The Story Unfolds: White Media and The Understanding of Ethnic Diversity. An exploratory research into Dutch media

Turbulent times following the death of George Floyd in the United States of America ignited racial injustice debates around the world. In many places, the conversation moved beyond racial injustice and rather focused on broader topics such as diversity and inclusion. The Netherlands is no exception to this. Dutch citizens took to the streets to protest and demanded for a more inclusive and diverse society, of which the media is one specific sector. Previous literature into ethnic diversity in Dutch media organizations lack professional insights from the field, which are necessary in order to understand what meaning is attributed to concepts such as ethnicity and diversity. Therefore, the current study set out to gain this knowledge by conducting ten in-depth interviews with media professionals from a variety of Dutch media organizations. This includes radio, television, print media, online media, and local publications. Additionally, a descriptive survey was distributed among employees of one of the largest Dutch media organizations, ADR Nieuwsmedia, in order to understand how ethnically diverse such a workplace currently is. Several studies in the past have pointed out that Dutch media organizations are predominantly white, yet there are no up-to-date numbers available on this. The societal developments of the past months, including the growing impact of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020, led to assume there could have been a shift in the demographics of these workplaces. The survey results, based on 103 individual responses, as well as the interviews, indicated that media organizations are still predominantly white. Through a thematic qualitative analysis of the ten interviews, five main themes could be identified that explain the way in which the media professionals ascribe meaning to ethnic diversity in their organization. These themes are: ‘disconnected from workplace’, ‘awareness and change’, ‘need for visibility’, ‘power and responsibility’, and ‘diversity obstacles’. Overall, the interviewees communicated positive pro-diversity opinions, attaching value to ethnic diversity in the workplace. The main research question: “how do Dutch media professionals give meaning to ethnic diversity on the work floor”, was answered by the results of this study.