Mediated Crossroads
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> MEDIATED CROSSROADS MED MEDIATED CROSSROADS IDENtitY, YOuth CultuRE AND IDENTITY, YOuth CultuRE AND I THEORETICAL AND A THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES T ETHNICITY METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES ETHNICITY ED CRO The book Mediated Crossroads focuses on family, young people, ethnicity and the media in the (EDS.) context of increasing migration in contemporary Western societies. The book includes studies > INGEGERD RYDIN & ULRIKA SJÖBERG covering both media use and reception. It reflects on the growing interest in ethnic minori- ties – both on the macro and micro level – within media and cultural studies. The contributing authors present empirical work on the media and cultural practices of migrants in a wide range of countries such as Belgium, Finland, Greece, Israel, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.K, and SS the empirical data are framed by theoretical discussions on a more general level. The collection of studies is characterized by a discursive, everyday life perspective, in which concrete cases of ROAD migrant life – with a focus on children, women, families or young people – in relation to media and popular culture are analysed. The book deals with central issues in ethnicity and media research, such as how diasporic groups negotiate their identities, cultural experiences and tradi- tions in everyday life in an environment that is increasingly permeated by various media, not S least the Internet. IN Ingegerd Rydin is Professor in Media and Communication Studies at Halmstad G University, Sweden. Her research interests cover topics related to children, young E people and the media as well as media literacy and media history. G ERD Ulrika Sjöberg is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication Studies at Halmstad University, Sweden. Her main research interests involve young people’s R media use, media and ethnicity, and media literacy among pupils and teachers. YD I N & U L R IK A SJÖ B ER G (ED NORDICOM S Nordic Information Centre for Media and Communication Research .) University of Gothenburg Box 713, SE 405 30 Göteborg, Sweden Telephone +46 31 786 00 00 (op.) Fax +46 31 786 46 55 E-mail: [email protected] NORDICOM www.nordicom.gu.se NORDICOM Mediated Crossroads. Identity, Youth Culture and Ethnicity Mediated Crossroads Identity, Youth Culture and Ethnicity Theoretical and Methodological Challenges Ingegerd Rydin & Ulrika Sjöberg (eds.) NORDICOM Mediated Crossroads. Identity, Youth Culture and Ethnicity Theoretical and Methodological Challenges Ingegerd Rydin & Ulrika Sjöberg (eds.) © Editorial matters and selections, the editor; articles, individual contributors; Nordicom ISBN 978-91-89471-65-8 Published by: Nordicom University of Gothenburg Box 713 SE 405 30 Göteborg Sweden Cover by: Daniel Zachrisson Printed by: Livréna AB, Göteborg, Sweden, 2008 Environmental certification according to ISO 14001 Contents Preface 7 Introduction 9 Ingegerd Rydin & Ulrika Sjöberg Establishing the Context of the Book 9 Olga Guedes Bailey Diasporic Identities and Mediated Experiences in Everyday Life 17 Magnus Andersson The Matter of Media in Transnational Everyday Life 39 Ardis Storm-Mathisen & Jo Helle-Valle Media, Identity and Methodology. Reflections on Practice and Discourse 55 Heinz Moser & Thomas Hermann Migration – Transnational Media and Diasporic Life in Switzerland 75 Kaoruko Kondo Research Methods Used in Studying Media Consumption and Children in a Diaspora. A Case of Japanese Families in London 93 Evangelia Kourti Media Experiences of Young Immigrants in Greece. The Case of Preschool Filipinos in Athens 113 Leen d’Haenens, Hasibe Gezduci & Joyce Koeman The Multiple Methodological Challenges of Ethnic-cultural Constructs. Focus on Media Research on Moroccan and Turkish Minorities in the Low Countries 133 Kaarina Nikunen Emerging Transnational Sensibility among Migrant Teenagers. Lessons Learned doing Media Research in Multiethnic Classrooms 153 Nelly Elias & Dafna Lemish The Internet Life of FSU Immigrant Adolescents in Israel 173 Ingegerd Rydin & Ulrika Sjöberg Internet as A Communicative Space for Identity Construction among Diaspora Families in Sweden 193 Subject Index 215 Notes on Contributors 219 In the memory of Hasibe Gezduci Preface Questions of media, ethnicity and diaspora are of great concern in a world of globalisation and international migration. Current transnational movements and everyday life in contemporary society is an expanding field of research and has gained an increasing interest among scholars in the social and human sciences. Nevertheless, very little attention is devoted to studies of children and young people. As part of the dissemination of the project ‘Media Practices in the New Homeland’ with its particular focus on families and young people, the editors of this book decided to highlight relevant research data in a qualified context of international scholars. We are therefore very happy to be able to present this collection of articles to a wider academic audience. The book is the result of an international workshop held at Halmstad University, Sweden, in June 2007. For two days, we gathered scholars who share an interest in the field of media and diaspora cultures for paper presentations and to discuss various theoretical and methodological challenges and experiences. We would like to thank Nordicom for their support in publishing this book. We are also very grateful to the Swedish Research Council for their economic support of the workshop as well as their support of the project ‘Media Practices in the New Homeland’. This support made it possible to engage more deeply into the subject of media and diaspora cultures during the last few years. Halmstad, August 2008 Ingegerd Rydin & Ulrika Sjöberg 7 Introduction Establishing the Context of the Book Ingegerd Rydin & Ulrika Sjöberg Our starting point is the understanding that cultural communities are no longer fixed in particular geographical spaces. Migrants live in a world where change in and/or continuity of family norms and traditions are constantly negotiated and contrasted with the surrounding society’s norms and values. On the one hand, a migrant’s life, if we think of refugees, is marked by insecure and unstable living conditions in which sometimes involuntary cultural change is a significant feature of everyday life. But on the other hand, contemporary society is characterized by cosmopolitanism, i.e. people who move because the international labour market encourages professional careers through advancement abroad (e.g. trainees). Cunningham and Sinclair (2001) used the expression ‘floating lives’ to illustrate contemporary migration processes. They, as well as other researchers, have also pointed to the role of the media in this process of cultural motion. There is even support for the claim that media and communication technologies play a crucial role in the processes of cultural transformation, as the media create spaces for maintaining and negotiating various identity processes. In the following, we will briefly introduce the readers to a series of discus- sions and related concepts often elaborated in contemporary studies of media and migration, a field that is highly cross-disciplinary and embraces studies from a number of related disciplines, such as media and communication, an- thropology, cultural studies, literature studies and sociology. The early sociology of immigration studies examined the ways in which migrants adapted themselves to, or were socially excluded from, their place of immigration, concerning issues of access (or not) to education, health, job opportunities, and so on (cf. Carlbom, 2003; Ekberg, 2004) and on immigrant women, in particular, Freyne-Lindhagen (1997) as well as Berger (2004). In the past decade, this approach coupled with an anthropological ethos has evolved to look at the attachments migrants maintain to families, communities, and traditions outside the boundaries of the nation-state to which they have moved (Basch et al., 1994). Throughout the 1990s, immigrant studies have embraced a more transnational perspective (Portes et al., 1999; Vertovec and Cohen, 1999). The notion of transnationalism refers to various kinds of global 9 INGEGERD RYDIN & ULRIKA SJÖBERG and cross-border connections and helps to frame a view of migrants as no longer trapped between assimilation or nostalgia. Rather, researchers within this field have argued that migrants are considered more able to construct their lives across borders, creating economic, social, political and cultural activities, which helps them maintain membership in both their immigration country and their country of origin. Furthermore, it has often been stated in the public debate that we live in a multicultural society, but behind this term is the reality of ‘[…] major structural fragmentations in poly-ethnic complex societies’ (Jakubowicz, 2006:249). The growing number of segregated suburbs in cities all over Europe is one example of this stratification of people, cultures, ethnicities and religions. Thus, while we increasingly hear about people’s transnational lives, the blurring of physical and cultural borders, an opposite pattern is also seen in society, characterized by spatial and social segregation. It is in this complex and contradictory context that the book takes its point of departure. There are several perspectives centring not on the migration process per se, but on the diaspora phenomenon. The concept of diaspora has been fre- quently used to describe the specific living conditions of certain migrant groups. Cunningham and Sinclair