Session 8: Power of Media
5th Global Conference
Friday 9th March – Sunday 11th March 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Role of Mass Media in Constructing Cultural Identities: Example of the Construction of Arab Transnational Community
Maja Dolinar
Cultural and Social Anthropology, Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
I wish to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between mass media, language and identity formation, focusing on the example of the construction of Arab transnational community. Mass media accelerate the colonization of cultural and ideological sphere, as they ensure the images, representations and ideas, around which social reality is constructed. This coincides with the idea of an imagined community, where the mass media are responsible for the spread of information about common origin and where they are central in articulation about national and transnational processes with the local. As nation formation is a process of cultural and political construction, where mass media play a central role, we can say that television and television series in particular, play an important role in defining identity.
The countries of the Arab world have always lagged behind “the West” in development and distribution of media content. Until the development of satellite programmes and wide access to internet the Arab world was limited to own national and public channels, with the exception of radio stations, such as BBC and Voice of America. In 1980s a huge boom in development of satellite and telecommunication technology occurred, which brought about the revolution of Arab satellite television channels. On all levels of development of mass media and technology transfers, Egypt plays a pivotal role, especially when it comes to development and production of media content. The key question of my paper will be what is the role of media in constructing cultural identities and how the Egyptian television production influences the formation of the pan-Arab media imagined community, basically meaning how the intercultural dialogue within the Arab world is being built through the spreading of Egyptian media production.
Media and the Construction of Cultures and Identities
Oluwatoyin Sogbesan
Center for Cultural and Policy Management, City University London, Northampton Square, London, UK
This paper investigates and discuss the impact of media in particular that of Video Graphic Media [VGM] on peoples’ identities through construction of their cultures. Video Graphic Media [VGM], a very powerful media tool which when finds its way into the cultural domain could bring about changes in their identities and cultures. Culture in the broadest sense is a form of highly participatory activity in which people create their societies and identities. It further characterises and shapes individuals, drawing out and refining their potentialities and capabilities. Despite culture being somewhat stable and passed from generation to generation, identity is always undergoing constant transformations. Therefore becoming increasingly disjointed, fractured, and multiply constructed across different positions. This paper will try to examine and possibly answer those questions as 1.) What changes can be brought about to cultures and identities by exposure to VGM? 2) Could VGM associates or disassociates one’ culture(s) from one’s identity and vice versa? 3.) What are the effects of VGM on the society?
The application of VGA within the spheres of cultures and identities has been influenced by ever increasing information societies and globalization. Encouraging both governments and a non-governmental body to air their views through television/ WebTV and You-tube (for example, London riot) emphasizing the notion of ‘seeing is believing’. Thus convincing both local and foreign viewers that what they view is reality of everyday life. Utilising a theoretical methodological approach, the paper argues that VGM unlike other media tools/elements, is combined audio-visual when exploited in a careful and well laid format could be used to re-construct cultures and identities. However one will stress that these re-constructions are unavoidable of bias because they construct some features of physical reality at the expense of others that may result in the adoption or rejection of new identities and cultures.
Immigrati, Migranti, Clandestini, Profughi, Rifugiati – A New Wave of North Africans in Italy.
Weronika Sobita
Faculty of Philology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
With the onset of the “Arab Spring” the attention of the European countries shifted towards the southern part of the globe, as the events at the Tahrir Square, followed by manifestations in Tunisia and the war in Libya were making the first page in the newspapers worldwide. Although the initial general response of the European public to the democratic uprisings in North Africa was and on the whole still remains positive, the Arab Revolution has also brought about undesired consequences in the form of mass migration from Africa to Southern Europe.
Undoubtedly, the place which has been affected the most by the wave of incoming North Africans is a small Italian island Lampedusa with the population of about 6,000 inhabitants, which welcomed around 15,000 migrants only until the middle of March this year. Though the migration peak seems to be already behind, new boats continue to arrive and the island remains a tense place.
The boats which reach the coast of Lampedusa carry various passengers: young Tunisians who simply hope to find here a better life, people of different nationalities previously working in Libya who flee from the country at war or immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa. Similarly, the words used in Italian newspapers to refer to the newcomers vary ̶ from the most neutral “migranti” to compassionate “profughi” – refugees, which does not always reflect the actual status of the person, or pejorative “clandestini”, depending on the author or speaker, the event or argument a text refers to or even the period. The aim of the paper is to present an analysis of the vocabulary used to describe North Africans arriving at Lampedusa in Italian newspapers (la Repubblica, Corriere della Sera) in the period from the middle of February to August 2011 and an attempt to show different attitudes of Italians who recently faced the problem of migration from this perspective.
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