Page 169 - Culture Technology Communication

152 Lucienne Rey

people belong—are quite obviously linked to their various inner con-
cepts, value judgments or opinions. In other words, each language
group is linked to a set of highly specific attitudes. This is repeatedly
revealed during referendums, where the difference of opinion often
clearly follows the linguistic borders.
For example, I would like to mention the voting results obtained
when the Swiss voted on joining the European Economic Area. It
was quite clear: in the French-speaking area, a majority voted in
favour of joining, while in the German- and Italian-speaking areas,
opposition to membership took the upper hand. In Swiss politics,
and particularly regarding votes on foreign and environmental pol-
icy, this dichotomy occurs frequently. The French-speaking area—
sometimes together with the Ticino—constantly finds itself in the
role of the political loser. The French-speaking Swiss were particu-
larly indignant about the EEA vote, since the results were extremely
close—membership was rejected with a majority of 50.3%! That such
dominance by the German-speaking area arouses a certain amount
of resentment in its French counterpart is thus understandable. In
short, empirically measurable differences in attitudes clearly corre-
late with the linguistically defined cultures of Switzerland.

Cultural Attitudes towards Traditional Mass
Communication: Differences Among Linguistic Groups

These patterns, of course, are not obviously linked to communica-
tions technology. But I shall now come closer to the phenomenon of
these new technologies by placing them in the context of other, more
traditional communications media and situations. I assume that the
media, including newspapers, reflect a specific cultural group and
are at the same time its mouthpiece. I shall therefore attempt to de-
velop hypotheses concerning attitudes towards the use of the Inter-
net in the three major language areas, based on various scientific
investigations in media and mass culture.
The population rarely takes a theoretical approach to the con-
cept of “culture.” On the contrary, when confronted with specific ac-
tivities and situations during everyday life, people either regard
these as part of culture or exclude them from it. At the end of the
eighties, a large-scale research program on the “cultural identity” of
the Swiss population took place. Within this framework, surveys
were carried out to determine the population’s concept of culture. A