Communication: Television and Citizenship, writing homework help

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Please answer 2 of the 3 below essay questions. Each answer should be 3 pages long. Total of 6 pages long.

1) Answer 1a or 1b:

1a. Van Zoonen offers a four-part typology for understanding the importance of “political persona” to modern politics. What is this typology and how does it work through combining the political field with entertainment culture. How is gender significant for women politicians within this typology? Choose two politicians that were not discussed in class or in the article to exemplify two parts of the typology.

1b. What are the characteristics of political satire according to Gray, Jones and Thompson. What are the characteristics of parody. Using a television example of political satire that was not shown in class or in the reading, analyze how the example uses satire and parody as social critique. Explain why you think the example is effective or not in its social critique.

2) Answer 2a or 2b:

2a. Amaya critiques nativist discourse on mainstream English-language media. What is nativism and how does it relate to Amaya’s concept of Citizen Excess and the Liberal State. Provide a television example that exemplifies nativism and one that challenges nativism (please do not use examples from the reading or class lecture). State why you agree and/or disagree with Amaya’s argument.

2b. Cunningham offers a concept of “Ethno-specific mediatized sphericules” for understanding how diasporic communities use popular media. Define this concept and explain how it complicates forms of cultural citizenship that are centered on concepts of a national public sphere. Provide at least one example from the article to illustrate your points. Also provide one example from the class lecture or from your personal experience to illustrate your points.

3) Answer 3a or 3b:

3a. In Hermes’ case study of the media representations of Surinamese football players in the Netherlands, how did representations of race in sport open up possibilities for multicultural forms of citizenship and how did they limit these possibilities, according to Hermes. Use Hermes’ arguments to analyze an example of television, sport and race. Explain how your television example both expands and limits the possibilities for multicultural citizenship in the US. (You may choose any sport of your choice, including NFL football, but please do not use the specific examples shown in class lecture).

3b. Toby Miller considers how three forms of citizenship (political, economic and cultural) are invoked in food programming on television. Define each form of citizenship and provide examples to illustrate each (use at least one example that is not in the book or in the presentation). According to Miller, which forms of citizenship are most prevalent on television today and why is this the case? According to Miller, which forms of citizenship are underrepresented and why is this the case?

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European Journal of Cultural Studies http://ecs.sagepub.com Security, media and multicultural citizenship: A collaborative ethnography Marie Gillespie European Journal of Cultural Studies 2007; 10; 275 DOI: 10.1177/1367549407080731 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ecs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/10/3/275 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for European Journal of Cultural Studies can be found at: Email Alerts: http://ecs.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://ecs.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav Citations http://ecs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/10/3/275 Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008 DFTH KQKNDORDO@HMD  I NDTCQHMS@NKQNR E H M S Q N C T B S H N M  #OPYRIGHT ¥  3!'% 0UBLICATIONS ,OS !NGELES ,ONDON .EW $ELHI AND 3INGAPORE 6OL  n   $/)  WWWSAGEPUBLICATIONSCOM 3ECURITY MEDIA AND MULTICULTURAL CITIZENSHIP ! COLLABORATIVE ETHNOGRAPHY -ARIE 'ILLESPIE /PEN 5NIVERSITY @ARSQ@BS 4HIS SPECIAL ISSUE REPORTS ON A COLLABORATIVE 5+ RESEARCH PROJECT WHICH EXAMINED HOW NEW SECURITY CHALLENGES ARE CONSTITUTED IN THE INTERSECTING RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN POLITICAL AND MILITARY ACTORS NEWS PRODUCERS NEWS REPRESENTATIONS AND DISCOURSES AND NEWS AUDIENCES 4HIS ARTICLE INTRODUCES THE ETHNOGRAPHIC REPORTS WHICH FOLLOW AND DESCRIBES THE THEORETICAL PREMISES AND METHODOLOGICAL STRATEGIES OF THE RESEARCH )T OUTLINES AN INNOVATIVE MULTI DISCIPLINARY METHODOLOGY n @)NTEGRATED -ULTIDISCIPLINARY -EDIA !NALYSIS n WHICH INTEGRATES #OLLABORATIVE -EDIA %THNOGRAPHY A NOVEL METHOD IN ITSELF WITH INSTITUTIONAL AND TEXTUAL ANALYSIS 4HIS COMBINATION OF MUTUALLY INFORMING APPROACHES AFFORDS UNIQUE INSIGHTS INTO SOCIAL AND CULTURAL PROCESSES 4HE RESEARCH PROCESS BEGAN WITH EXPLORATIONS OF HOW PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING OF SECURITY ISSUES RELATE TO AND ARE SHAPED BY EVERYDAY CULTURES OF MEDIA PRACTICE THE SUBJECT OF THE FOLLOWING REPORTS #OMBINED WITH THE FINDINGS OF RESEARCHERS INVESTIGATING THE PERCEPTIONS AND WORKING PRACTICES OF SECURITY POLICY AND MEDIA PROFESSIONALS AND OTHERS WORKING ON THE TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF SALIENT NEWS BROADCASTS OUR STUDY REACHES THREE MAIN CONCLUSIONS &IRST THAT RITUALIZED INTERACTIONS BETWEEN POLICYMAKERS JOURNALISTS AND @CITIZEN AUDIENCES CONSTITUTE THE MEDIAnSECURITY NEXUS AS A @BATTLESPACE OF MUTUAL DISRESPECT AND SUSPICION 3ECOND THAT THIS EXACERBATES THE MARGINALIZATION AND RACIALIZATION OF MANY ETHNIC MINORITY GROUPS BUT IN PARTICULAR "RITISH -USLIMS WHO FACE DECLINING PROSPECTS FOR MULTICULTURAL CITIZENSHIP 4HIRD THAT SECURITY POLICYMAKERS MUST STRUGGLE TO FIND PUBLIC LEGITIMACY IN VIEW OF THE GROWING SCEPTICISM AND HOSTILITY OF NATIONAL AND DIASPORIC NEWS MEDIA AND AUDIENCES JDXVNQCR CITIZENSHIP COLLABORATIVE ETHNOGRAPHY )RAQ 7AR  MULTICULTURALISM NEWS MEDIA CULTURES RACIALIZATION SECURITY @7AR ON 4ERROR )NTRODUCTION /UR RESEARCH PROJECT @3HIFTING 3ECURITIES .EWS #ULTURES BEFORE AND AFTER THE )RAQ 7AR  FORMED PART OF A RESEARCH PROGRAMME FUNDED BY THE 5+S %CONOMIC AND 3OCIAL 2ESEARCH #OUNCIL %32# ON THE THEME  HMSQNCTBSHNM Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008 D T Q N O D @ M  I N T Q M @ K  N E  B T KS T Q @ K  R S T C H D R      .EW #HALLENGES TO 3ECURITY %32# AWARD NUMBER nn &ULL PROJECT DETAILS CAN BE FOUND AT WWWMEDIATINGSECURITYCOM 4HE @3HIFT ING 3ECURITIES PROJECT BUILT UPON PREVIOUS ANALYSIS OF NEWS COVERAGE OF THE  3EPTEMBER  ATTACKS IN THE 53! AND RECEPTION OF THE COVERAGE AMONG TRANSNATIONAL AUDIENCES IN THE 5+ IN THE THREE MONTHS FOLLOWING THESE EVENTS 'ILLESPIE A /&#/-   4HAT SNAPSHOT STUDY WAS EXTENDED IN THIS PROJECT WHICH TRACKED @SHIFTING SECURITIES AMONG DIVERSE AUDIENCE GROUPS OVER  MONTHS !PRIL  TO -ARCH  WHILE INVESTIGATING TEXTUAL AND INSTITUTIONAL DIMENSIONS OF MEDIA PRODUCTION 4HIS ARTICLE INTRODUCES SELECTED REPORTS BY ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCHERS ON THE ARTICULATIONS OF SECURITY ISSUES MEDIA USES AND PERCEPTIONS AND RELATED SOCIAL CULTURAL AND POLITICAL CONCERNS AMONG DIVERSE AUDIENCES IN THE 5+ PARTICULARLY MINORITY ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS GROUPS 4HE FOCUS OF THIS ARTICLE IS ON THE METHODOLOGICAL AND THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF THE RESEARCH ! KEY AIM OF THE STUDY WAS TO PIONEER )NTEGRATED -ULTIDISCIPLINARY -EDIA !NALYSIS )--! AS AN EMPIRICAL APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF MEDIATED POLITICAL AND POLICY COMMUNICATION USING AN INTEGRATED METHODOLOGICAL DESIGN WHICH ARTICULATES ANALYSES OF MEDIA PRODUCTION MEDIA TEXTS AND MEDIA RECEPTION 4HE EVENTS AND ISSUES ADDRESSED HERE n THE INTERSECTIONS OF NATIONAL INTERNATIONAL LOCAL AND GLOBAL SECURITY POLICY AND ITS IMPACTS QUESTIONS OF POLITICAL AUTHORITY AND LEGITIMACY CITIZENSHIP SOCIAL COHESION CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND INTEGRATION n ARE OF GREAT AND WIDE INTEREST &OR US AS RESEARCHERS HOWEVER THE THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL INTEGRATION OF A MULTIDISCIPLINARY METHOD APPLICABLE IN PRINCIPLE TO ANY TOPIC OF POLITICS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS HAS BEEN OF PARAMOUNT SIGNIFICANCE (OW RESEARCH IS CONDUCTED MUST BE CONNECTED TO WHAT THE RESEARCH FINDS 4HREE RESEARCH TEAMS @3TRANDS WORKED TO A CO ORDINATED TIMETABLE REGULARLY UPDATING ONE ANOTHER ON RESEARCH FINDINGS AND RE CALIBRATING APPROACHES TO MAXIMIZE CONSISTENCY AND MUTUAL ILLUMINATION 3TRAND ! DEVELOPED THE METHODOLOGY OF @COLLABORATIVE MEDIA ETHNOGRAPHY PION EERED IN THE  3EPTEMBER PROJECT ! MIX OF INTERVIEWS AND PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION ENABLED US TO EXAMINE DIVERSE GROUPS CULTURES OF NEWS MEDIA PRACTICE IN DEPTH AND DETAIL OVER TIME AND ACROSS PLACES 4HE INITIAL AIM WAS TO ANALYSE THE IMPACT OF THE )RAQ 7AR  ON CONCEPTS AND PERCEP TIONS OF SECURITY IN 5+ CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE INCREASING DIVERSITY OF NATIONAL AND TRANSNATIONAL NEWS SOURCES AND AUDIENCES AND GROWING CONCERNS ABOUT SOCIAL COHESION AND MULTICULTURAL CITIZENSHIP %THNOGRAPHY AS DISTINCT FROM INTERVIEW METHODS LETS US TRACK DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WHAT PEOPLE SAY AND WHAT THEY DO AND GIVES CLUES AS TO WHY THEY MIGHT SPEAK AND ACT AS THEY DO 4HE MAJORITY OF INTERVIEWEES WERE KNOWN TO INTERVIEW ERS FROM PREVIOUS QUALITATIVE SOCIAL RESEARCH PROJECTS ANDOR OTHER SOCIAL RELATIONS RESEARCHERS DEPLOYED A VARIETY OF METHODS TO ELICIT SPONTANEOUS SELF REVEALING SPEECH AND TO OBSERVE EVERYDAY MEDIA PRACTICES "ETWEEN 3EPTEMBER  AND -ARCH  SEMI STRUCTURED INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP INTERVIEWS OF UP TO TWO HOURS WERE CARRIED OUT WITH  PEOPLE IN CITIES Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008 F H K K D R OH D   D C H SN Q  R  H M S QN C T B S H N M ACROSS THE 5+ AND THE 2EPUBLIC OF )RELAND 7E GATHERED MUCH COMPARATIVE DATA ACROSS TIME n MANY PEOPLE WERE INTERVIEWED SEVERAL TIMES EG BOTH BEFORE AND AFTER THE ,ONDON BOMBINGS OF  *ULY  n AS WELL AS ACROSS DIFFERENT PLACES AND SOCIAL SPACES )NTERVIEWS WERE MAINLY CONDUCTED IN %NGLISH BUT SOMETIMES IN TWO OR EVEN THREE LANGUAGES !RABIC 5RDU 0UNJABI (INDI 3YLHETI "ENGALI &RENCH  )NTERVIEW DATA WAS SUPPLEMENTED WITH CO VIEWING AND OBSERVATIONAL DATA SEE REPORTS AND PRELIMINARY ANALYSES ON WEBSITE  !T SEVERAL POINTS IN THE COURSE OF THE RESEARCH IMAGES STILL AND MOVING WERE USED TO PROMPT RESPONSES AND TO TEST HYPOTHESES ABOUT THE RELATIVE SIGNIFICANCE OF IMAGES OVER VERBAL OR WRITTEN NARRATIVES OF EVENTS IN SHAPING RESPONSES 4HESE IMAGES WERE SELECTED ON THE BASIS OF INPUT FROM 3TRANDS " AND # 3TRAND " CONDUCTED TEXTUAL AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF NEWS PROGRAMMES )T EXAMINED THE CONTENT OF MAINSTREAM %NGLISH LANGUAGE TELEVISION AND INTERNET NEWS COVERAGE OF SELECTED @SECURITY SALIENT NEWS EVENTS AND ANALYSED PATTERNS IN THE FRAMING OF POST #OLD 7AR DISCOURSES OF NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL AS WELL AS SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY (OSKINS AND /,OUGHLIN   3TRAND # CONDUCTED INTERVIEWS AND FOCUS GROUPS WITH SECURITY AND MEDIA PROFESSIONALS IN ORDER TO DRAW OUT THEIR UNDERSTANDINGS OF THEIR ROLES IN THE DEVELOPMENT EXECUTION MEDIA MANAGEMENT AND REPORTING OF SECUR ITY POLICY HENCE TO EXAMINE THE ACTUAL AND PERCEIVED INFLUENCE OF SECURITY PRACTITIONERS INCLUDING MILITARY PERSONNEL AS WELL AS DIVERSE @EXPERTS ON THE CONTENT OF NEWS PROGRAMMES AND ON THE SECURING OF PUBLIC LEGITIMACY FOR SECURITY POLICY AND AS IT EMERGED THEIR PERCEPTIONS OF THE DANGER TO THE LIVES OF MILITARY PERSONNEL ENSUING FROM NEGATIVE REPORTING -ICHALSKI AND 'OW   &INDINGS FROM EACH OF THE THREE STRANDS OF RESEARCH FED INTO THE OTHERS ON AN ONGOING CO ORDINATED BASIS VIA VIRTUAL AND @REAL LIFE PROJECT MEET INGS WEBSITE POSTINGS AND EMAILS 7HEN 3TRAND ! RESEARCHERS NOTED THAT @CITIZEN AUDIENCE GROUPS WERE DISTURBED BY A CERTAIN FEATURE OF COVERAGE OR WHEN 3TRAND # RESEARCHERS NOTED THAT SECURITY PROFESSIONALS WERE CONCERNED THAT CERTAIN IMAGES CARRIED MESSAGES WHICH THREATENED THE LEGITIMACY OF THEIR POLICIES OTHER RESEARCHERS WERE ASKED TO EXPLORE THESE POINTS ,IKEWISE 3TRAND " RESEARCHERS ASKED THE ETHNOGRAPHERS TO TEST HYPOTHESES CONCERNING RELATIONS BETWEEN NEWS PRESENTATION FORMATS AND PERCEPTIONS OF SECURITY ISSUES !N EXAMPLE OF SUCH MUTUAL AGENDA SHAPING IS PRESENTED IN THE @)NTEGRATED -ULTIDISCIPLINARY -EDIA !NALYSIS CASE STUDY SUBSECTION BELOW 4HIS SPECIAL ISSUE OF %*#3 PRESENTS REPORTS FROM 3TRAND ! 4HE MAJORITY OF 3TRAND ! INTERVIEWEES ARE MEMBERS OF ETHNIC MINORITIES IN THE 5+ AND MOST ARE -USLIMS (OWEVER THE STUDY WAS EVENTS LED NOT STRUCTURED AROUND ETHNICITY %THNICITY POLITICS SECURITY CULTURE AND CITIZENSHIP WERE NOT TREATED AS A PRIORI CONCEPTS 2ATHER THE AIM WAS TO SEE HOW PARTICULAR EVENTS ACTIVATED AND MOBILIZED THESE CATEGORIES AND TO ASSESS THEIR DYNAMIC INTERPLAY IN PEOPLES TALK Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008  D T Q N O D @ M  I N T Q M @ K  N E  B T KS T Q @ K  R S T C H D R     4HE SECOND PART OF THIS INTRODUCTION @4HEORETICAL FRAMINGS PRESENTS THEORETICAL ISSUES )T ARGUES THAT LEGITIMACY IS THE CRUCIAL CONCEPT FOR UNDER STANDING AND ASSESSING THE MEDIATED RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN POLICYMAKERS AND PUBLICS AND THE HEALTH OR OTHERWISE OF DEMOCRATIC PROCESSES OF DE LIBERATION AND PARTICIPATORY CITIZENSHIP IN MULTICULTURAL SOCIETIES @4OP DOWN GOVERNMENTALITY AND SECURITY POLICY ORIENTED APPROACHES CAN AND SHOULD BE COMBINED WITH @BOTTOM UP SOCIALLY BASED CULTURALLY INFORMED CONSTRUCTIONIST APPROACHES TO THE EVERYDAY POLITICS OF SECURITY !NTHROPOLOGICAL AND #ULTURAL 3TUDIES APPROACHES HAVE MUCH TO OFFER 3ECURITY 3TUDIES IN 0OLITICS AND )NTERNATIONAL 2ELATIONS 3OME OF THE MOST GENERAL FINDINGS OF THE PROJECT ARE ALSO OUTLINED HERE 4HE THIRD PART @-ETHODOLOGY COLLABORATIVE MEDIA ETHNOGRAPHY WITHIN )--! ADDRESSES METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES IN MORE DETAIL IN PARTICULAR ISSUES RELAT ING TO OUR SAMPLE AND THE SOCIAL PROFILE OF OUR INTERLOCUTORS 4HE FOURTH PART @4HE ARTICLES INTRODUCES THE INDIVIDUAL ARTICLES WHICH FOLLOW 4HEORETICAL FRAMINGS 3ECURITY DEMOCRACY AND CITIZENSHIP A GOVERNMENTALITY PERSPECTIVE  4HE DECISION BY THE 53! AND 5+ GOVERNMENTS TO GO TO WAR ON )RAQ IN  CREATED DEEP RIFTS IN PUBLIC OPINION ACROSS THE WORLD )N THE 5+ IT RUPTURED LONG ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN POLITICIANS JOURNALISTS AND PUBLICS /NE MILLION PROTESTERS IN ,ONDON ON  &EBRUARY  n ONE OF THE BIGGEST DEMONSTRATIONS EVER TO TAKE PLACE IN THE 5+ n DID NOT DISSUADE 0RIME -IN ISTER "LAIR AND 0RESIDENT "USH FROM THEIR CHOSEN COURSE 4HE IMPLICATIONS OF OUR FINDINGS FOR POLITICAL LEGITIMACY ARE DISCUSSED IN DETAIL ELSEWHERE 'ILLESPIE B  'OVERNMENTS DEPEND ON PUBLIC TRUST BUT FOR THE 5+ GOVERNMENT TRUST IS IN INCREASINGLY SHORT SUPPLY NOT LEAST BECAUSE OF THE WAY IT PRESENTED THE CASE FOR WAR AND THE DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES SINCE FOR THE PEOPLE OF )RAQ AND FOR GLOBAL SECURITY 'OW  0OWER #OMMISSION   4HE FRAGILE LEGITIMACY OF THE )RAQ 7AR HAS EXPOSED SOME OF THE INHERENT WEAKNESSES OF SECURITY POLICIES GENERATED BY THE 53!5+ DECLARED @GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR FOLLOWING  #ONTRARY TO WIDESPREAD ASSUMPTIONS  DID NOT RADICALLY CHANGE THE RATIONALE OF SECURITY POLICY BUT ACCELERATED THE ADOPTION OF A NEW PREVENTATIVE PARADIGM WHICH HAD BEEN EMERG ING DURING THE S 4RANSNATIONAL SECURITY THREATS SUCH AS TERRORISM PANDEMICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROPHE ALONGSIDE PATTERNS OF GLOBAL MIGRATION HAD TRIGGERED NEW PARADIGMS OF GOVERNANCE BASED ON ATTEMPTS TO REGULATE RISKY FLOWS n FLOWS OF MIGRANTS MICROBES DIRTY MONEY AND NUCLEAR MATERIALS "AUMAN   #OOPER  3ASSEN   4HIS ALTERED THE CALCULUS OF RISK FOR GOVERNMENTS FROM A MEASURABLE PROBABILISTIC CONCEPTION OF RISK TO NOTIONS OF CATASTROPHIC RISK IN WHICH UNKNOWN THREATS EMERGE IN UNFORESEEABLE WAYS )N THE FACE OF GLOBAL Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008 F H K K D R OH D   D C H SN Q  R  H M S QN C T B S H N M WARMING TERRORISM HEALTH PANDEMICS AND FINANCIAL CONTAGION A NEW GENERATION OF POLICIES WAS ADOPTED BASED ON PRINCIPLES OF PREVENTION PRECAUTION AND PRE EMPTION 4HIS NEW CONCEPTION OF RISK AND AN EVER EXPANDING CONCEPTION OF SECURITY HAVE SERVED THE INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENTS AND MEDIA THOUGH THEIR DISADVANTAGES HAVE BY NOW BECOME APPARENT 'OVERNMENTS INCREASINGLY @SELL SECURITY AS A VIRTUAL COMMODITY TO CITIZENS ALTHOUGH IN THE 5+ AT LEAST THIS STRATEGY HAS ONLY LED TO GROWING SCEPTICISM AND CYNICISM ,IKE WISE THE  MEDIA INDUSTRY REQUIRES CONSTANTLY RENEWED THREATS RISKS AND INSECURITIES TO SUSTAIN ITSELF "UT ITS CREDIBILITY IS EQUALLY IN DOUBT AS SENSATIONAL IMAGES APPEAR TO DRIVE THE NEWS AGENDA IMMEDIACY RULES OVER CONTENT @BREAKING RUMOUR AND SPECULATION REPLACE FACTS AND EVIDENCE AND THE & FORMULA PREVAILS @FIRST FASTEST BUT FLAWED 'OWING   )T WOULD BE A MISTAKE TO DISMISS THE SERIOUSNESS OF REAL THREATS AND RISKS 'OVERNMENTS HAVE TO RESPOND TO THEM THEIR FIRST DUTY IS TO ENSURE THE SECURITY OF THEIR CITIZENS 4HE MOUNTING CONCERN ABOUT UNPREDICTABLE UN QUANTIFIABLE AND POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC RISKS IS WELL KNOWN "ECK    4AYLOR 'OOBY AND :INN   %NVIRONMENTAL ECONOMIC TER RORIST AND OTHER RISKS ARE BOTH INTERCONNECTED AND ALSO FOREVER @EMERGENT REQUIRING A STATE OF ALERTNESS AND VIGILANCE FROM POLITICIANS MEDIA AND PUBLICS .ATIONAL POLITICAL SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURES ARE RECOG NIZED TO BE TOO COMPLEX AND FRAGILE TO BE PROTECTED IN THE FACE OF UNEXPECTED DISRUPTION 4HE RESULT IS A PERMANENT @WAR AGAINST CONTINGENCY $ILLON    7ARS TODAY MUST PLAY MUCH MORE BY THE RULES OF POLITICS MARKETS AND MEDIA @WARMAKING MUST CAPITALIZE ON MARKET RELATIONS EXPLOIT DEMO CRATIC POLITICAL FORMS AND MANAGE INDEPENDENT MEDIA ;x= 4HE BEST WAY OF CHARACTERIZING THE NEW MODE OF WAR AS A WHOLE IS THEREFORE GLOBAL SURVEILLANCE WARFARE 3HAW  n ;ORIGINAL EMPHASIS=  !S THIS GLOBAL SURVEILLANCE TURNS WAR AND TERRORISM INTO MEDIA SPECTACLE AND AUDIENCES INTO SPECTATORS OF MASS CIVILIAN DEATHS WHAT BECOMES OF INFORMED CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRATIC COMMUNICATIVE PROCESSES 'OVERNMENTALITY PERSPECTIVES ARE USEFUL IN HIGHLIGHTING THE OPERATIONS OF POLITICAL POWER AND SHIFTS IN THE STRATEGIC GOALS OF SECURITY POLICY /UR )--! RESEARCH APPROACH DEMONSTRATES HOW NEWS MEDIA REINFORCE THIS NEW CALCULUS OF RISK AND THREAT 4HE DISCOURSE AND TEXTUAL ANALYSIS STRAND OF OUR PROJECT 3TRAND " FOUND TWO KINDS OF LOGIC WITHIN MEDIA PRODUCTION WHICH REFLECT THE NEW LOGIC OF SECURITY AND OF EMERGENCE AND CATASTROPHIC RISK &IRST WHAT (OSKINS AND /,OUGHLIN  CALL THE @MODULATION OF TERROR CONTAINS FEAR AND AMPLIFIES THREATS "REAKING NEWS STORIES ARE ACCOMMODATED INTO PRE EXISTING NARRATIVES BY DEPLOYING MEDIA @TEMPLATES FROM PAST EVENTS FOR EXAMPLE REPORTING OF THE *ULY  ,ONDON BOMBINGS REPEATEDLY INVOKED THE @SPIRIT OF THE "LITZ n THE LEGENDARY COURAGE OF ,ONDONERS DURING 'ERMAN BOMBARDMENT IN THE 3ECOND 7ORLD 7AR 3UCH TEMPLATES FRAME SUDDEN UNEXPECTED EVENTS TO RENDER THEM INTELLIGIBLE Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008  D T Q N O D @ M  I N T Q M @ K  N E  B T KS T Q @ K  R S T C H D R     FOR JOURNALISTS AND AUDIENCES ALIKE 9ET IF THIS CONTAINS FEARS TELEVISION NEWS ALSO AMPLIFIES THREATS FOR INSTANCE THROUGH THE TELEVISUAL QUALITIES OF ROLLING  NEWS BROADCASTS 4HE SPLIT SCREENS JUXTAPOSITION OF MUL TIPLE STORIES SCROLLING HEADLINES AND RAPID CUTS PRODUCE A SENSE OF A WORLD OF INTERCONNECTED INSECURITIES 4HE CONTRADICTORY DYNAMIC OF THIS @MODU LATION OF TERROR BY NEWS PRODUCERS IS MATCHED BY 3TRAND !S FINDINGS ABOUT HOW AUDIENCES MANAGE ANXIETIES OFTEN TRIGGERED BY NEWS MEDIA THAT FEED INTO A SENSE OF PROLIFERATING INSECURITIES #RUCIALLY AUDIENCES MODULATE THEIR OWN NEWS VIEWING BY TURNING OFF AND DISENGAGING THEN TURNING ON AND RE ENGAGING #ONTRARY TO MUCH CURRENT COMMENT AND RESEARCH THE CITIZENS AND AUDIENCES WE WORKED WITH ARE FAR FROM DISENGAGED FROM THE POLITICAL PROCESS "UT THE PSYCHIC AND SOCIAL DEMANDS OF MANAGING INSECURITY MEAN THEIR ENGAGEMENTS ARE FLUID FLUCTUATING AND CONTINGENT ! SECOND MEDIA LOGIC AMPLIFYING NOTIONS OF EMERGENCE AND CATA STROPHIC RISK IS THE INTERACTING LOGIC OF REMEDIATION AND PREMEDIATION 'RUSIN   2EMEDIATION INVOLVES REPRODUCING AND RE APPROPRIATING NEWS MATERIALS FROM DIVERSE NEWS SOURCES TO CREATE A REPORT ! SALIENT EXAMPLE IS THE INCREASING USE OF !L *AZEERA FOOTAGE OR WEB IMAGES ON %UROPEAN NEWS MEDIA -OST %UROPEAN NEWS VIEWERS HAVE NEVER WATCHED THIS !RABIC CHANNEL BUT THE REMEDIATION OF ITS IMAGES OF TERRORISM AND THE WORDS OF TERRORISTS SUSTAINS THE SENSE OF PREVAILING THREAT AND EFFECTIVELY ASSOCIATES IT AS A CHANNEL @FOR TERRORISM 0REMEDIATION IN CONTRAST DOES NOT REPEAT BUT ANTICIPATES AND SPECULATES ABOUT FUTURE RISKS AND THREATS BEFORE THEY HAVE HAPPENED )N THIS WAY TODAYS  NEWS MEDIA ARE CONSTANTLY VIGILANT KEEPING PUBLIC FEARS ALIVE 3PECULATIVE DISCURSIVE CHAINS CONNECT THE @THREATS OF MIGRATION AND DIVERSITY TERRORISM TERRORISTS AND @THEIR MEDIA 4HIS CHAIN OF ASSOCIATIONS SIMPLIFIES ISSUES AND POLARIZES PEOPLE )N PARTICULAR IT REINFORCES A SENSE OF A @CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS AND PRESENTS A -USLIMNON -USLIM DIVISION AS A THREAT TO THE NATION TO @%UROPE AND TO @THE 7EST )T PROJECTS AN UNENDING FUTURE OF INSECURITIES SUSTAINING THE GOVERNMENTAL LOGIC OF PRECAUTIONARY PRE EMPTION (OWEVER USEFUL AS IT IS SUCH A TOP DOWN ANALYSIS FROM A GOVERNMENTALITY PERSPECTIVE NEEDS TO BE ACCOMPANIED BY EMPIRICALLY BASED ANALYSIS FROM A CONSTRUCTIONIST PERSPECTIVE THAT EMPHASIZES PROCESSES OF SECURITIZATION -EDIATION SECURITIZATION RACIALIZATION A CONSTRUCTIVIST PERSPECTIVE  4HE @3HIFTING 3ECURITIES PROJECT ATTEMPTS TO RESEARCH NEWS AUDIENCES AS PUBLICS THAT IS TO EXAMINE WHETHER AND HOW CITIZENS MEDIA PRACTICES AND RESPONSES TO MEDIATED POLITICAL DISCOURSES ENABLE OR IMPEDE POLITICAL PARTICIPATION DEMOCRATIC DEBATE AND INCLUSIVE AND RESPECTFUL MULTICULTURAL CITIZENSHIP /UR FOCUS IS ON THE INTER SUBJECTIVE AND DIALOGIC PROCESSES OF MEDIATED COMMUNICATION THROUGH WHICH THE EVERYDAY POLITICS OF FEAR AND INSECURITY ARE NEGOTIATED CONTESTED AND ENACTED BY CITIZENS %THNOGRAPHIC AND CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACHES AFFORD PEOPLE AS AUDIENCES AND PUBLICS Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008 F H K K D R OH D   D C H SN Q  R  H M S QN C T B S H N M VIEWERS AND CITIZENS AGENCY WITH CAPACITIES COMPETENCES AND CAPABILITIES n CRUCIALLY WITH @VOICE n IN WAYS THAT GOVERNMENTALITY APPROACHES DO NOT !ND VOICE AND VIEWPOINT INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION ARE FUNDAMENTAL TO THE DELIBERATIVE AND LEGITIMATING PROCESSES THAT TAKE PLACE VIA THE MEDIA .EWS @AUDIENCES ARE NOT IDENTICAL WITH @PUBLICS BUT THEY DO OVERLAP 4HE TERMS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH DIFFERENT ORIENTATIONS ENTERTAINMENT OR DISTRACTION FOR AN AUDIENCE INFORMATION AND EDUCATION FOR A PUBLIC AND THEY HAVE DIFFERENT DISCIPLINARY HOMES SOCIOLOGY VERSUS POLITICS  4HEY ARE EQUALLY SLIPPERY CONCEPTS AND HARD TO PIN DOWN EMPIRICALLY ESPECIALLY AS MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES TEXTS CONTEXTS OF RECEPTION AND PATTERNS OF MEDIA USE MULTIPLY AND DIVERSIFY .EWS AUDIENCES ARE INCREASINGLY HARD TO DEFINE AND STUDY WHILE THE CONCEPT OF A PUBLIC CAN CONNOTE ANYTHING FROM A SHARED UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD OR A COMMON IDENTITY TO A CLAIM TO INCLUSIVE NESS OR A CONSENSUS ABOUT COLLECTIVE INTERESTS ,IVINGSTONE   )N RESEARCHING @NEWS CULTURES AND MEDIA PRACTICES WE HOPE TO BRIDGE THE DIVIDE .EWS CULTURES AND POLITICAL CULTURES ARE MUTUALLY CONSTITUTIVE THEY INTERACT IN SYMBIOTIC FASHION )T IS VERY RARELY POSSIBLE TO DISENTANGLE @EFFECTS OF NEWS MEDIA FROM PRIOR CONVICTIONS n EVEN IF MANY PEOPLE DO CLAIM THAT CERTAIN NEWS STORIES @OPENED THEIR EYES OR POLITICIZED THEM 4HROUGH USING NEWS MEDIA PEOPLE MAY EXPERIENCE MEMBERSHIP OF A PUBLIC OR OF MULTIPLE NATIONAL AND TRANSNATIONAL PUBLICS IF ONLY TEM PORARILY "UT THEY MAY NOT !UDIENCES ARE NOT ALWAYS PART OF A PUBLIC FOR REASONS WHICH INCLUDE CENSORSHIP LACK OF CULTURAL OR EDUCATIONAL CAPITAL OR PERSONAL PREFERENCE 4HE INCREASING ARRAY OF TRANSNATIONAL MEDIA AND GROWING USE OF THE INTERNET MAKES IT MUCH HARDER FOR GOVERNMENTS TO GET THEIR POLICY MES SAGES ACROSS AND SO SECURE LEGITIMACY SEE 'ILLESPIE B  #ONVERSELY IT IS GETTING MUCH EASIER FOR NEWS AUDIENCES TO FORGE @MICRO PUBLIC SPHERES IN WHICH ONE HEARS AND SEES ONLY WHAT CONFORMS TO AND CONFIRMS A PRE EXISTING WORLD VIEW 2ITUALISTIC USES OF MEDIA ARE EMBEDDED WITHIN THE @ONTOLOGICAL SECURITY MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES OF AUDIENCES 4HIS CAN LEAD TO INSULAR RIGID FORMS OF THINKING WHICH AUGMENT AN OFTEN FRAGILE THOUGH EMPHATICALLY ASSERTED SENSE OF CERTAINTY AND SECURITY !KSOY   "UT WE FIND ALSO THAT MANY MINORITY ETHNIC 5+ CITIZENS ESPECIALLY THOSE WITH MULTILINGUAL CULTURAL CAPITAL USE TRANSNATIONAL MEDIA TO SUPPORT HIGHLY ENGAGED FORMS OF POLITICAL PARTICIPATION 3OME SEEK OUT AND USE ALTERNATIVE SOURCES OF NEWS AND INFORMATION DISPLAYING HIGHLY FLEXIBLE MODES OF REASONING AND PARTICIPATING IN MULTIPLE NATIONAL AND TRANSNATIONAL PUBLIC SPACES OF COMMUNICATION AND SOCIO POLITICAL ACTION n NEGOTIATING PLURAL FORMS OF AUTHORITY AND BASES OF LEGITIMACY ) REFER TO THESE MULTILINGUAL GLOBAL NEWS USER PRODUCERS AS @CRITICAL COSMOPOLITANS #OMPARING AND CONTRASTING DIFFERENT NEWS SOURCES THEY CONSTRUCT THEIR OWN NARRATIVES WHICH MAY NOT CONFORM TO THOSE OF POLITICIANS AND JOURNALISTS 02S AND @SPIN MERCHANTS IN ANY ONE COUNTRY #RITICAL COSMOPOLITANS PARTICIPATE IN AND TRANSLATE ACROSS MULTIPLE NATIONAL GLOBAL AND DIASPORIC PUBLIC SPHERES Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008  D T Q N O D @ M  I N T Q M @ K  N E  B T KS T Q @ K  R S T C H D R      DISPLAYING INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY FLEXIBILITY AND @WORLD OPENNESS 4HEY ARE MOTIVATED BY A CONCERN WITH SOCIAL JUSTICE AND POLITICAL CHANGE 4HEY USE NEWS MEDIA CRITICALLY MOBILISING COSMOPOLITAN CULTURAL CAPITAL AND TRANSCULTURAL COMPETENCES TO ENGAGE IN COLLABORATIVE POLITICAL AND MORAL JUDGEMENTS AIMED AT EFFECTING CHANGE )N CONTRAST AMONG INSULAR PAROCHIALS AND PASSIVE CYNICS NEWS AVOIDANCE SOCIAL INSECURITY AND RIGID AND DOGMATIC MODES OF REASONING ARE MORE COMMON 'ILLESPIE A  4HESE ARE BUT TWO ALBEIT STRONG TENDENCIES ACROSS A WIDELY VARIABLE SPECTRUM OF RESPONSE TO MEDIATED POLITICS IN OUR STUDY !S MENTIONED THE PROJECT WAS @EVENTS LED 4HE SALIENCE OF SECURITY NEWS DEPENDS ON THE NATURE OF RESPONSES TO @CRITICAL EVENTS 4HIS IS A TERM USED BY 6EENA $AS  TO REFER TO EVENTS INVOLVING STATE TERROR AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE THAT PROPAGATE SOCIAL TRAUMA AND SUFFERING INEQUALITY AND EXCLUSION ESPECIALLY AMONG MARGINALIZED MINORITIES /UR VARIABLE AND SHIFTING SENSES OF PROXIMITY OR DISTANCE PHYSICAL CULTURAL AND AFFECTIVE TO THOSE EVENTS DEFINE THEIR SECURITY SALIENCE 0ROXIMITY AND DISTANCE TO EVENTS ARE CREATED BY MEDIA IMPOSED BY STATES AND NEGOTIATED BY AUDIENCES  4HEY ARE NOT OPPOSITE ENDS OF A SPECTRUM BUT WORK TOGETHER CREATING TENSION AND AMBIVALENCE SEE 1URESHIS ARTICLE  -ODULATING COMPLEMENTARY OPPOSITES @DISTANT PROXIMITIES DEFINE OUR RELATIONSHIP TO MEDIATIONS OF SECURITY THREATS 2OSENAU   4HE TERM MEDIATION IN THIS CONTEXT REFERS TO THE MULTIPLE INTERACTING SETS OF RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN NEWS MEDIA PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF POLITICAL DEBATES POLICY FORMATION PROCESSES AND OTHER DIMENSIONS OF @PUBLIC AFFAIRS WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT BE @VISIBLE IN MEDIA TEXTS )T IS FOR THIS REASON THAT 3TRAND # OF OUR PROJECT INVOLVED OFF THE RECORD INTERVIEWS WITH PERSONNEL IN THE 5+ AND 53 MILITARY SECURITY SERVICES AND GOVERNMENTS 5SING THE TERM IN THIS WAY AVOIDS THINKING OF GIVEN MOMENTS IN THE POLITICAL COMMUNICATION PROCESS AS SEPARATE AND SEPARABLE RESEARCH DOMAINS -EDIATION IS AN IRREDUCIBLY POLITICAL PROCESS CULTURAL AND SYMBOLIC POWER AND THE CAPACITY TO CONTROL MANAGE AND CHANGE IMAGES AND NARRATIVES IS UNEVENLY DISTRIBUTED )T IS NOTABLY DENIED TO RACIALIZED MINORITIES AND THOSE WITHOUT ELITE EDUCA TIONAL CAPITAL "UT DOMINANT IMAGES AND NARRATIVES ARE OFTEN RESISTED RE APPROPRIATED OR CHALLENGED BY ALTERNATIVE MEDIA PRACTICES PRODUCTIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS 3ILVERSTONE AND 'EORGIOU  n  -EDIA IN MULTICULTURAL POLITIES HAVE GREAT POWER TO INCLUDE AND EXCLUDE MARGINAL IZE OR MAGNIFY GLORIFY OR REIFY 4HROUGH AND IN MEDIA IDENTITIES ARE CLAIMED FRAMED OR DENIED AND SECURITIES SOUGHT OR UNDERMINED -EDIA ARE CRUCIAL TO PUBLIC DEBATES ON QUESTIONS OF DIFFERENCE COMPETING RIGHTS AND DUTIES VISIBILITY RACISM INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION RESPECT AND RE COGNITION 2ESEARCHING MEDIATIONS OF SECURITY POLICY AND PUBLICS IN MULTI ETHNIC POLITIES REQUIRES AN INTEGRATED RESEARCH DESIGN IF WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND THE SUBTLETIES AND CHANGING NATURE OF THESE RELATIONSHIPS AND TO JUDGE THE HEALTH AND STATE OF MULTICULTURAL DEMOCRACY 4HIS IS A Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008 F H K K D R OH D   D C H SN Q  R  H M S QN C T B S H N M POINT TO WHICH WE WILL SOON RETURN AND ONE ON WHICH ALL THE FOLLOWING REPORTS COMMENT /UR RESEARCH SUGGESTS THAT @SECURITY NEWS HAS ESPECIALLY HIGH SALIENCE FOR RACIALIZED MINORITIES PRECISELY BECAUSE IT IMPLICATES THEM AS THREATS TO SECURITY 4HE TERM @RACIALIZED IS USED TO EMPHASIZE THAT @RACE IS NOT A USEFUL ANALYTICAL TERM IT CANNOT EXPLAIN SOCIAL OR CULTURAL DIFFERENCES 2ATHER IT IS A SOCIAL PROCESS A WAY OF ASCRIBING INFERIOR STATUS TO A GROUP ON THE BASIS OF PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES RESULTING IN DISCRIMINATION SEGREGATION AND MARGINALIZATION -URJI AND 3OLOMOS   3INCE  PROCESSES OF RACIALIZATION AND SECURITIZATION HOW THREATS ARE IDENTIFIED CONSTRUCTED AND TREATED AS SECURITY ISSUES WORK HAND IN HAND (UYSMANS AND "UONFINO   4HEY ARE BOLSTERED BY MEDIATIONS HOW THREATS ARE PRIORITIZED FRAMED AND REPRESENTED BY THE MEDIA AND INTERPRETED BY AUDIENCES (OW DO OUR INTERLOCUTORS DISCUSS AND RESPOND TO THESE PERCEIVED DYNAMICS 4WO STRONG PATTERNS OF RESPONSE ARE APPARENT ACROSS ALL OUR INTERVIEWS AND CHARACTERIZE THE NEWS CULTURES AND PRACTICES OF "RITISH -USLIMS AND OTHER RACIALIZED MINORITY INTERVIEWEES &IRST INTERVIEWEES PERCEIVE THE "RITISH GOVERNMENT AS @OBSESSED A FREQUENTLY USED TERM WITH MAINTAINING HIGH LEVELS OF PUBLIC FEAR ABOUT THE LIKELIHOOD OF A TERRORIST ATTACK !S THEY SEE IT THE 5+ MEDIA SERVE THE GOVERNMENT IN THIS REGARD 3ECOND THE MEDIA ARE SEEN AS SYSTEMATICALLY DEMONIZING -USLIMS ASSOCIATING )SLAM WITH VIOLENCE AND TERRORISM AND REPRESENTING -USLIMS AS THE @ENEMY WITHIN 4HIS TRIGGERS DEEP EMOTIONAL AND POLITICAL RESPONSES ANGER ALIENATION DESPAIR A SENSE OF HOPELESSNESS AND POWERLESSNESS IN LOCAL NATIONAL TRANSNATIONAL AND GLOBAL CONTEXTS 4HE )RAQ 7AR HAS DEEPENED THE SENSE OF OUTRAGE INJURY INSULT AND VICTIMIZATION THAT HAS COME TO DEFINE -USLIM SENSIBILITIES DESPITE ALL EFFORTS TO ESCAPE THIS ASCRIBED ROLE &ACING AND DEALING WITH IMPLICIT AND OR EXPLICIT ACCUSATIONS OF TERRORISM HAS BECOME AN EVERYDAY TASK MANY INTERVIEWEES EXPLAINED 4HIS QUANDARY MOTIVATES NEW POLITICIZED ASSERTIONS OF -USLIM IDENTITY 9ET MANY COMMENT THAT THE PERVASIVENESS AND THE TOTALIZING QUALITY OF THE RACIALIZATION SECURITIZATION AND MEDIATION FACED BY -USLIMS IN THE 5+ TRAP THEM IN A @GAME OF IDEN TITY POLITICS WHICH THEY CAN NEITHER ESCAPE FROM NOR WIN 4HE SECOND WIDESPREAD PATTERN OF RESPONSE COMBINES SCEPTICISM TO WARDS STATE AND MEDIA DISCOURSES OF THREAT WITH GENUINE FEAR )NTERVIEWEES OF BOTH DOMINANT AND MINORITY ETHNICITIES ARE HIGHLY CONSCIOUS OF THE MANIPULATION OF THE TERRORIST THREAT BUT THEY STILL FEAR THAT AN ATTACK MIGHT OCCUR 3OME USE A MINIMIZING TEMPLATE STRATEGY RELATING THE CURRENT TERRORIST THREAT TO PREVIOUS OR MORE IMMEDIATE OR PROXIMATE THREATS BE IT )2! TERROR THREATS OF THE S AND AFTER THROUGHOUT THE 5+ SEE ESPE CIALLY (ERBERTS ARTICLE OR THE -ADRID BOMBINGS OR MOST TYPICALLY SUCH RELATIVELY @COMMONPLACE FEARS AS UNEMPLOYMENT POVERTY AND PAEDOPHILIA A 5+ WIDE SOURCE OF LOCAL AND SOMETIMES NATIONAL PANIC  -OST REFUSE TO ALLOW ANY FEAR OF TERRORISM TO IMPINGE ON THEIR DAILY LIVES 3OME YOUNGER Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008  D T Q N O D @ M  I N T Q M @ K  N E  B T KS T Q @ K  R S T C H D R      INTERVIEWEES HOWEVER NURSE A MILLENARIAN SENSE OF A DISASTROUS FATE AWAITING THE WORLD FORGE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN GLOBAL THREATS THE !SIAN TSUNAMI THE WAR IN )RAQ ADVANCED MILITARY TECHNOLOGIES AND LOCAL THREATS RACISM CRIME AND POVERTY IN THE %AST %ND AND ABSORB TERRORISM INTO THIS NARRATIVE OF IMMINENT APOCALYPSE SEE !L 'HABBANS ARTICLE  3UCH VIEWS AND VISIONS CANNOT BE GENERALIZED BUT THEY INDICATE HOW A PARADOXICAL SENSE OF THREATS AS BOTH CONSTRUCTED AND REAL CAN ENGENDER RESPONSES BOTH OF POWERLESSNESS @THERES NOTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT IT AND OF PRAGMATISM @WEVE GOT TO GET ON WITH OUR LIVES  -OST INTERVIEWEES FEEL THAT THEY HAVE BECOME MORE INSECURE IN RECENT YEARS AND MOST ARE MORE AFRAID OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF SECURITY POLICY THAN OF TERRORISM 4HESE INCLUDE @CASUAL EVERYDAY RACISM STATE SURVEILLANCE ARREST AND DETENTION CREEPING MILITARISM AND THREATS TO CIVIL RIGHTS AND TRADITIONS OF DEMOCRACY AND THE RULE OF LAW 7ITH THE *ULY  BOMBING INTER VIEWEES REPORTED FEARS OF TERRORISM INTENSIFIED ONLY TO DISSIPATE SOON AFTER ! LARGE PROPORTION OF RACIALIZED MINORITIES BASE THEIR FEARS ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF STOP AND SEARCH IDENTITY CHECKS AND TEMPORARY DETENTION -USLIM WOMEN IN PARTICULAR REPORT VERY HIGH LEVELS OF DIRECT @CASUAL RACIST AGGRESSION NAME CALLING SPITTING ATTEMPTS TO REMOVE THEIR HIJAB SEE 3ADAF 2IVZIS ARTICLE  .EARLY ALL INTERVIEWEES CAN RECOUNT SEVERAL STORIES OF RACIST ABUSE TOLD BY A FRIEND OR RELATIVE /THERS CLAIM INDIRECT KNOWLEDGE OF RACISM @HEARD STORIES  /NE OF OUR MAJOR FINDINGS IS THAT ALL -USLIMS AND MOST OTHER ETHNIC MINORITIES REPORT FEARS OF EXPRESSING THEMSELVES IN PUBLIC AND IN THE WORKPLACE DUE TO POSSIBLE AGGRESSIVE OR VIOLENT RESPONSE 4HIS HAS LED TO MASSIVE SELF CENSORSHIP AND A DIMINISHING SENSE OF PARTICIPATION IN PUBLIC LIFE AND OF NATIONAL AND LOCAL BELONGING 4HIS IS PERHAPS THE REASON SO MANY INTERVIEWEES APPRECIATED THE OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE THEIR VIEWS TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT )T IS NOT HARD TO SEE HOW SUCH SENTIMENTS ARE LINKED TO POLITICAL AND NEWS MEDIA DISCOURSES AND REPRESENTATIONS )N ORDER TO LEGITIMATE THE @WAR ON TERROR THE TERM @SECURITY HAS COME TO BE USED IN AN INCREASINGLY WIDE SET OF SENSES AND CONTEXTS BLURRING MANY SOCIAL CATEGORIES AND DISTINCTIONS !N ASSOCIATIVE CHAIN LINKS MINORITIES MIGRANTS REFUGEES ASYLUM SEEKERS CRIMINALS TERRORISTS AND ENEMIES WITHIN 2ACISM AND RACIALIZATION FLOURISH WHEN THREATS FROM INSIDE AND OUTSIDE ARE CONFLATED 4HE SEEMINGLY LIMIT LESS POLYSEMY OF THE TERM @SECURITY REDUCES ITS ANALYTICAL USEFULNESS FOR RESEARCHERS BUT FOR MANY INTERVIEWEES THE CONNOTATIONS OF INSECURITY MILIT ARISM TERRORISM AND RACISM HAVE A MESSAGE THAT RINGS LOUD AND CLEAR -ANY REPORT A DIMINISHING SENSE OF SECURITY EXACERBATED BY A FEELING THAT THE BOUNDARIES ARE BLURRING BETWEEN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS OF SECURITY INSIDE AND OUTSIDE NATIONAL BOUNDARIES PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPACES PHY SICAL AND VIRTUAL SPACES CORPORATE AND POLITICAL SPACES AND SO ON 4HE @STATE OF EXCEPTION !GAMBEN  BRINGS NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY INTO EVERYDAY LIFE AS A THREAT TO PERSONAL SECURITY /NE INTERVIEWEE RETIRED Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008 F H K K D R OH D   D C H SN Q  R  H M S QN C T B S H N M WHITE MIDDLE CLASS MALE SPEAKS OF LIVING IN A STATE OF CONTINUAL AND IN CREASING UNCERTAINTY OF @A THOUSAND PIN PRICKS OF INSECURITY IN DAILY LIFE AS LONG STANDING TAKEN FOR GRANTED ASSUMPTIONS ARE CHALLENGED BY SOCIAL CULTURAL AND POLITICAL CHANGES 'ILLESPIE B   &OR RACIALIZED MINOR ITIES LIVING IN METROPOLITAN CENTRES THE CONSEQUENCES OF SECURITY POLICIES ARE FAR REACHING AND UNPREDICTABLE AS MOST OF THE REPORTS SHOW MANY FEEL THEIR 5+ CITIZENSHIP AND THE PROMISE OF MULTICULTURALISM IS FUNDAMENTALLY CALLED INTO QUESTION BY CURRENT SECURITY POLICY WHICH RAISES TROUBLING QUESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE CHANCES OF LIVING IN A PEACEFUL MULTICULTURAL STATE -ETHODOLOGY COLLABORATIVE MEDIA ETHNOGRAPHY WITHIN )--! ! SUMMARY TABLE OF INTERVIEWEES SOCIAL BACKGROUND DETAILS IS PROVIDED IN THE APPENDIX 4HE PROJECT WEBSITE OFFERS MORE DETAILED TABLES SEE WWW MEDIATINGSECURITYCOM  4HIS VERY BROAD SOCIOLOGICAL SKETCH MUST BE READ WITH CAUTION )N DUE COURSE WE WILL ANALYSE THE QUANTITATIVE ALONGSIDE THE QUALITATIVE DATA BUT FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS SPECIAL ISSUE THIS IS A QUALITA TIVE EMPIRICAL STUDY /UR UNDERSTANDING OF THE DYNAMICS OF IDENTITIES AND IDENTIFICATIONS IS BASED ON QUALITATIVE DATA AND PREMISED ON THE ASSUMP TION THAT ALL SOCIAL BEINGS HAVE MULTIPLE OVERLAPPING AXES OF IDENTIFICATIONS 0ARTICULAR FORMS OF IDENTIFICATIONS MAY BE ACCENTUATED IN SOME CONTEXTS BUT RECEDE IN OTHERS )DENTIFICATIONS ARE SHIFTING BUT NOT INFINITELY FLUID 4HEY ARE STRATEGICALLY MOBILIZED IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS AND IN RESPONSE TO DIFFERENT EVENTS .O ONE SOCIAL CATEGORY FOR EXAMPLE ETHNICITY OR RELIGION DEFINES A PERSONS SOCIAL IDENTITY 4HE IDENTIFICATION OF RELIGION AS A CULTURAL CATEGORY IN THE CONTEXT OF A PROJECT ON SECURITY COULD BE HIGHLY PROBLEMATIC IF USED IN A CULTURALLY DETERMINISTIC WAY (ERE IT IS INTENDED ONLY AS A VERY BROAD CLASSIFICATION AND SHOULD NOT BE READ AS EITHER DETERMINING OR DOMINATING 3OME OF OUR INTERVIEWEES OF WHITE %NGLISH ETHNICITY DESCRIBE THEMSELVES AS HAVING A #HRISTIAN EDUCATION OR BACKGROUND BUT NOT AS @#HRISTIAN PER SE )N THE SAME WAY SOME DESCRIBE THEMSELVES AS -USLIM BUT SEEK TO QUALIFY THAT CATEGORIZATION IN A HOST OF WAYS 3OME DESCRIBE THEMSELVES AS @SECULAR OR @NON PRACTISING AND WOULD INSIST THAT THIS IS MORE OF A CULTURAL AND SOCIAL IDENTIFICATION THAN A RELIGIOUS ONE /THERS MADE THE POINT QUITE STRONGLY THAT THEIR FIRST IDENTIFICATION IS NOT AS -USLIM BUT RATHER THEY ARE AND WOULD WANT TO BE KNOWN AS "ANGLADESHI OR 3OMALI OR %NGLISH OR "RITISH !LTHOUGH  PERCENT OF OUR  INTERLOCUTORS WERE OF -USLIM BACK GROUND WE CHOSE NOT TO GIVE PRIORITY TO THIS FACT IN ORDER TO AVOID DETERMIN ISTIC AND REDUCTIONIST ANALYSES )NSTEAD WE HAVE AIMED TO ANALYSE UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES AND IN RELATION TO WHICH EVENTS -USLIM IDENTITY CAME TO THE FORE !NY EXCLUSIVE FOCUS ON AN INDIVIDUALS IDENTITY AS @-USLIM MIS REPRESENTS THE VIEWS OF SELF IDENTITY EXPRESSED BY OUR INTERVIEWEES -EDIA REPRESENTATIONS OF @-USLIMS AS IF THIS IDENTITY SUBSUMED ALL OTHERS WERE Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008  D T Q N O D @ M  I N T Q M @ K  N E  B T KS T Q @ K  R S T C H D R     A FREQUENT SOURCE OF CONSTERNATION AND DISTRESS 4HE LABEL @-USLIM MUST BE READ ALONGSIDE OTHER FORMS OF IDENTIFICATION SUCH AS AGE GENDER PLACE OF BIRTH NATIONALITY RESIDENCE AND OCCUPATION AS WELL AS IN THE CONTEXT OF HUGE VARIATIONS IN BELIEFS AND PRACTICES #LASS IS ANOTHER HIGHLY PROBLEMATIC CATEGORY 4HE INTERPLAY OF ECONOMIC SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CAPITAL IS DYNAMIC 7E HAVE DOCUMENTED THE PROFESSIONAL AND CLASS SELF IDENTIFICATIONS OF RESPONDENTS BUT WE ARE RELUCTANT TO ATTEMPT TO AGGREGATE STATISTICS WHERE RESPONDENTS HAVE CATEGORIZED THEMSELVES IN DIVERSE WAYS !CCESS TO ECONOMIC EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL CAPITAL MAY SHAPE MODES OF ENGAGEMENT WITH NEWS BUT IT DOES NOT DETERMINE THEM 4HE MOBILIZATION OF COSMOPOLITAN CULTURAL CAPITAL IS REFLECTED IN THE ABILITY TO TRANSLATE ACROSS DIFFERENT LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS AND TO ACT AS CULTURAL MEDIATORS AND BROKERS IN WAYS WHICH ENHANCE COMMUNICATION AND UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN DIVERSE GROUPS 4HE TABLES IN THE APPENDIX AND ON OUR PROJECT WEBSITE DOCUMENT INTERVIEWEES MAIN NEWS SOURCES /FTEN THESE ARE CLUSTERS OF SOURCES WITH INTERVIEWEES NAMING NO OUTSTANDING TRUSTED SOURCE .EVERTHELESS WE HAVE BEEN SURPRISED BY THE FREQUENCY WITH WHICH 5+ MAINSTREAM SOURCES THE ""# 3KY AND #HANNEL  RECUR DESPITE THE AVAILABILITY OF MULTILINGUAL AND TRANSNATIONAL NEWS SOURCES 4HIS SUGGESTS A STRONG DESIRE ON THE PART OF MINORITY ETHNIC AND "RITISH -USLIM GROUPS TO PARTICIPATE IN PUBLIC AND NATIONAL DEBATE EVEN IF FEAR OF SPEAKING OUT AND POWERFUL EXCLUSIONARY FORCES COMBINE TO ENCOURAGE SELF CENSORSHIP AND THE SEEKING OUT OF ALTER NATIVE NEWS SOURCES %ACH INTERVIEW WAS RECORDED AND TRANSCRIBED AND AN INTERVIEW REPORT AND PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS SUBMITTED TO THE PROJECT WEBSITE 5SING A QUALI TATIVE DATA ANALYSIS SOFTWARE PROGRAMME .6IVO  ALL INTERVIEW DATA WAS CODED AND CATEGORIZED 4HE .6IVO DATABASE WAS MADE AVAILABLE TO ALL RESEARCHERS ON THE PROJECT AS WELL AS TO SEVERAL OTHERS %THNOGRAPHERS ACCESSED IT TO COMPARE AND CONTRAST THE FINDINGS OF THEIR DOMESTIC AND LOCAL STUDIES AGAINST WIDER PATTERNS AND TRENDS EMERGING ACROSS THE STUDY 4HUS WHILE SOME SAMPLES MAY APPEAR TO BE VERY SMALL AND THE ANALYSES MAY SEEM TO MAGNIFY EVERYDAY MICRO PROCESSES OF POLITICAL TALK RESEARCHERS HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DISCUSS AND SITUATE THEIR FINDINGS IN THE WIDER CONTEXT OF THE OVERALL PROJECT !N E DISCUSSION GROUP ENABLED ONGOING SHARING AND RE EVALUATION OF EMERGENT FINDINGS AS DID OUR NUMEROUS PROJECT MEETINGS 4HIS KIND OF COLLABORATIVE MEDIA ETHNOGRAPHY REMAINS METHODOLOGICALLY UNIQUE AND AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THE KIND OF INTEGRATED RESEARCH DESIGN )--! THAT ENABLES MEDIATIONS PUBLICS POLICIES AND POLITICS TO BE STUDIED AS ASPECTS OF THE SAME COMPLEX PROCESS )NTEGRATED -ULTIDISCIPLINARY -EDIA !NALYSIS CASE STUDY  /NE EXAMPLE MAY SERVE TO ILLUSTRATE HOW THE INTEGRATED RESEARCH APPROACH WORKED IN PRACTICE ! 3TRAND # FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEW IDENTIFIED TELEVISION PRESENTATION OF A SPECIFIC NEWS STORY AS A SOURCE OF CONCERN AMONG 5+ Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008 F H K K D R OH D   D C H SN Q  R  H M S QN C T B S H N M SECURITY AND MILITARY POLICYMAKERS 4HE STORY WAS BASED ON IMAGES OF A 53 MARINE WHO APPEARED TO BE SHOOTING AN )RAQI CIVILIAN IN A MOSQUE IN &ALLUJAH FILMED BY ."# JOURNALIST +EVIN 3ITES IN .OVEMBER  4HE POLICYMAKERS WERE WORRIED THAT NO CONTEXT WAS GIVEN IN NEWS REPORTS AS TO THE TYPE OF OPERATION OR THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT 4HEY FEARED THAT THIS DEPICTION OF @COLD BLOODED MURDER WOULD ADD TO THE MOUNTING NEGATIVE REPORTING OF MILITARY OPERATIONS IN )RAQ 3IX TELEVISION NEWS PRESENTATIONS OF THE FOOTAGE WERE THEN ANALYSED BY 3TRAND " RESEARCHERS 4HEY FOUND THAT ALL WERE TO SOME EXTENT @SANITIZED TYPICAL OF WAR COVERAGE IN MAINSTREAM %NGLISH LANGUAGE MEDIA 4HERE WAS INDEED LITTLE CONTEXTUALIZATION OF THE KIND SOUGHT BY MILITARY POLICYMAKERS (OWEVER THERE WAS MUCH MORE VARIATION IN THE WAY THE FOOTAGE WAS PRE SENTED THAN HAD BEEN PRESUMED BY THE POLICYMAKERS 4HE IMAGES OF THE SHOOTING WERE NOT SIMPLY OR UNIFORMLY REPRESENTED AS MURDER 3IX CLIPS FROM THE FOOTAGE WERE THEN SHOWN TO DIVERSE GROUPS OF INTER VIEWEES BY 3TRAND ! RESEARCHERS 3EVERAL INTERVIEWEES EXPRESSED SURPRISE THAT THEY HAD NOT REGISTERED THIS PARTICULAR INCIDENT AT THE TIME OF ITS OCCUR RENCE 4HEY AGREED THAT THIS WAS PROBABLY BECAUSE IT FITTED A DOMINANT NARRATIVE NEWS PATTERN OF 53 ABUSE AND ATROCITY @WE HAVE HEARD SO MUCH OF WHAT GOES ON IN )RAQ OF THIS NATURE  "UT SOME FOUND THE FOOTAGE SHOCKING EVEN @TOO GRAPHIC )NTERVIEWEES WERE DIVIDED OVER WHETHER IT HAD BEEN NECESSARY TO SHOW THE SHOOTING BUT AFTER DISCUSSION MOST JUDGED THAT IT WAS @IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST TO SHOW THE WHOLE SEQUENCE 3TRAND ! INTERVIEWEES RECOGNIZED THAT VARIOUS @SANITIZING DEVICES HAD BEEN USED IN PRESENTING THE FOOTAGE SUCH AS BLACK SCREENS AND CUTTING THE SOUND TRACK AT THE MOMENT OF DEATH (OWEVER RATHER THAN SANITIZE THE EVENT THESE DEVICES WERE SEEN TO DRAMATIZE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IT 4HIS PER CEPTION CORRELATED WITH RESPONDENTS MORE GENERAL VIEWS ON THE USE OF OTHER KINDS OF ROUTINE SANITIZING DEVICES SUCH AS EDITING OUT THE MOMENT OF EXECUTION FROM TERRORIST BEHEADING VIDEOS 4HESE TOO WERE CONSIDERED TO EXACERBATE RATHER THAN ASSUAGE FEELINGS OF REPULSION AND DISGUST )NTER VIEWEES REPORTED VIVIDLY IMAGINING THE SCENES OF VIOLENCE AND DEATH UNDERLYING THE BLANKED OUT SCREENS AND SILENCES 3OME INTERVIEWEES JUDGED THE INCIDENT TO BE AN ACT OF @MURDER BASED ON HOW IT WAS ANCHORED WHAT THEY SAW AND WHAT THEY THOUGHT IT MEANT /THERS PROBLEMATIZED ANY EASY EQUATION BETWEEN SEEING AND KNOWING AND ARGUED THAT CONTEXTUAL INFORMATION MIGHT HAVE BEEN OMITTED FROM THE REPORT FOR EXAMPLE THE MARINES ACTION MIGHT BE JUSTIFIABLE BECAUSE @THE GUY WAS JUST ABOUT TO EXPLODE A GRENADE "OTH REPRESENTATION AND INTERPRETATION OF EVENTS CAN BE MORE VARIED AND MORE CRITICAL THAN THE MILITARY INTERVIEWEES SUPPOSED !UDIENCES ARE OFTEN MORE REFLECTIVE THAN PROFESSIONALS ASSUME 4HE VALUE OF INTEGRATED RESEARCH IS SHOWN HERE BY THE WAY IN WHICH AN ITERATIVE AND REFLEXIVE APPROACH CAN LAY THE FOUNDATIONS FOR A MORE ROUNDED ANALYSIS Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008  D T Q N O D @ M  I N T Q M @ K  N E  B T KS T Q @ K  R S T C H D R     4HE ARTICLES  +AREN 1URESHIS ARTICLE ESTABLISHES THEMES WHICH RECUR IN MANY OF OUR REPORTS 3HE ADDRESSES QUESTIONS OF @CITIZENSHIP AS BELONGING BY COMPARING THE MEMORIES HOPES AND CONCERNS OF TWO FAMILIES LIVING IN %DINBURGH A @WHITE #HRISTIAN FAMILY AND A 0AKISTANI -USLIM FAMILY WITH SIMILAR CLASS POSITIONS EDUCATIONAL AND ECONOMIC CAPITAL BUT RADICALLY DIFFERENT IN TERMS OF FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT AND FEELINGS OF HUMAN SECURITY AS WELL AS POLITICAL AWARENESS @4HERE WAS A TIME ) WOULD HAVE BEEN PREPARED TO DIE FOR THIS COUNTRY n THIS IS A COUNTRY THAT HAS GIVEN ME EVERYTHING "UT THE WAY n THERE HAVE BEEN A FEW INCIDENTS HAVE HAPPENEDx -ASOOD IN HIS S GOES ON TO DESCRIBE HOW AN ENCOUNTER WITH AIRPORT CUSTOMS WHERE HE WAS SINGLED OUT AND HARASSED LEFT HIM FEELING DIMINISHED (IS FEELINGS OF ATTACHMENT TO "RITAIN HAVE CHANGED (E FEELS HIS STATUS AS A "RITISH CITIZEN IS UNDER ATTACK (E AND HIS FAMILY NO LONGER FEEL SAFE IN THEIR HOME -EDIA REPRESENTATIONS LINKING -USLIMS WITH TERROR MAKE HIM ASK @7ILL THERE COME A TIME WHEN WELL GET SENT BACK TO 0AKISTAN &OR THE @WHITE %DINBURGH FAMILY UP THE ROAD HOWEVER LIFE PROCEEDS AS NORMAL DESPITE DIFFUSE CONCERNS ABOUT @"RITISHNESS BEING ERODED BY @MULTICULTURALISM AND ABOUT THE PURPORTED POWER OF -USLIMS TO CHANGE THE #HRISTIAN ETHOS OF THE COUNTRY 0OLITICALLY INDIFFERENT MOST OF THE TIME THE FAMILY FEELS ENGAGED AND INSECURE ONLY ONCE DURING THE RESEARCH PROCESS WHEN THE FATHERS WORKPLACE IS TEMPORARILY BESIEGED BY ANTI GLOBALIZATION PROTESTORS 1URESHIS ARTICLE DESCRIBES ALARMING POLARIZATIONS AS TWO SIMILAR @QUIET WEE FAMILIES EXPERIENCE SHIFTS IN GLOBALnLOCAL POWER RELATIONS IN VASTLY DIFFERENT WAYS !MMAR !L 'HABBAN A TEACHER IN 4OWER (AMLETS IN THE %AST %ND OF ,ONDON INVESTIGATES HOW YOUNG PEOPLE MAINLY YOUNG WOMEN FEEL ABOUT THE NEWS THAT COMES AT THEM FROM ALL ANGLES IN MULTIPLE LANGUAGES 4HEY COME ACROSS AS INTERESTED IN ACCESSING THE TRUTH BUT PREFERRING TO HAVE IT TRANSMITTED TO THEIR MOBILE PHONES IN BITE SIZED CHUNKS /NE GROUP OF YOUNG WOMEN SPEAK OF THE NEWS AS APOCALYPTIC HERALDING THE END OF THE WORLD /THERS JUST PUT BAD NEWS OUT OF THEIR MINDS 3OME OF THE YOUNG "ANGLADESHI WOMEN INTERVIEWED TAKE THE THREAT OF TERROR ATTACKS MUCH MORE SERIOUSLY THAN @WHITE "RITISH WOMEN WITH A SIMILAR CLASS AND LOCAL BACKGROUND -OST TEENAGERS COMBINE A REVOLTED FASCINATION WITH IMAGES OF TORTURE AND CYNICISM ABOUT WHAT IF ANYTHING IS TO BE BELIEVED 9ET CYNICISM CAN FEED INTO DOGMATIC THINKING AND BELIEFS AND TO A FORM OF CONSPIRACY PARANOIA WHICH IGNORES THE STATE ITS NON LEGITIMACY TAKEN FOR GRANTED AND FOCUSES ON THE VENAL DECEPTIONS OF MEDIA CORPORATIONS 3ADAF 2IVZIS ARTICLE SHOWS HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO OPEN UP COMMUNICATIVE SPACES FOR -USLIM WOMEN MARGINALIZED IN POLITICAL DEBATE 4HE GROUPS OF WOMEN WHO CONGREGATED IN EACH OTHERS HOUSES AND CHATTED WITH 3ADAF WERE MAINLY 5RDU AND 0UNJABI SPEAKING HOUSEWIVES SPANNING A WIDE AGE RANGE WITH VERY DIFFERENT LIFE STORIES 3ADAF USES CONCEPTS PROVIDED BY Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008 F H K K D R OH D   D C H SN Q  R  H M S QN C T B S H N M HER INFORMANTS AS ANALYTICAL TERMS n ESPECIALLY THE NOTION OF APNA WHICH ROUGHLY TRANSLATES AS @BELONGING TO PEOPLE LIKE US )N THIS REVEALING AND AT TIMES POIGNANT ARTICLE THE WOMEN HEROICALLY RESIST THE RESEARCHERS WELL INTENTIONED EFFORTS TO COAX THEM TO EXPRESS THEIR VIEWS INDEPENDENTLY OF THOSE OF THEIR SONS HUSBANDS AND OTHER MALE RELATIVES TO WHOM 2IZVI IS CONSTANTLY BEING REFERRED $AVID (ERBERTS ARTICLE SHOWS HOW ATTITUDES TOWARDS TERROR IN .ORTHERN )RELAND HAVE BEEN DE ROMANTICIZED BY THE EVENTS OF  AND ITS AFTERMATH (E EMPHASIZES THE CROSS CUTTING LEGITIMACY OF THE ""# SEEN AS THE ONLY REASONABLY RELIABLE SOURCE OF NEWS IN THE 5+ BUT ALSO THE EXTENT TO WHICH NEWS OF TERRORIST EVENTS IN .ORTHERN )RELAND IS NOW KEPT OUT OF THE 5+ MEDIA BECAUSE IT NO LONGER SUITS THE NEW SECURITY POLICY AGENDA OF THE "RITISH GOVERNMENT :AHBIA 9OUSUFS ARTICLE BASED ON INTERVIEWS WITH PEOPLE IN )NDIAN HOUSE HOLDS IN ,ONDON AND .ORTHERN )RELAND MAKES IMPORTANT COMPARATIVE POINTS ABOUT PLURAL IDENTIFICATIONS OVERLAPPING AND SOMETIMES CONFLICTING BETWEEN "RITISHNESS AND OTHER FORMS OF BELONGING 3HE EXAMINES HOW MULTILAYERED IDENTIFICATIONS SHAPE UNDERSTANDINGS AND FEELINGS OF AND TO WARDS "RITISHNESS BELONGING AND CITIZENSHIP AND IMPACT ON JUDGEMENTS AND PERCEPTIONS OF THE LEGITIMACY OF STATE SECURITY POLICY 4HE LAST TWO ARTICLES REFLECT OUR CONCERN WITH TESTING EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGIES (ABIBA .OOR USES A MEDIA PRODUCTION SIMULATION EXERCISE WITH YOUNG -USLIM WOMEN IN ,ONDON AND .EW 9ORK IN ORDER TO EXPLORE PERCEPTIONS OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS MEDIA AND LOCAL AUDIENCES OR AS .OOR PUTS IT HOW THESE YOUNG WOMEN SITUATE THEMSELVES IN RELATION TO @A TRANS HISTORICAL DISCOURSE OF -USLIM REPRESENTATION 4HIS FORMS PART OF .OORS LARGER PROJECT IN WHICH DIVERSE RESEARCH SUBJECTS CONSTRUCTED THEIR OWN SEQUENCES OF VIDEO IMAGES AND SCRIPTED VOICEOVERS REGARDING THE )RAQ WAR 6IDEOS CAN BE VIEWED ON THE PROJECT WEBSITE WWWMEDIATINGSECURITYCOM  !KIL !WANS REPORT IS UNIQUE IN NOT BEING BASED ON INTERVIEWS (E ATTEMPTS A @VIRTUAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF @JIHADIST SITES -ANY SUCH SITES AS WELL AS THEIR VISITORS DESIGNERS AND SERVERS HAVE BEEN HARASSED AS PART OF THE WAR ON TERROR !NY SITE WHICH SURVIVES FOR A LONG TIME IS DEEMED BY VIRTUAL JIHADISTS TO BE #)! FUNDED AND THUS PART OF A CONSPIRACY TO PRESENT RADICAL -USLIMS AS THE MAIN ENEMIES OF 7ESTERN DEMOCRACY !WAN ARGUES THAT UNDERSTANDABLE FEELINGS OF FRUSTRATION FEAR RAGE AND UPSET REGARDING THE SUFFERINGS OF )SLAMIC COMMUNITIES WORLDWIDE CANNOT SIMPLY BE @SHUT DOWN /THER MORE VIOLENT FORMS OF EXPRESSION MAY BECOME MORE ATTRACTIVE IF THE VIRTUAL JIHADIST MOVEMENT IS BLOCKED !CTS OF INTERNET COMMUNICATION ARE NOT VIOLENT IN THEMSELVES THOUGH JIHADIST VISUAL AND TEXTUAL CONTENTS MAY BE !WAN DOUBTS WHETHER EXPOSURE TO JIHADIST SITES COULD EVER @TURN ANYONE INTO A TERRORIST BUT WHEN STATE VIOLENCE IS CONDONED SOME WILL DEEM RETALIATORY VIOLENCE BY NON STATE ACTORS LEGITIMATE n VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008  D T Q N O D @ M  I N T Q M @ K  N E  B T KS T Q @ K  R S T C H D R     &INALLY THREE PIECES BY %UROPEAN SCHOLARS RESPOND TO THE RESEARCH REPORTS 4HE AIM IS TO EXPAND THE POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL RESONANCES OF THIS VOLUME BEYOND THE 5+ (ELEN (INTJENS WRITING FROM 4HE (AGUE EXPRESSES DISMAY AT THE @BESIEGED SITUATION OF MINORITIES AND THE EXCLU SIONARY FORMS OF CITIZENSHIP IN THE @BRAVE NEW %UROPE AS ITS FORTRESS WALLS ARE DRAWN NOT JUST AROUND BUT EVERYWHERE WITHIN 3HE VIEWS THE ARTICLES AS SUGGESTING THAT CITIZENS ARE INCREASINGLY OBJECTS AND TARGETS OF PROPAGANDA RATHER THAN INFORMED BY NEWS MEDIA AND THAT DECLINING STATE LEGITIMACY CANNOT EASILY BE RESTORED !RND -ICHAEL .OHL WRITING FROM (AMBURG FROM A MEDIA EDUCATION PERSPECTIVE ADDRESSES THE ISSUE OF WHAT CONSTITUTES LEARNING FROM NEWS AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NEWS MEDIA AUDIENCES AND THE DELIBERATIVE PRACTICES OF PUBLICS AND CITIZENS 4HE STUDY OF MEDIATED DEMOCRATIC EN GAGEMENT REQUIRES AN ANALYSIS OF INFORMAL AS WELL AS FORMAL PROCESSES OF DELIBERATION AND THEIR IMPACT (E ARGUES THAT THE CONCEPT OF @CULTURES OF MEDIA PRACTICE AND OF @MEDIA BILDUNG ARE USEFUL IF WE ARE TO GRASP THE CREATIVE AND TRANSFORMATIVE POTENTIAL OF INFORMAL LEARNING FROM NEWS &INALLY 7ERNER 3CHIFFAUER WRITING FROM "ERLIN POINTS TO THE TROUBL ING CONVERGENCE OF EXCLUSIONARY STATE PRACTICES AND POLICIES DIRECTED AT %UROPEAN -USLIMS DESPITE SHARP DISTINCTIONS IN APPROACHES TO MULTICUL TURALISM IN THE 5+ AND 'ERMANY 4HIS CONVERGENCE HE ARGUES AIMS AT AN EXCLUSIONARY %UROPEAN IDENTITY PREMISED ON A POLARIZATION BETWEEN -USLIMS AND NON -USLIMS (E TOO SEES THE REPORTS AS REFLECTING THE INCREASINGLY PRECARIOUS AND PROVISIONAL QUALITY OF THE CITIZENSHIP STATUS OF RACIALIZED MINORITIES )S A RETREAT INTO DEFENSIVE IDENTITIES AND A RELUCTANCE TO ENTER INTO PUBLIC DEBATE SURPRISING IN THIS CONTEXT .O !ND DOES THIS NOT UNDERMINE THE VERY IDEA OF MULTICULTURAL DEMOCRACY AND CITIZENSHIP 3ADLY OUR RESEARCH GIVES US REASON TO THINK THAT THIS IS THE CASE 9ET THE PASSION WITH WHICH THE NEW POLITICS OF SECURITY IS CONTESTED OFFERS A MEAS URE OF HOPE FOR THE FUTURE !CKNOWLEDGEMENTS 3PECIAL THANKS TO $R 4OM #HEESMAN FOR HIS EDITORIAL ASSISTANCE THROUGHOUT THIS SPECIAL ISSUE 4HE SECTION ON HOW THE INTEGRATED RESEARCH DESIGN WORKED IN PRACTICE IS TAKEN DIRECTLY FROM THE FINAL PROJECT REPORT TO THE %32# AUTHORED JOINTLY BY -ARIE 'ILLESPIE *AMES 'OW AND !NDREW (OSKINS WITH ASSISTANCE FROM "EN /,OUGHLIN AND )VAN :VERZHANOVSKI TO ALL OF WHOM GO MANY THANKS  3PECIAL THANKS ARE DUE TO $R "EN / ,OUGHLIN FOR HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ETHNOGRAPHIC STRAND OF THE PROJECT AND TO THIS ARTICLE 4HANKS TOO TO $R !NDREW (ILL AND TO $R $ORLE $RACKLE FOR THEIR COMMENTS ON EARLY DRAFTS ) WOULD ALSO LIKE TO THANK $R (ELEN - (INTJENS AND 0ROFESSORS !RND -ICHAEL .OHL AND 7ERNER 3CHIFFAUER FOR THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS .EEDLESS TO SAY THIS SPECIAL ISSUE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE WITHOUT THE COMMITMENT AND ENERGY OF THE RESEARCHERS WHO CONDUCTED THE RESEARCH )T HAS NOT BEEN POSSIBLE TO PUBLISH ALL THEIR WORK SO ) WOULD Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008 F H K K D R OH D   D C H SN Q  R  H M S QN C T B S H N M LIKE TO THANK 3OMNATH "ATABYAL .OUREDDINE -ILADI AND !TIF )MTIAZ FOR THEIR WORK ON THE PROJECT "UT MOST OF ALL WARM THANKS TO ALL THOSE WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE STUDY AND OFFERED US INSIGHTS INTO THEIR PRIVATE AND PUBLIC LIVES )T IS TO THEM THAT WE DEDICATE THIS SPECIAL ISSUE 2EFERENCES !GAMBEN '  3TATE OF %XCEPTION TRANSLATED BY + !TTELL  #HICAGO ), 5NIVERSITY OF #HICAGO 0RESS !KSOY !  @4RANSNATIONAL 6IRTUES AND #OOL ,OYALTIES 2ESPONSES OF 4URKISH 3PEAKING -IGRANTS IN ,ONDON TO 3EPTEMBER  *OURNAL OF %THNIC AND -IGRATION 3TUDIES   n "AUMAN :  ,IQUID -ODERNITY #AMBRIDGE 0OLITY "AUMAN :  ,IQUID &EAR #AMBRIDGE 0OLITY "ECK 5  2ISK 3OCIETY 4OWARDS A .EW -ODERNITY ,ONDON 3AGE "ECK 5  7ORLD 2ISK 3OCIETY #AMBRIDGE 0OLITY "ECK 5  @4HE 4ERRORIST 4HREAT 7ORLD 2ISK 3OCIETY 2EVISITED 4HEORY #ULTURE  3OCIETY   n #OOPER -  @0RE %MPTING %MERGENCE 4HE "IOLOGICAL 4URN IN THE 7AR ON 4ERROR 4HEORY #ULTURE AND 3OCIETY   n $AS 6  #RITICAL %VENTS !NTHROPOLOGICAL !PPROACHES TO #ONTEMPORARY )NDIA ,ONDON AND .EW $ELHI 2OUTLEDGE $ILLON -  @'OVERNING 4ERROR 4HE 3TATE OF %MERGENCY OF "IOPOLITICAL %MERGENCE )NTERNATIONAL 0OLITICAL 3OCIOLOGY  n 'ILLESPIE - A @4RANSNATIONAL 4ELEVISION !UDIENCES AFTER 3EPTEMBER   *OURNAL OF %THNIC AND -IGRATION 3TUDIES   n 'ILLESPIE - B @3ECURITY -EDIA ,EGITIMACY -ULTI %THNIC -EDIA 0UBLICS AND THE )RAQ 7AR  )NTERNATIONAL 2ELATIONS   n 'OW *  $EFENDING THE 7EST #AMBRIDGE 0OLITY 'OWING .  @4YRANNY IN 2EAL 4IME 0RESENTATION AT THE TH &ORUM ON 'LOBAL )SSUES &EDERAL &OREIGN /FFICE "ERLIN 'ERMANY n &EBRUARY ;!CCESSED  !PRIL  HTTPWWWUNI STUTTGARTDESOZKVVINDEX PHPACT!TTACHTYPEPOSTID= 'RUSIN 2  @2EMEDIATION #RITICISM   n (OSKINS ! AND /,OUGHLIN "  4ELEVISION AND 4ERROR #ONFLICTING 4IMES AND THE #RISIS OF .EWS $ISCOURSE ,ONDON 0ALGRAVE (UYSMANS * AND "UONFINO !  @4HE 0OLITICS OF %XCEPTION AND 5NEASE )MMIGRATION !SYLUM AND )NSECURITY IN 0ARLIAMENTARY $EBATES ON 4ERRORISM IN THE 5+ 0APER PRESENTED AT THE !NNUAL #ONFERENCE OF THE "RITISH )NTERNATIONAL 3TUDIES !SSOCIATION 5NIVERSITY OF 3T !NDREWS n $ECEMBER ,IVINGSTONE 3 ED  !UDIENCES AND 0UBLICS 7HEN #ULTURAL %NGAGEMENT -ATTERS FOR THE 0UBLIC 3PHERE "RISTOL )NTELLECT "OOKS -ICHALSKI - AND 'OW *  7AR )MAGE AND ,EGITIMACY 6IEWING #ONTEMPORARY #ONFLICT ,ONDON 2OUTLEDGE -URJI + AND 3OLOMOS *  2ACIALISATION 3TUDIES IN 4HEORY AND 0RACTICE /XFORD /XFORD 5NIVERSITY 0RESS /&#/-  !FTER 3EPTEMBER  46 .EWS AND 4RANSNATIONAL !UDIENCES 'ILLESPIE - AND #HEESMAN 4 @0ART 4WO !UDIENCE 2ESEARCH 2EPORT Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008  D T Q N O D @ M  I N T Q M @ K  N E  B T KS T Q @ K  R S T C H D R     "ROADCASTING 3TANDARDS #OMMISSION AND )NDEPENDENT 4ELEVISION #OMMISSION ;NOW /&#/-= ;HTTPWWWBSCORGUKPDFSRESEARCHPDF= 0OWER #OMMISSION  0OWER TO THE 0EOPLE 4HE 2EPORT OF 0OWER AN )NDEPENDENT 2EPORT ON "RITISH $EMOCRACY 9ORK 9ORK 0UBLISHERS ;HTTPWWWPARLIAMENTUKCOMMONSLIBRESEARCHNOTESSNPC PDF= 2OSENAU *.  $ISTANT 0ROXIMITIES $YNAMICS "EYOND 'LOBALISATION 0RINCETON .* 0RINCETON 5NIVERSITY 0RESS 3ASSEN 3  4ERRITORY !UTHORITY 2IGHTS &ROM -EDIEVAL TO 'LOBAL !SSEMBLAGES 0RINCETON .* 0RINCETON 5NIVERSITY 0RESS 3HAW -  4HE .EW 7ESTERN 7AY OF 7AR #AMBRIDGE 0OLITY 3ILVERSTONE 2 AND 'EORGIOU -  @%DITORIAL )NTRODUCTION -EDIA AND -INORITIES IN -ULTICULTURAL %UROPE *OURNAL OF %THNIC AND -IGRATION 3TUDIES   n 4AYLOR 'OOBY 0 AND :INN *  @#URRENT $IRECTIONS IN 2ISK 2ESEARCH 2EINVIGORATING THE 3OCIAL 3OCIAL #ONTEXTS AND 2ESPONSES TO 2ISK 3#!22 7ORKING 0APER  ;!CCESSED  !PRIL  HTTPWWWKENTACUK SCARRPAPERSTAYLOR GOBY:INN7K0APERPDF= !PPENDIX 4ABLE  3UMMARY OF DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION 4OTAL  RESPONDENTS 'ENDER &REQUENCY 0ERCENTAGE -ALE &EMALE     &REQUENCY 0ERCENTAGE               &REQUENCY 0ERCENTAGE !GE n n n n n n  2ELIGION #HRISTIAN -USLIM (INDU *EWISH .O RELIGION 5NKNOWN              CONTINUED Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008 F H K K D R OH D   D C H SN Q  R  H M S QN C T B S H N M 4ABLE  CONTINUED 0LACE OF BIRTH IF NOT 5+ 3OUTH !SIA %AST !SIA -IDDLE %AST .ORTH !FRICA /THER !FRICA %UROPE #ARIBBEAN .ORTH !MERICA .ORTHERN )RELAND 2EPUBLIC OF )RELAND &REQUENCY 0ERCENTAGE                     )NCLUDES !FGHANISTAN AND 4URKEY "IOGRAPHICAL NOTE -ARIE 'ILLESPIE IS 0ROFESSOR OF 3OCIOLOGY AT THE /PEN 5NIVERSITY (ER RECENT /PEN 5NIVERSITY TEACHING TEXTS INCLUDE AN EDITED VOLUME -EDIA !UDIENCES  AND A CO EDITED VOLUME WITH *ASON 4OYNBEE !NALYSING -EDIA 4EXTS   3HE IS MEDIA RESEARCH CONVENOR AT THE %32# #ENTRE FOR 2ESEARCH ON 3OCIO #ULTURAL #HANGE WWWCRESCACUKRESEARCHTHEMEINDEXHTML  2ECENT RESEARCH PROJECTS INCLUDE A COLLABORATIVE ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE RECEPTION OF MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE ATTACKS OF  AMONG TRANSNATIONAL AUDIENCES HTTPAFTERSEPTEMBERTV AND A MULTIDISCIPLINARY PROJECT REPORTED ON HERE ON TRANSNATIONAL NEWS CULTURES AND THE POLITICS OF SECURITY WWWMEDIATINGSECURITYCOM  (ER MOST RECENT RESEARCH IS AN !(2# FUNDED PROJECT @4UNING )N $IASPORIC #ONTACT :ONES AT ""# 7ORLD 3ERVICE HTTPWWWOPENACUKSOCIALSCIENCESDIASPORAS  (ER PUBLICATIONS INCLUDE A MONOGRAPH ENTITLED 4ELEVISION %THNICITY AND #ULTURAL #HANGE 2OUTLEDGE   ! $ $ 2 % 3 3  &ACULTY OF 3OCIAL 3CIENCES 4HE /PEN 5NIVERSITY 7ALTON (ALL -ILTON +EYNES -+ !! 5+ ;EMAIL MGILLESPIE OPENACUK=  Downloaded from http://ecs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on November 25, 2008 International Journal of Cultural Studies http://ics.sagepub.com Popular media as public 'sphericules' for diasporic communities Stuart Cunningham International Journal of Cultural Studies 2001; 4; 131 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ics.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/4/2/131 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for International Journal of Cultural Studies can be found at: Email Alerts: http://ics.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://ics.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav Downloaded from http://ics.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on December 17, 2008 01cunningham (ds) 2/5/01 8:49 am Page 131 ARTICLE INTERNATIONAL journal of CULTURAL studies Copyright © 2001 SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi Volume 4(2): 131–147 [1367-8779(200106)4:2; 131–147; 017215] Popular media as public ‘sphericules’ for diasporic communities ● Stuart Cunningham Queensland University of Technology ● The dynamics of ‘diasporic’ video, television, cinema, music and Internet use – where peoples displaced from homelands by migration, refugee status or business and economic imperative use media to negotiate new cultural identities – offer challenges for how media and culture are understood in our times. Drawing on research published in Floating Lives: The Media and Asian Diasporas, on dynamics that are industrial (the pathways by which these media travel to their multifarious destinations), textual and audience-related (types of diasporic style and practice where popular culture debates and moral panics are played out in culturally divergent circumstances among communities marked by internal difference and external ‘othering’), the article will interrogate further the nature of the public ‘sphericules’ formed around diasporic media. ● ABSTRACT KEYWORDS ● diaspora ● ethnic minorities ● media ● public sphere The research team that authored Floating Lives: The Media and Asian Diasporas (Cunningham and Sinclair, 2000) mapped the mediascapes of Asian diasporic communities against the background of the theoretical and policy territory of understanding media use in contemporary, culturally plural societies. In this article, I will take further than Floating Lives the nature of the public spheres activated around diasporic media as a specific form of public communication, by engaging with public sphere debates and assessing the contribution that the research conducted for Floating Lives might make to those debates. Downloaded from http://ics.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on December 17, 2008 01cunningham (ds) 132 2/5/01 8:49 am Page 132 I N T E R N AT I O N A L journal of C U LT U R A L studies 4(2) The public sphere, in its classic sense advanced in the work of Jürgen Habermas (1989 [1962]), is a space of open debate standing against the state as a special subset of civil society in which the logic of ‘democratic equivalence’ is cultivated. The concept has been used regularly in the fields of media, cultural and communications studies to theorize the media’s articulation between the state and civil society. Indeed, Nicholas Garnham claimed in the mid-1990s that the public sphere had replaced the concept of hegemony as the central motivating idea in media and cultural studies (Garnham, 1995). This is certainly an overstatement, but it is equally certain that, almost 40 years since Habermas first published his public sphere argument, and almost 30 years since it was first published in outline in English (Habermas, 1974), the debate continues strongly over how progressive elements of civil societies are constructed and how media support, inhibit or, indeed, are coterminous with such self-determining public communication. The debate is marked out at either end of the spectrum by those, on the one hand, for whom the contemporary western public sphere has been tarnished or even fatally compromised by the encroachment of particularly commercial media and communications (for example, Schiller, 1989). On the other hand, there are those for whom the media have become the main, if not the only, vehicle for whatever can be held to exist of the public sphere in such societies. Such ‘media-centric’ theorists in these fields can hold that the media actually envelop the public sphere: The ‘mediasphere’ is the whole universe of media . . . in all languages in all countries. It therefore completely encloses and contains as a differentiated part of itself the (Habermasian) public sphere (or the many public spheres), and it is itself contained by the much larger semiosphere . . . which is the whole universe of sense-making by whatever means, including speech . . . it is clear that television is a crucial site of the mediasphere and a crucial mediator between general cultural sense-making systems (the semiosphere) and specialist components of social sense-making like the public sphere. Hence the public sphere can be rethought not as a category binarily contrasted with its implied opposite, the private sphere, but as a ‘Russian doll’ enclosed within a larger mediasphere, itself enclosed within the semiosphere. And within ‘the’ public sphere, there may equally be found, Russian-doll style, further countercultural, oppositional or minoritarian public spheres. (Hartley, 1999: 217–18) Hartley’s topography has the virtue of clarity, scope and heuristic utility, even while it remains provocatively media-centric. This is mostly due to Hartley’s commitment to the strictly textual provenance of public communication, and to his greater interest in Lotman’s notion of the semiosphere than Habermas’ modernist understanding that the public sphere stands outside and even against its ‘mediatization’. Downloaded from http://ics.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on December 17, 2008 01cunningham (ds) 2/5/01 8:49 am Page 133 Cunningham ● Popular media as public ‘sphericules’ I will complicate that topography by suggesting that minoritarian public spheres are rarely subsets of classic nationally bound public spheres but are none the less vibrant, globalized but very specific spaces of self- and community-making and identity (see, for example, Husband, 1998). I agree with Hartley, however, in his iconoclastic insistence that the commercial realm must be factored into the debate more centrally and positively than it has been to date. Diasporic media entrepreneurs and producers are mostly uninterested in or wary of the state, in part because the copyright status of much of their production is dubious. I will also stress another neglected aspect of the public sphere debate developed by Jim McGuigan (1998: 92) – the ‘affective’ as much as ‘effective’ dimension of public communication, which allows for an adequate grasp of entertainment in a debate dominated by ratiocinative and informational activity. McGuigan speaks of a ‘rather softer’ conception of the public sphere than is found in the work of Habermas and others (1998: 98) and develops these ideas around the significance of affective popular politics expressed through media mobilization of western responses to poverty and aid campaigns. Underdeveloped, though, and tantalisingly so, is the role played by the entertainment content of the media in the formation and reproduction of public communication (McGuigan, 1998: 98, quoting Garnham, 1992: 274). This is the domain on which such strongly opposed writers as McGuigan and Hartley might begin to at least share an object of study. Todd Gitlin has posed the question as to whether we can continue to speak of the ideal of the public sphere as an increasingly complex, polyethnic, communications-saturated series of societies develop around the world. Rather, what might be emerging are numerous public ‘sphericules’: ‘does it not look as though the public sphere, in falling, has shattered into a scatter of globules, like mercury?’ (Gitlin, 1998: 173). Gitlin’s answer is the deeply pessimistic one of seeing the future as the irretrievable loss of elements of a modernist public commonality. The spatial metaphor of fragmentation, of dissolution, of the centre not holding, assumes that there is a singular nation-state to anchor it. Thinking of public sphericules as constituted beyond the singular nation-state, as global narrowcasting of polity and culture, assists in restoring them to a place – not necessarily counter-hegemonic but certainly culturally plural and dynamically contending with western forms for recognition – of undeniable importance for contemporary, culturally plural societies and any media, cultural and communication studies claiming similar contemporaneity. There are now several claims for such public sphericules. One can speak of a feminist public sphere and international public sphericules constituted around environmental or human rights issues. They may take the form of ‘subaltern counterpublics’, as Nancy Fraser (1992) calls them, or they may be termed taste cultures, such as those formed around gay style (which doesn’t Downloaded from http://ics.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on December 17, 2008 133 01cunningham (ds) 134 2/5/01 8:49 am Page 134 I N T E R N AT I O N A L journal of C U LT U R A L studies 4(2) of course exclude them from acting as ‘counterpublics’). As John Hartley and Allen McKee put it in The Indigenous Public Sphere (2000: 3), these are possibly peculiar examples of public spheres because they are not predicated on any nation that a public sphere usually expresses – they are the ‘civil societies’ of nations without borders, without state institutions and without citizens. These authors go on to suggest that such public spheres might stand as a model for developments in late modern culture generally, with do-it-yourself citizenship based on culture, identity and voluntary belonging rather than based on rights derived from, and obligations to, a state. My present argument is in part a contribution to the elaboration of just such a project. However, there are still undeniably relations of dominance, and ‘mainstreams’ and ‘peripheries’; the metaphor is not simply a series of sphericules, overlapping to a greater or lesser extent. Although this latter explanatory model goes some distance in explaining the complexity of overlapping taste cultures, identity formations, social commitments and specialist understandings that constitute the horizon of many if not most citizens/consumers in post-industrial societies, there are broad consensuses and agenda-setting capabilities that cannot be gainsaid in enthusiasm for embracing tout court a ‘capillary’ model of power. The key, as Hartley and McKee identify, is the degree of control over the meanings created about and within the sphericule (2000: 3, 7) and by which this control is exercised. In contrast to Gitlin, then, I argue that ethno-specific global mediatized communities display in microcosm elements we would expect to find in ‘the’ public sphere. Such activities may constitute valid and indeed dynamic counter-examples to a discourse of decline and fragmentation, while taking full account of contemporary vectors of communication in a globalizing, commercializing and pluralizing world. Ongoing public sphere debates in the field, then, continue to be structured around dualisms which are arguably less aids than inhibitors of analysis: dualisms such as public–private, information–entertainment, cognition– affect or emotion, public versus commercial culture and – the ‘master’ dualism – public sphere in the singular or plural. What follows is no pretence at a Hegelian Aufhebung (transcendence) catching up these dualisms in a grand synthesis, but rather a contribution to a more positive account of the operations of media-based public communication – in this case, ethno-specific diasporic sphericules – which place a different slant on highly generalized debates about globalization, commercialization and the fate of public communication in these contexts. The ethno-specific mediatized sphericule First, they are indeed ‘sphericules’; that is, they are social fragments that do not have critical mass. Nevertheless, they share many of the characteristics Downloaded from http://ics.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on December 17, 2008 01cunningham (ds) 2/5/01 8:49 am Page 135 Cunningham ● Popular media as public ‘sphericules’ of the classically conceived public sphere – they provide a central site for public communication in globally dispersed communities, stage communal difference and discord productively, and work to articulate insider ethnospecific identities – which are by definition ‘multi-national’, even global – to the wider ‘host’ environments. The audience research for Floating Lives was conducted in communities in Australia. Although Australia is, in proportional terms, the world’s second-largest immigrant nation next to Israel, the relatively low numbers of any individual group (at present, more than 150 ethnic groups speaking over 100 different languages) has meant that a critical mass of a few dominant Non-English Speaking Background (NESB) groupings has not made the impact that Hispanic peoples, for example, have made in the United States. No one non-Anglo Celt ethnic group has, therefore, reached ‘critical mass’ in terms of being able to operate significantly as a self-contained community in the nation. For this reason, Australia offers a useful laboratory for testing notions of diasporic communities that need to be ‘de-essentialized’, adapted to conditions where ethnicities and sub-ethnicities jostle in ways that would have been unlikely or impossible in their respective homeland settings or where long and sustained patterns of immigration have produced a critical mass of singular ethnicities. Sinclair et al.’s (2000) study of the Chinese in Floating Lives posits that the sources, socioeconomic backgrounds and circumstances of Chinese immigrant arrivals in Australia have been much more diverse than those of Chinese communities in the other great contemporary immigrant-receiving countries such as the United States, Canada, Britain and New Zealand, or earlier immigrant-receiving countries in Southeast Asia, South America, Europe and Africa. To make sense of ‘the’ Chinese community is to break it down into a series of complex and often interrelated sub-groupings based on geographical origin – mainland (PRC), Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore), Taiwan, Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), Hong Kong – together with overlapping language and dialect use. Similarly, Cunningham and Nguyen’s (2000) Vietnamese study shows that there are significant differences among quite a small population along axes of generation, ethnicity, region of the home country, education and class, and recency of arrival and conditions under which arrival took place. And for the Fiji Indians in Manas Ray’s work (2000), if it was legislated racial discrimination that compelled them to leave Fiji, in Australia they find themselves ‘othered’ by, and othering, the mainland Indian groupings who contest the authenticity of Fiji Indian claims to rootedness in Indian popular culture. The formats for diasporic popular media owe much to their inscription within such ‘narrowcast’ cultural spaces and share many significant attributes: karaoke, with its performative, communal and de-aestheticized performative and communal space (Wong, 1994); the Vietnamese variety music video and ‘Paris/Sydney/Toronto by Night’ live show formats; and the Downloaded from http://ics.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on December 17, 2008 135 01cunningham (ds) 136 2/5/01 8:49 am Page 136 I N T E R N AT I O N A L journal of C U LT U R A L studies 4(2) typical ‘modular’ Bollywood film and accompanying live and playback music culture. Against the locus of examination of the ‘diasporic imagination’ as one of aesthetically transgressive hybridity produced out of a presumed ‘ontological condition’ occupied by the migrant subject, these are not necessarily aesthetically transgressive or politically progressive texts. Their politics cannot be read off their textual forms, but must be grasped in the use to which they are put in the communities. In Floating Lives we see these uses as centring on popular culture debates – where communities contend around the politics, identity formations and tensions of hybrid popular forms emerging to serve the diasporas. Much diasporic cultural expression is a struggle for survival, identity and assertion, and it can be a struggle as much enforced by the necessities of coming to terms with the dominant culture as it is freely assumed. And the results may not be pretty. The instability of cultural maintenance and negotiation can lead, at one extreme, to being locked into a time warp with the fetishized homeland – as it once might have been but no longer is or can be; and, at the other, to assimilation to the dominant host culture and a loss of place in one’s originary culture. It can involve insistent reactionary politics and extreme overcommercialization (Naficy [1993: 71] cites a situation in 1987 when Iranian television in Los Angeles was scheduling more than 40 minutes advertising an hour) because of the need to fund expensive forms of media for a narrowcast audience; and textual material of excoriating tragedy (the [fictional] self-immolation and [actual] atrocity scenarios played out in some, respectively, Iranian and Croatian videos), as recounted by Naficy and by Kolar-Panov (1997). Second, there is explanatory pay-off in pursuing the specificity of the ethno-specific public sphericule in comparison with other emergent public spheres. Like the classic Habermasian bourgeois public sphere of the café society of 18th- and 19th-century France and Britain, they are constituted as elements of civil society. However, our understanding of civil society is formulated out of its dualistic relationship to formal apparatuses of political and juridical power. Ethno-specific sphericules constitute themselves as potentially global civil societies that intersect with state apparatuses at various points (immigration law, multicultural public policy and, for the irredentist and the exilic, against the regimes that control homeland societies). It follows that ethno-specific public sphericules are not congruent with international taste cultures borne by a homogenizing global media culture. For diasporic groupings were parts of states, nations and polities and much of the diasporic polity is about the process of remembering, positioning and, by no means least, constructing business opportunities around these pre-diasporic states and/or nations. It is out of these realities that the assumption grows that ethnic minoritarian publics contribute to the further fragmentation of the majoritarian Downloaded from http://ics.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on December 17, 2008 01cunningham (ds) 2/5/01 8:49 am Page 137 Cunningham ● Popular media as public ‘sphericules’ public sphere, breaking the ‘social compact’ that subsumes nation and ethnicity within the state; a process that has been foundational for the modern nation state. Irredentist politics and ‘long-distance’ nationalism, where the prime allegiance continues to be to an often-defunct state or regime, are deemed non-progressive by most commentators – classically captured by Susan Sontag in her celebrated essays on the Cubans in Florida. However, a focus on the popular culture of diasporas and its place in the construction of public sphericules complicates these assumptions, as it shows that a variety of voices contend for recognition and influence in the micro-polity, and great generational renewal can arise from the vibrancy of such popular culture. Sophisticated cosmopolitanism and successful international business dealing sit alongside long-distance nationalism – the diasporic subject is typically a citizen of a western country, who is not stateless and is not seeking the recognition of a separate national status in their ‘new’ country, like the prototypal instances in the European context such as the Basques, the Scots or the Welsh. These sphericules are definitively transnational, even global in their constitution but are not the same as emerging transnational polities and cultures of global corporate culture, world-spanning nongovernmental organizations and international bodies of governments. Perhaps the most consistent relation, or non-relation, that diasporic media have with the various states into which they are introduced concerns issues of piracy. This gives another layer to the notion of civil cultures standing against the state, where ‘public’ is irreducible to ‘official’ culture. Indeed, given that significant amounts of the cultural production exist in a paralegal penumbra of copyright breach and piracy, there is a strong desire on the part of the entrepreneurs who disseminate such products to keep their distance from organs of the state. It is apparent that routinized piracy makes of much diasporic media a ‘shadow system’, as Kolar-Panov (1997: 31) dubs such minority video circuits as they are perceived from outside. They operate ‘in parallel’ to the majoritarian system, with few industry linkages. Third, they reconfigure essentialist notions of community and reflex anticommercialism. These sphericules are communities in a sense that goes beyond the bland homogeneous arcadia that the term community usually connotes. On the one hand, the ethno-specific community assumes an importance that is greater by far than the term usually implies in mainstream parlance, as the community constitutes the markets and audiences for the media services – there is almost no cross-over or recognition outside the specific community in most cases of diasporic cultural production. The ‘community’ therefore becomes an economic calculus, not only a multicultural demographic instance. The community is to an important extent constituted through media (see Hartley and McKee, 2000: 84) in so far as media performance is one of the main reasons to meet together, and there is very little else available as a mediator of information and entertainment. Downloaded from http://ics.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on December 17, 2008 137 01cunningham (ds) 138 2/5/01 8:49 am Page 138 I N T E R N AT I O N A L journal of C U LT U R A L studies 4(2) These media and their entrepreneurs and audiences work within a deessentialized community and its differences as a condition of their practice and engagement. Diasporic media are largely commercially driven media but are not fully fledged markets. They are largely constituted in and through a commercial culture but this is not the globalizing, homogenizing commercialism that has been posed by neo-Marxist political economists as threatening cultural pluralism, authenticity and agency at the local level. With notable exceptions such as global Chinese popular cultural forms such as cantopop and Hong Kong cinema, which has experienced significant cross-over into both dominant and other emerging contemporary cultural formations, and the Indian popular Bhangra music and Bollywood cinema which is still more singularly based in Indian homeland and diasporic audiences, this is small business commercialism that deals with the practical specificities of cultural difference at the local level as an absolute precondition of business viability. The spaces for ethno-specific public communication are, fourth, mediacentric, and this affords new configurations of the information– entertainment dualism. Given the at times extreme marginalization of many diasporic groupings in public space and their lack of representation within leaderships of influence and persuasion in the dominant forums of the host country, ethno-specific media become, by default, the main organs of communication outside of certain circumscribed and defined social spaces, such as the Chinatowns, Koreatowns, the little Saigons, the churches and temples, or the local video, spice and herb parlours. The ethno-specific sphericule is mediacentric but, unlike the way that mediacentricity can give rise to functionalist thinking (media are the cement that forms and gives identity to the community), it should be thought of rather as ‘staging’ difference and dissension in ways that the community itself can manage. There are severe constraints on public political discourse among, for example, refugee-based communities such as the Vietnamese. The ‘compulsive memorialisation’ (Thomas, 1999: 149) of the precommunist past of Vietnam and the compulsory anti-communism of the leadership of the Vietnamese community are internalized as unsavoury to mainstream society. As part of the pressure to be the perfect citizen in the host society (Hage, 1998: 10), there is considerable self-censorship in the expression of public critical opinion. This filtering of political partisanship for external consumption is also turned back on itself in the community, with attempts by members of the community to have the rigorous anti-communist refugee stance softened (by the mid-1990s, only 30 percent of the Vietnamese community in Australia were originally refugees) met with harsh rebuke. In this situation, Vietnamese entertainment formats, discussed below, operate to create a space where political and cultural identities can be processed in a self-determining way, where voices other than the official, but constitutive of community sentiment, can speak. Downloaded from http://ics.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on December 17, 2008 01cunningham (ds) 2/5/01 8:49 am Page 139 Cunningham ● Popular media as public ‘sphericules’ Mediacentricity also means, in this context, a constant blurring of the information–entertainment distinction, giving rise to a positive sense of a ‘tabloidized’ sphericule wherein McGuigan’s affective as well as effective communication takes on another meaning. The information–entertainment distinction – usually maintained in the abundance of available media in dominant cultures – is blurred in the diasporic setting. As there is typically such a small diet of ethno-specific media available to these communities, they are mined deeply for social cues (including fashion, language use and so on), personal gossip, public information as well as singing along to the song or following the fictional narrative. Within this concentrated and contracted informational and libidinal economy, ‘contemporary popular media as guides to choice, or guides to the attitudes that inform choices’ (Hartley, 1999: 143) take on a thoroughly continuous and central role in information and entertainment for creating a negotiated habitus. The Vietnamese The Vietnamese are by far the largest refugee community in Australia. For most, ‘home’ is a denigrated category while ‘the regime’ continues in power, and so media networks, especially music video, operate to connect the dispersed exilic Vietnamese communities. As Cunningham and Nguyen (2000) argue in our chapter in Floating Lives, there are obviously other media in play (community newspapers, Hong Kong film and video products) but music video carries especial significance and allows a focus on the affective dimension of public communication. Small business entrepreneurs produce low-budget music videos mostly out of southern California (but also Paris), which are taken up within the fan circuits of the United States, Australia, Canada, France and elsewhere. The internal cultural conflicts in the communities centre on the felt need to maintain pre-revolutionary Vietnamese heritage and traditions; find a negotiated place in a more mainstreamed culture; or engage in the formation of distinct hybrid identities around the appropriation of dominant western popular cultural forms. These three cultural positions or stances are dynamic and mutable, but the main debates are constructed around them, and are played out principally within variety music video formats. Although by no means exhausting the media diet of the Vietnamese diaspora, live variety shows and music videos are undeniably unique to it, as audio-visual media made specifically by and for the diaspora. These media forms bear many similarities to the commercial and variety-based cultural production of Iranian television in Los Angeles studied by Naficy in his benchmark The Making of Exile Cultures (1993), not least because Vietnamese variety show and music video production is also centred on the Los Angeles conurbation. The Vietnamese grouped there are not as numerous or as rich Downloaded from http://ics.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on December 17, 2008 139 01cunningham (ds) 140 2/5/01 8:49 am Page 140 I N T E R N AT I O N A L journal of C U LT U R A L studies 4(2) as Naficy’s Iranians and so have not developed the business infrastructure to support the range and depth of media activity recounted by Naficy. The business infrastructure of Vietnamese audiovisual production is structured around a small number of small businesses operating on very low margins. To be exilic means not, or at least not ‘officially’, being able to draw on the contemporary cultural production of the home country. Indeed, it means actively denying its existence in a dialectical process of mutual disauthentification (Carruthers, forthcoming). The Vietnam government Figure 1 Asia Video 21, ‘Songs from the Era of Wartime’. A 1998 music video compilation by Asia Productions. Remembrance of the heroic loss of the Vietnam War remains a normative element of Vietnamese diasporic popular culture. Reproduced with kind permission. Downloaded from http://ics.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on December 17, 2008 01cunningham (ds) 2/5/01 8:49 am Page 141 Cunningham ● Popular media as public ‘sphericules’ proposes that the Viet Kieu (the appellation for Vietnamese overseas which carries a pejorative connotation) are fatally westernised. Ironically, the diasporic population makes a similar counter-charge against the regime, proposing that the homeland population has lost its moral integrity Figure 2 Paris by Night 36. A high production value 1996 release, ‘Houston’ (based on one of the regular live shows throughout the diaspora, this time in Houston), by the main Vietnamese production house in the United States, Thuy Nga Productions. Reproduced with kind permission. Downloaded from http://ics.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on December 17, 2008 141 01cunningham (ds) 142 2/5/01 8:49 am Page 142 I N T E R N AT I O N A L journal of C U LT U R A L studies 4(2) through the wholesale compulsory adoption of an alien western ideology – Marxism-Leninism. Together, the dispersed geography and the demography of a small series of communities frame the conditions for ‘global narrowcasting’ – that is, ethnically specific cultural production for widely dispersed population fragments centripetally organized around their disavowed state of origin. This makes the media, and the media use, of the Vietnamese diaspora fundamentally different from those of the Indian or Chinese diasporas. The last revolve around massive cinema and television production centres in the ‘home’ countries that enjoy international cachet. By contrast, the fact that the media uses of the Vietnamese diaspora are globally oriented but commercially marginal ensures that they flourish outside the purview of state and major commercial vectors of subvention and trade. These conditions also determine the small business character of the production companies. These small enterprises run at low margins and are constantly undercut by piracy and copying of their video products. They have clustered around the only Vietnamese population base that offers critical mass and is geographically adjacent to the much larger ECI (entertainmentcommunications-information) complex in Southern California. There is evidence of internal migration within the diaspora from the rest of the United States, Canada and France to Southern California to take advantage of the largest overseas Vietnamese population concentration and the world’s major ECI complex. During the course of the 20 and more years since the fall of Saigon and the establishing of the diaspora through flight and migration, a substantial amount of music video material has been produced. Thuy Nga Productions, by far the largest and most successful company, organizes major live shows in the United States and franchises appearance schedules for its highprofile performers at shows around the global diaspora. It has produced more than 60 two- to three-hour videotapes since the early 1980s, as well as a constant flow of CDs, audio-cassettes and karaoke discs, in addition to documentary specials and re-releases of classic Vietnamese movies. The other companies, between them, have also produced hundreds of hours of variety music video (see Figures 1 and 2). Virtually every overseas Vietnamese household views this music video material, most regularly attend the live variety performances on which the video material is based, and a significant proportion have developed comprehensive home libraries. The popularity of this material is exemplary, cutting across the several axes of difference in the community: ethnicity, age, gender, recentness of arrival, educational level, refugee or immigrant status, and home region. It is also widely available in pirated form in Vietnam itself, as the economic and cultural ‘thaw’ that has proceeded since the government’s so-called Doi Moi policies of greater openness has resulted in extensive penetration of the homeland by this most international of Vietnamese Downloaded from http://ics.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on December 17, 2008 01cunningham (ds) 2/5/01 8:49 am Page 143 Cunningham ● Popular media as public ‘sphericules’ forms of expression. As the only popular culture produced by and specifically for the Vietnamese diaspora, these texts attract an emotive investment in the overseas communities which is as deep as it is varied. The social text that surrounds, indeed engulfs, these productions is intense, multi-layered and makes its address across differences of generation, gender, ethnicity, class and education levels and recentness of arrival. The key point linking attention to the textual dynamics of the music videos and media use in the communities is that each style cannot exist without the others, because of the marginal size of the audience base. From the point of view of business logic, each style cannot exist without the others. Thus, at the level of both the individual show/video and company outputs as a whole, the organizational structure of the shows and videos reflects the heterogeneity required to maximize the audience within a strictly narrowcast range. This is a programming philosophy congruent with ‘broadcasting’ to a globally spread, narrowcast demographic: ‘the variety show form has been a mainstay of overseas Vietnamese anticommunist culture from the mid seventies onwards’ (Carruthers, forthcoming). In any given live show or video production, the musical styles might range from precolonial traditionalism to French colonial era high modernist classicism, to crooners adapting Vietnamese folksongs to the Sinatra era and to bilingual cover versions of Grease or Madonna. Stringing this concatenation of taste cultures together are comperes, typically well-known political and cultural figures in their own right, who perform a rhetorical unifying function: Audience members are constantly recouped via the show’s diegesis, and the anchoring role of the comperes and their commentaries, into an overarching conception of shared overseas Vietnamese identity. This is centred on the appeal to . . . core cultural values, common tradition, linguistic unity and an anti-communist homeland politics. (Carruthers, forthcoming) Within this overall political trajectory, however, there are major differences to be managed. The stances evidenced in the video and live material range on a continuum from ‘pure’ heritage maintenance and ideological monitoring; to mainstream cultural negotiation; through to assertive hybridity. Most performers and productions seek to situate themselves within the mainstream of cultural negotiation between Vietnamese and western traditions. However, at one end of the continuum there are strong attempts both to keep the original folkloric music traditions alive and to keep the integrity of the originary anti-communist stance foundational to the diaspora, through very public criticism of any lapse from that stance. At the other end, Vietnamese-American youth culture is exploring the limits of hybrid identities through the radical intermixing of musical styles. Downloaded from http://ics.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on December 17, 2008 143 01cunningham (ds) 144 2/5/01 8:50 am Page 144 I N T E R N AT I O N A L journal of C U LT U R A L studies 4(2) The Fiji Indians In a remarkably short time, essentially since the coups of the late 1980s which pushed thousands of Fiji Indians out of Fiji and into diaspora around the Pacific Rim in cities such as Vancouver, Auckland and Sydney, the community in Sydney has fashioned a vibrant popular culture based on consumption and celebration of Hindi filmdom and its associated music, dance and fashion cultures. It is an especial irony that a people ‘extracted’ from mainland Indian polity and culture a century or more ago – for whom the relationship with the world of Hindi film is a purely imaginary one – should embrace and appropriate such a culture with far greater strength than those enjoying a much more recent connection to the ‘homeland’. Manas Ray’s analysis of the Fiji Indian public sphericule in Floating Lives (2000) is structured around a comparison with the expatriate Bengalis. The two groups are contrasted on a caste, class and cultural consumption basis, and Ray stresses that, given that there is no critical mass of sub-ethnicities within the Indian diaspora in Australia, cultural difference is definitional. The Bengalis are seen as locked into their history as bearers of the Indian project of modernity which they assumed centrally under the British Raj. The once-unassailed centrality that the educated, Hindu Bengali gentry, the bradralok, had in the political and civic institutions of India has been challenged in the decades since independence by the subaltern classes: Figure 3 Fiji Times, February and March 1999. The most popular free magazine among Fiji Indians in Sydney. Reproduced with kind permission. Downloaded from http://ics.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on December 17, 2008 01cunningham (ds) 2/5/01 8:50 am Page 145 Cunningham ● Popular media as public ‘sphericules’ It is from this Bengal that the bradralok flees, either to relatively prosperous parts of India or, if possible, abroad – to the affluent west, taking with them the dream of a nation that they were once so passionate about and the cultural baggage which had expressed that dream. (Ray, 2000: 142–3) The Bengali diaspora, argues Ray, frames its cultural life around the high culture of the past, which has become a ‘fossilized’ taste culture (2000: 143). In startling contrast to the Fiji Indian community, which is by far the highest consumer of Hindi films, for the Indian Bengalis, Indian-sourced film and video is of little interest and is even the subject of active disparagement. The literature and other high cultural forms, which once had ‘organic links to the independence movement and to early post-independence hardship and hope’, have fossilized into a predictable and ageing taste culture that is remarkably similar whether the Bengali community is in Philadelphia, Boston, London, Düsseldorf, Dubai or Sydney (Ray, 2000: 143). The issues of inter-generational deficit as the young turn to western youth culture are evident. The politics of popular culture are fought out across the communal fractions and across the generations. The inter-communal discord between mainland Indians and Fiji Indians, which are neither new nor restricted only to Australia – where many mainland Indians continue to exhibit deeply entrenched casteist attitudes and Fiji Indians often characterized mainland Indians with the same kind of negativity they were wont to use for ethnic Fijians – are often played out around media and film culture. There are elements of fully blown popular culture debates being played out. At the time of a particularly vitriolic controversy in 1997, the editor of the mainland Indian Post argued that while the Fiji Indians are ‘good Hindus’ and ‘they are the people who spend’, their ‘westernised ways’ and ‘excessive attachment to filmy culture’ bring disrepute to the Indian community as a whole (Dello, 1997). The resolution to these kinds of issues is often found in the commercial reality that Fiji Indians are the main consumers of the products and services advertised in mainland Indian shops (see Figure...
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Running head: POLITICAL SATIRE

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#1b: Political Satire
Name
Institution

POLITICAL SATIRE

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Political Satire

Political satire aims to gain entertainment from politics. The political satire on television,
especially in the 21st century, has gained immense popularity by being funny and smart. Also, the
advances in technology such as the Internet has allowed the rapid spread of clips containing
episodes of the political satire and parody, allowing them to become popular almost instantly.
The interpretation of satire and parody in television today highly depends on the political views
and opinions of different people since, while some incident may seem funny to some people,
others may find it otherwise. Although the trend has faced criticism in the country and the
political scene, in particular, satire, humor, and parody remain significant in providing social
critique.
Parody is different from satire in that it draws on aesthetic conventions rather than social
ones as in the case of satire. While parody is a part of the satire, not all parody is satire. Satire
attacks a genre or product and attempts to make fun of how the genre operates. While it focuses
more on making fun of the object or genre, it may not provide any relevant social critique as is
the case in most of the classical satire, especially political. The aim of the parody, mostly, is to
criticize the operation of a particular process, product, or genre for the purpose of making fun of
the situation.
Parody combines the carnival and dialogism theoretical interests. The technique allows
the interpretation of texts in a new contextual manner. It involves the structural superimposition
of texts which means that parody allows the audience to make sense of the texts involved in
relation to other texts. Hence, it provokes the audience to reflect and re-evaluate how the targeted
situation works. This characteristic of parody shows that it elicits critical thinking through
criticism of the targeted text. The explanation of Gray, Jones, and Thompson suggests that the

POLITICAL SATIRE
parody plays the role of taking away the lethargic effect of some text by perturbation. Also, it
plays the significant role of adding tools of interpreting the said genre. It is such that when the
audience experiences the genre criticized a second time, they have extra tools for interpreting it.
News parody plays a satirist role as news is the most common channel for most people to
learn about political issues. The presentation of political debates through news is ...


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