RTÉ and the Globalisation of Irish Television

For three quarters of the last century, RTÉ has dominated the media landscape in Ireland, first as Radio Eireann, the only radio station in the country, operating under the ever-watchful eye of the Government, and since 1961, as a public corporation with responsibility presently for three television and four radio channels. With a wider reach than all newspapers combined, RTÉ provides the dominant pictures of the world by which we make sense of life around us. It has played a major role in dominating the symbolic environment in which Irish people construct their sense of identity and weave the “common sense” that underpins the everyday life of the community. RTÉ’s social role has been to find ways of “narrating the social” that make sense of their society for viewers and listeners, by drawing from the available stock of frameworks and narratives and marking the boundaries of what is permissible.

Avainsanat: Irish, television