A comparative critical discourse analysis of cultural policy documents in the United Kingdom and Malta between the mid-1990s and 2010

Abstract

This research volume consists of a qualitative comparative enquiry into the discourses that characterise cultural policy documents of the last fifteen years in Malta, a small state on the margins of Western culture, and the United Kingdom, a prominent and influential Western state. This comparative enquiry is defined by two interrelated aspects, namely, the critical analytical approach and the historical contextualisation of the analysis. The critical analytical approach assists the author to go beyond the superficial interpretation of text and language. This aspect is built on a strong body of literature and uses critical discourse analysis to assist the author to deconstruct, unmask and analyse discourses. The historical context, on the other hand, assists the author to put the results of the analysis in their proper historical context and interpret them accordingly. The study of the historical context consists of two main aspects. The first one is the historical origins of Western states’ interests in culture. The second focuses on the politico-economic contexts in which the cultural policy documents of both states were produced.

This research underlines and takes into account the unprecedented structural changes that market the public and economic sectors of both the UK and Mala in the last twenty to thirty years. Although the changes in the two states followed different paths and patterns, both were characterized by a growing political openness towards free-market reforms and the privatisation of public spheres. This research seeks to understand, through a discourse analysis of culture policy documents, whether these changes are reflected in contemporary cultural policy. It has been established by various authors that United Kingdom’s culture policy carries overbearing neo-liberal discourses. One of main research questions of the dissertation is to see whether this is the case with Malta’ cultural policy. The following are two of the questions asked in this dissertation : do discourses reflect such neo-liberal structural changes in the public and economic sector, and if yes, how do these compare with discourses found in the UK’s cultural policy? Finally, this dissertation seeks to contribute to cultural policy-making in Malta by offering an alternative perspective, the cr4itical perspective. Rather than simply approaching the policy-making process on strictly technocratic lines, this perspective highlights the importance and role of value questions in the policy-making process.