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When Diversity Strikes

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Global Knowledge Dynamics and Social Technology

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Abstract

In the previous chapter we followed on from research in complexity science about diversity, and looked at what happens when diversity is leveraged. Using a bilingual locale, we examined the complications and opportunities that arise when diversity is pursued. In this chapter, we extend our investigation to multilingual environments in which leveraging diversity is expected to create complexity on an even larger scale.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There exists a wide range of multilingual broadcasters around the world, including BBC World Service (UK), Deutsche Welle (Germany), Isuma TV (Canada), Yntymak (Kyrgyzstan), and many others.

  2. 2.

    The Connor review was part of a government committee led by the Hon FX Connor QC, which examined SBS’s independence as a government-subsidised broadcaster. In 1984 it recommended SBS to remain independent until 1990, when a potential merger with the larger public service broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) was considered by a public inquiry. The original report is available from http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ListingReports/ItemsListing.aspx (retrieved 29 March 2011).

  3. 3.

    Personal interview, 12 August 2009, Sydney, Australia.

  4. 4.

    The other two elements were funding for SBS Two and structural and technical improvements for SBS online.

  5. 5.

    SBS news media release on 12 May 2009, retrieved from http://www.sbs.com.au/aboutus/news-media-releases/view/id/390/h/Federal-Budget-shortfall-for-SBS (28 May 2009).

  6. 6.

    Personal interview, 12 August 2009, Sydney, Australia.

  7. 7.

    Personal interview, 12 August 2009, Sydney, Australia.

  8. 8.

    Personal interview with chief executive producer for SBS Radio, 12 August 2009, Sydney, Australia.

  9. 9.

    Cf., for instance, for Cantonese see http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/cantonese?language=zh-hant

  10. 10.

    Personal interview, 12 August 2009, Sydney, Australia.

  11. 11.

    Personal interview, 12 August 2009, Sydney, Australia.

  12. 12.

    Personal interview, 12 August 2009, Sydney, Australia.

  13. 13.

    The BBC World Service was referred to as a benchmark several times by SBS staff. Here is one example from an interview with a senior producer: ‘We tend to be focussed predominantly on English language, and it has not really been mandated for us to consider multilingual content. Compare this to, say, the BBC [where] it is imported in their Charter, where it is mandated that they publish content in [a] certain amount of languages, especially news content. That slipped off the radar for SBS.’ Personal interview, 12 August 2009, Sydney, Australia.

  14. 14.

    The BBC World Service offers news in several languages, but was also among the few companies that decreased the number of languages on their website (e.g., from 43 languages in 2004 to 32 languages in 2010). This is against the more general trend that companies only very rarely reduce the number of languages they support digitally (Raymond & Yunker, 2010).

  15. 15.

    For an extended description of the purpose and aim of the season, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2010/03/bbcs_superpower_season.html (retrieved 1 November 2013).

  16. 16.

    See www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/2010/03/100223_superpowernation.shtml (retrieved 1 March 2010).

  17. 17.

    Full disclosure: the author of this book was the country representative for Australia.

  18. 18.

    Cf. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/2010/03/100317_spnation_why.shtml (retrieved 1 May 2010).

  19. 19.

    For instance, some users used Welsh and Greek in the live chat. Both languages, however, were not translated by automatic translation despite both already being supported by Google Translate at the time of the SuperPower Nation experiment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Applied Sciences for Media, Communication and Business Administration (HMKW), Berlin, Germany

    Thomas Petzold

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Petzold, T. (2017). When Diversity Strikes. In: Global Knowledge Dynamics and Social Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41234-4_7

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