Book Reviews : RACHAEL CRAUFURD SMITH, Broadcasting Law and Fundamental Rights. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997, xix + 274 pp., £45.00
| Published date | 01 December 1998 |
| Author | Lesley Hitchens |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399800700420 |
| Date | 01 December 1998 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
599
nationalist
construction
of
race
and
a
state
thoroughly
implicated
in
the
public
manage-
ment
of
difference.
These
authors
argue
that
this
complex
amalgam
encourages
social
misrecognition:
of
Brown
used
as
a
narrative
device
promoting
Justice
Thomas
and
his
white,
’judicial
restraint’
supporters;
of
multiculturalism
used
to
confound
social
policy
by
articulating
whiteness
and
blackness
as
equivalent
and
protected
ethnic
identities
equally
endangered
by
state
intervention;
and
of
multicultural
education
substituting
for
any
material
challenge
to
’the
injustice
and
inequity
of
our
contemporary
racialized
social
order’
(p.
225).
Whether
this
cultural
complexity
caps
the
civil
rights
era
or
makes
civil
rights
strat-
egies
inspired
by
Brown’s
success
all
the
more
important
today
is
hard
to
glean
from
this
book.
Nor
is
the
theme
of
cultural
ambivalence
sufficiently
interrogated
for the
increasingly
common
American
reaction
against
the
extension
or
deployment
of
domestic
state
power
in
many
divergent
contexts.
Perhaps
this
ambivalence
remains
because
of
contemporary
conservative
discourses
which
bid
to
distinguish
equal
pro-
tection
for
blacks
from
those
for
other
rights-based
movements,
effectively
domesti-
cating
the
historical
meanings
of
racial
struggle
(Draper,
1994;
Patton,
1995).
What
Brown
means
in
this
important
context,
and
how
racial
understandings
articulate
with
non-racial
social
movements,
unfortunately
lay
unexplored
in
this
otherwise
useful
and
invigorating
collection.
CASES
CITED
Brown
v
Board
of
Education
(1955)
349
U.S.
294
Lochner
v
New
York
(1905)
198
U.S.
45
Marbury
v
Madison
(1803)
5
U.S.
137
Plessy
v
Ferguson
(1896)
163
U.S.
537
REFERENCES
Draper,
Alan
(1994)
Conflict
of
Interests:
Organized
Labor
and
the
Civil
Rights
Movement
in
the
South,
1954-1968.
Ithaca,
NY:
ILR
Press.
Oliver,
Melvin
and
Thomas
Shapiro
(1995)
Black
Wealth/White
Wealth:
A
New
Per-
spective
on
Racial
Inequality.
New
York:
Routledge.
Patton,
Cindy
(1995)
’Refiguring
Social
Space’,
pp.
216-49
in
Linda
Nicholson
and
Steven
Seidman
(eds)
Social
Postmodernism:
Beyond
Identity
Politics.
Cam-
bridge :
Cambridge
University
Press.
JONATHAN
GOLDBERG-HILLER
Department
of Political
Science,
University
of
Hawai’i
at
Manoa,
USA
RACHAEL
CRAUFURD
SMITH,
Broadcasting
Law
and
Fundamental
Rights.
Oxford:
Clarendon
Press,
1997,
xix
+
274
pp.,
£45.00.
Rachael
Craufurd
Smith’s
scholarly
monograph,
Broadcasting
Law
and
Fundamental
Rzghts,
is
a
timely
addition
to
the
growing
collection
of
academic
studies
in
the
broad-
casting
field.
The
book
provides
an
examination
of
the
role
of
the
courts
in
shaping
the
structure
of
broadcasting
and
assesses
the
potential
for
a
continued
judicial
role
in
the
rapidly
changing
audiovisual
environment.
Craufurd
Smith’s
study
focuses
on
Italy,
France
and
the
United
Kingdom
but
with
attention
also
paid
to
the
European
Court
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