Diversity as a Media Policy Goal: a Strategy for Evaluative Research and a Netherlands Case Study

new field of social policy and within it, perhaps the most frequently occurring concept, although under various labels, has been that of diversity. The present article is intended primarily as a reflection and commentary on the concept, arrived at by way of describing the main steps in an evaluation exercise concerned with some sectors of the media in the Netherlands. The value assigned to diversity or pluriformity, as it has come more often to be called in the Dutch media policy situation, is probably rather higher there than elsewhere, because of the institutionalisation of certain patterns of vertical social division, based on religious or political allegiance, in several spheres, especially education, labour organisation, politics and the media. The media in the Netherlands are thus committed both to the principle of freedom and to the principle of maintaining diversity of a particular kind.’ 1 The tendency for some of the forces in the ’media market’ to run counter to established patterns of media diversity has increased the demand for protection for a valued principle and has also underlined the need for evaluative research and the development of conceptual tools for such work. While the Netherlands’ case is in some respects unique, we are less concerned here with its unique aspects than with its illustrative value for a much wider problem field, shared with many other countries.