Minority Language Media. Current Challenges in a Fragmented Mediascape

Edited by Miren Manias-Muñoz, Sergiusz Bober, and Craig Willis

Palgrave Macmillan, 2025

ISBN 978-3-031-71227-2 (hardback)

ISBN 978-3-031-71230-2 (paperback)

ISBN 978-3-031-71228-9 (eBook)

This volume presents timely discussion on challenges for media in minoritized language contexts, coming at a key juncture when new ways of communication in the form of emerging digital technologies such as AI and short-form video platforms are creating new challenges and opportunities for non-hegemonic languages and communities. In an increasingly globalized era of communication, discussion on how regional, minoritized, and lesser-used languages respond to challenges in the spheres of traditional and social media is of vital importance for any scholar or practitioner invested in sustaining global language diversity and vitality in the digital age.

Across 15 chapters split into four parts, a mix of prominent and excellent emerging scholars discuss challenges for media development across a variety of contexts and sociolinguistic situations, including kin-language/-state contexts such as Turkish in North Macedonia (Gözübenli), post-colonial contexts such as te reo Māori in Aotearoa/New Zealand (Daubs), and diaspora contexts, as in the case of Galician (Reyna-Muniain). Willis, Manias-Muñoz, and Bober’s introduction (chapter one) provides a comprehensive review of the literature and the contextualization of the contexts covered in the volume, and brings the discussion up to pressing current developments concerning online breathing spaces for minoritized languages, the impact of platforms such as TikTok, and post-COVID communication challenges.

The first part of the volume contains four chapters which discuss issues around legislation, provision, and regulation of media in three different minoritized language contexts. Amezaga’s chapter (two) on Basque provides up-to-date context for the reconsideration of the role of media for socialization in minoritized languages, especially considering the changing role of media in post-COVID language revitalization, and brings together the roles of media and education as twin agents of language revitalization. Manias-Muñoz’s chapter (three) provides a useful overview of the impact of legislation around audiovisual provision, also for Basque, which carries wider implications regarding gaps in regulatory frameworks for media in states with multiple minoritized languages and the impacts of this on the media’s ability to meet the needs of their changing multilingual speaker communities. Gözübenli’s chapter (four) on Turkish-language media in North Macedonia contains interesting discussion on the role of minoritized-language media in nation-state building and international relations in a kin-language/-state context, where a significant minority of the country shares ethnic and linguistic links with the population of a neighbouring state. Daubs’ chapter (five) provides an excellent case-study of the role of media in supporting the minoritized language’s place as an essential part of cultural heritage in the post-colonial context of te reo Māori in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and media’s weaknesses in addressing racial inequality, language ideological backlash, and digital colonization.

The second part of the volume focuses on the growth and potential of online media spaces for minoritized languages. Pischlöger’s chapter (six) on the Beserman language contains welcome discussion of the interaction of media and community language ideologies in a context with interrupted intergenerational transmission of the language and subsequent revitalization, which has great relevance for many ‘smaller’ European minoritized languages. Belmar Viernes’ excellent chapter (seven) on the #europeminoritylanguages project presents social media and the virtual linguistic landscape as sites of linguistic innovation for minoritized languages, particularly in the creation of neologisms. Philbin’s chapter (eight) on ‘pop-up’ digital breathing spaces for Irish contains much-needed critical discussion of the ideological work the minoritized language does for speakers within the (fuzzy) boundaries of digital spaces, particularly around the themes of the relationship between language and state, mobility, and vitality. Reyna-Muniain’s chapter (nine) contains an overview of the development of digital media in the Galician diaspora, which contains important implications for media’s role in ongoing identity construction for minoritized languages in diasporic contexts, where speakers’ relationship with their heritage language is likely to differ. Horváth’s chapter (ten) on the Ob-Ugric languages Khanty and Mansi is an excellent contribution on the relationship between Siberian Indigeneity and state media, with discussion of issues of language ideologies and identity formation among a variety of speaker profiles, including both ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ speakers.

Part III comprises a discussion of ‘Contemporary Journalism in Minoritized Languages’. Bukovinszky-Csáki’s chapter (eleven) is an exploration of the construction of a non-majority professional identity among Hungarian-language journalists in Romania. Stenberg-Sirén’s chapter (twelve) contains strong critical discussion of the place of minoritized languages within broader journalism education, highlights challenges around professional requirements and speaker identity across different contexts, focusing on Swedish in Finland, and presents concrete suggestions for improving the representation of minoritized languages in journalism education. Bober and Willis’ chapter (thirteen) presents a case-study which has great relevance for strategic media digitalization in other minoritized language contexts: that of the digitalization of a German-language newspaper in Denmark. They highlight the conflicting views of readers on the digitalization process, demonstrating the mixed roles of digital and physical media for speakers. Volgger’s chapter (fourteen) presents a model for collaboration between minoritized language media outlets in the form of MIDAS, discussing how such a collaboration responds to language advocacy challenges around political changes, digital transition, and community ownership.

Finally, Part IV sees Manias-Muñoz, Willis, and Bober (chapter fifteen) present their concluding remarks, highlighting the major contribution of the work to the literature on minoritized language media and presenting avenues for further research. One potential avenue this author would welcome is the further discussion of minoritized languages outside of the European context, in the vein of Daubs’ and Horváth’s chapters, where Indigeneity and colonization are shown to play considerable roles in the media landscape. Nevertheless, this volume represents a significant addition to the literature on minoritized language media, presenting discussion from multiple sociolinguistic contexts, areas of scholarship, and perspectives. This author would recommend the volume to both academics interested in media in multilingual contexts and minoritized-language practitioners interested in media in their own communities.