Diversity in Crisis: Race, Media and Popular Superdiversity in Authoritarian Times

This article examines the unfolding crisis of diversity in Western media and society. Once a benign, even banal, concept, ‘diversity’ is now attacked from both left and right: for the former, as a performative gesture masking structural racism; for the latter, as a threat to meritocracy and national identity. Today, it is the far right that is most forcefully shaping public discourse, reframing diversity as a symbol of cosmopolitan elitism and white marginalisation. Yet media culture remains ‘super-diverse’. In the UK, people of colour are more visible on screen than ever before, represented through seemingly complex and varied characterisations. Even as diversity discourse becomes increasingly embattled, this multiracial media form appears largely intact. Focusing on British media, the article traces the unravelling of diversity as a governing logic. It asks how we can make sense of the coexistence of popular superdiversity and the mainstreaming of far-right populism. Its central contention is that understanding the politics of diversity – in all its contradictory forms – is essential to grasping the current conjuncture, and may even point toward how to resist the reactionary forces that define it.