation and politics and so forth but also challenge mainstream programming (p. 311). Yet in terms of pragmatics, producers also believe that if they represent a certain community group too much, they are compromising their adherence to professionalism. To be professionally independent, producers have to distance themeselves from the possibility of being too close to a certain community (p. 308). Another common problem is that producers don't cover issues considered controversial or difficult. For example inter and intra-community conflicts which creates a type of closed door programming at BBC. As a proposed solution, many producers elaborate on the idea of multicultural equivalence.

     I found that Cottle presented a strong argument and brought to light many weaknesses of the BBC, primarily highlighting the company's inability to provide ethnic audiences adequate programming. The interviews provided in the article also helped to substantaite several claims asserted by Cottle in terms of challenges being faced by ethnic producers. We see that the type of cultural containment excercised by the BBC not only allows the predominantly white, male middle class power structure to flourish, but sets limitations on ethnic producer's ability to innovate, establish and contradict mainstream ideologies. Cottle provides evidence of this hypocrtical nature of the BBC by looking at the establishment of the Equal Oppurtunity Policy undermining promises to actively represent minorities in programs and as producers. One of the strengths of this article is that it is in fact the first of its kind to examine ethnic program production behind the scenes at BBC. However it is important to have this study reconducted because it is already over 10 years old. As was noted in the beginning of the article, ethnic producers at BBC were slowly on the rise and it would be interesting to see where those numbers are now and if other departments have also been developed to deal with various ethnic groups as oppose to just Asian and African American departments that were established in the late 1990s. I also find this article to lack any female perspectives and although it was established early on in the article that BBC is predominantly white and male, again it is crucial to conduct this study again because demographics have changed and female voices could be incorporated. Lastly, it would help to enrich this study by incorporating interviews of white males at the top of these power centers to see whether of not they think things have changed for ethnic producers working at BBC on screne and behind the scenes.

(Written by: Hadas Amar 3/18/09)