Diasporic Media Across Europe: Multicultural Societies and the Universalism–Particularism Continuum

Abstract

Europe is a cultural space of meeting, mixing and clashing; it is a space of sharing (and not sharing) economic, cultural and symbolic resources. Dominant ideologies of Europeanism project an image of Europe as a common and distinct cultural Home, a Home that excludes and (re-)creates Otherness when it does not fit in a model of universalism and appears as competing particularism. Cultural diversity has always characterised Europe, but growing potentials for mobility and communication have led to the emergence and intensification of diverse cultural experiences and formations. In this context, the growing numbers and kinds of diasporic media have significant implications for imagining multicultural Europe and for participating (or not) in European societies and transnational communities. What is argued here is that diasporic media cultures do not emerge as projects that oppose the universalistic projects of Europe and of global communication, but that they gain from ideologies of globalisation and democratic participation, as much as they gain and depend on ideologies of identity and particularism. Drawing from a cross-European mapping and specific case studies, I will try to explain why diasporic media cultures challenge both the limits of European universalism and of diasporic particularism.

Towards a multi-ethnic public sphere? African-Australian media and minority–majority relations

“…First, within the small but important field of ethnic media studies, few analyses explicitly focus on the interaction between minority and majority media spaces (see Couldry and Dreher, 2007;Budarick and Han, 2013;Dreher, 2010;Georgiou, 2005;Silverstone and Georgiou, 2005;Sreberny, 2005). Predominantly, approaches to ethnic minority media have focused on the relationship of these media to their target audiences.…”

Media and the Receiving Country’s Language: The Integration of Nepalese Immigrants in Portugal

“…The first case highlights the role of ethnic media in strengthening the feeling of immigrants to take part in society while maintaining the uniqueness of the community to which they belong (Georgiou, 2005). In the second case, the ethnic media can both help immigrants feel at home in their destination countries, serving as means of learning about the new society and about the ways they can adapt to it; but they can also help slowing down the process of integration by promoting the closure of immigrants within their own community (Wood & King, 2001).…”

Minorities and Media

“…And yet we must also be careful not to reify difference through an assumption of media separatism in use and production, when the media diet of migrants has been shown to be highly omnivorous (Deuze 2006). As Roger Silverstone (2003in Georgiou 2005) argues, the meaning of minority and mainstream media can only be appreciated if they are analysed in their contrapuntal relationship to each other and to the audiences they address, positively or negatively. It is not enough to simply track and describe diverse media forms.…”