Media Profile

Kat Schober 3/19/15 Shifflet Media Profile The Netherlands The Netherlands has a population of 16 million inhabitants, which makes it one of the densest countries in Europe and the official language is Dutch, which is spoken by over 90% of people. Other languages prevalent in this country are English, German and French, with most citizens being polyglots. The literacy rate is 99%. They are a low context culture The Netherlands is a core nation as categorized by the World System Theory. It qualifies as such because of its relevance and power in the world, and how prominent its media is.

While The Netherlands is not known like the U.S. for exporting a ton of media, it is home to one of the biggest medical, scientific and technical journal publishing companies, Reed Elsevier. This is an Anglo-Dutch conglomerate that was once distributing over 25% of the world’s scientific publications. Other than this company The Netherlands mainly creates and nurtures its own media while importing media from other core countries: mainly Germany, France, Britain, and the U.S. The Netherlands could be characterized as a mixture of ethnocentric and world centric in terms of media import designations. It is very focused on maintaining its significant culture but it also encourages its natives to learn about other cultures by importing their media. Most of The Netherlands’ imported television shows are

subtitled rather than dubbed so that one could easily learn the language. This is a rather uncommon practice in Europe.

The Netherlands’ media was once solely based on political and religious affiliation. Most newspapers, television stations and radio stations have roots in a political party, religious group or worker’s union. This is the practice of pillarization.

The meaning behind pillarization has disintegrated but the structure still remains.

There are, on average, 30 TV channels available to the basic TV watcher and five major public radio stations with over 300 local stations that broadcast mostly music.

Radio listening has been steady in numbers since the early 2000’s; newspaper viewership has been rapidly decreasing, much like the rest of the Western world’s print media. Still The Netherland’s would consider itself a newspaper reading country with six major newspapers in circulation, even though profits would not reflect that.

The culture of the media is mostly centered around public media; though commercial media also it exists, it is constantly under scrutiny. There are two main commercial companies on television, RTL and SBS, that show sitcoms, detective shows, game shows and imported television.

Because of pillarization, the forms of media used to owned by acting affiliates of opinionated groups. They had full control of their broadcasts in hopes to broadcast their message to the entire country. This is now an outdated practice in the Netherland’s with almost all it’s programs and media outlets completely privately owned and financed.

Media is readily accessible in The Netherland’s with one of the fastest internet connections in Euope. It was recently published that the internet has become even

faster with the country increasing its broadband connection and it was reported that 90% of people access the internet at least once a day. But as far as non-print media, television reigns with the highest numbers in consumption and access.

The Netherlands follows part Libertarian philosophy, part DemocraticParticipant philosophy when it comes to its media. Freedom of the Press is a very proudly protected in Article 7 of the constitution is The Netherlands and widely upheld.

There have only been a handful of instances where censorship was necessary for the media; those were cases of national security and extreme political scandal. The country ranked globally by Freedom Houses standard of Freedom of the Press. The country was the second in the world, first in Europe, to adopt net neutrality. Other than that, The Netherland’s media and people are encouraged to use their mediums to their full extent and publish/broadcast what they please as a method of expression.

The Netherlands is also very open to all new and developing media.

The culture of the media is mostly centered around public media; though commercial media also it exists, it is constantly under scrutiny. There are two main commercial companies on television, RTL and SBS, that show sitcoms, detective shows, game shows and imported television.

As a whole, The Netherlands is a free and open market of ideas. The media attempts to assist this ideology to the best of its ability. Nothing is truly associated with any group or controlled by the government, giving people the chance to investigate and learn for themselves. The Netherlands is a forerunner is a lot of aspects of European media and does not fall behind many more solidified media systems in bigger countries.

Sources:

Bakker, Piet, and Peter Vasterman. "The Netherlands - Media Landscape | European Journalism Centre (EJC)." European Journalism Centre (EJC). N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2015.

Bechtold, Brigitte H. "Netherlands Press." Netherlands Press, Media, TV, Radio, Newspapers. Press Reference, n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2015.

"Netherlands, Freedom of the Press 2013." Freedom House. Freedom House, 2013. Web.

"Media in the Netherlands." Media in the Netherlands. Expatica, 8 May 2013. Web. 19 Mar. 2015.

"Netherlands Media." New Media. Government of the Netherlands, n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2015.