Myria Georgiou Media and Communication Programme Department of Sociology London School of Economics and Political Science University of London Negotiated Uses, Contested Meanings, Changing Identities: Greek Cypriot Media Consumption and Ethnic Identity Formations in North London (Thesis submitted for the award of PhD in Media and Communication) 1 UMI Number: U615197 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U615197 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 O F ^ POLITICAL AMD 7Ufk>2GL{ Abstract A large number of Greek Cypriots live in North London, where the sense of belonging in an ethnic community is daily and actively renewed through multiple mechanisms of participation and multileveled communication. A variety of ethnic media, which people consume in everyday life, have their role . in the processes of (re)invention and (re)construction of British Greek Cypriot ethnic identities that depend, at the same time, on immediate and mediated experiences in and of the country of origin, the locality and the diaspora. These three spaces - the country of origin, the locality and the diaspora - come together in a meeting point of the virtual and the real, through electronic media. The ethnic electronic media, which are both local and global and which use new and old technologies, challenge the boundaries between geographical positionings and singular categorisations. These media are the focus of this research. In this thesis, I argue that the ethnic electronic media have a vital role for the construction of a new hybrid imagined community, which is neither geographically bounded nor lacks the face-to-face communication, as suggested by Anderson (1983); rather it depends simultaneously on immediate and mediated communication. Traditional institutions and face-to-face relations developed in community centres and alternative ethnic spaces become the immediate context of ethnicity - at the same time, ethnic media become the mediators of ethnicity which is not just local, but also diasporic and global. The survival and the (re)construction of ethnic identities depend as much on traditional community mechanisms and relations, as they depend on the mediated communication of the imagined community. In their contradictions and shifting, ethnic identities continue to be meaningful to people. They depend on a sense of belonging to a community and on sharing common values and everyday culture - both communicated through physical co-existence and the sharing of the media. 2 Contents NEGOTIATED USES, CONTESTED MEANINGS, CHANGING IDENTITIES: GREEK CYPRIOT MEDIA CONSUMPTION AND ETHNIC IDENTITY FORMATIONS IN NORTH LONDON........................................................................1 ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................... 2 CONTENTS.................................................................................................................... 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................... 7 NOTE ON THE TEXT................................................................................................... 8 INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................... 9 K ey Q u estio n s - K ey C o n c e p t s .................................................................................................... 11 Focus on Everyday Life ...........................................................................................14 Th e H y b r id Im a g in e d C o m m u n it y ............................................................................................... 16 B ritish Gr eek C ypriots in Lo n d o n ............................................................................................ 20 Eth nic M e d ia : A C h a n g in g R e a l it y ..........................................................................................22 A n O v e r v ie w ............................................................................................................................................24 CHAPTER 1...................................................................................................................28 SHAPING ETHNIC IDENTITIES IN MEDIA CULTURE(S)............................... 28 Identity As Performative ......................................................................................... 33 From the individual to the collective and back. ...................................................... 36 Eth nic Iden tities in F o c u s .............................................................................................................. 38 Ethnic Identity and the Other (Identities) ............................................................... 39 Class........................................................................................................................40 Boundaries and Otherness ...................................................................................... 41 Whiteness.................................................................................................................44 Eth n ic it y : L in g u istic , d o m in a n t a n d d em otic d isc o u r se in q u e st io n . ............46 .. .A n d the M e d ia ...................................................................................................................................48 Production - Consumption ..................................................................................... 49 CHAPTER II................................................................................................................. 51 SPACES OF BELONGING: POSITIONING ETHNIC IDENTITIES.................. 51 The M e d ia .................................................................................................................................................. 52 I. T he H o m e ................................................................................................................................................53 II. Th e P u b l ic (s) ..................................................................................................................................... 56 III. C o m m u n it y ........................................................................................................................................60 IV. T h e G l o ba l a n d th e L o c a l ..................................................................................................... 65 Diaspora ...................................................................................................... 67 The Hybrid Imagined Community ............................................................................68 CHAPTER III............................................................................................................... 72 3 METHODOLOGY: THEORY, INSTRUMENT, A PROBLEM AND A SOLUTION....................................................................................................................72 M et h o d o lo g y : P roblematised T h e o r y ................................................... 74 Discovering and Re-discovering the Audience ........................................................74 Nightingale: Re-defining the Audience ....................................................................77 Et h n o g r a p h y ...........................................................................................................................................78 Id e n t it ie s ....................................................................................................................................................80 Gillespie: Ethnicity and the Media ..........................................................................81 R e f l e x iv it y ...............................................................................................................................................83 A Researcher’s Hybridity: Issues of Reflexivity in Practice................................... 85 M eth o d o lo g y : Eth no g r aph y in Pr a c t ic e ............................................................................. 87 Getting to Know the Field. .......................................................................................88 Operational Framework ..........................................................................................91 Choosing the Sample: Diversity and Limitations ................................................... 92 Conducting the Research .........................................................................................95 Triangulation ...........................................................................................................97 R ea lisa tio n a n d T e c h n iq u e s ......................................................................................................... 98 I. The Domestic