Journalism, Audiences and

Diaspora
Edited by

Ola Ogunyemi
Journalism, Audiences and Diaspora
This page intentionally left blank
Journalism, Audiences and
Diaspora
Edited by

Ola Ogunyemi
University of Lincoln, UK
Introduction, postscript, selection and editorial matter
© Ola Ogunyemi 2015
Individual chapters © Respective authors 2015
Foreword © Ralph Negrine 2015

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-45722-6

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Journalism, audiences and diaspora / edited by Ola Ogunyemi.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Ethnic press. 2. Minorities—Press coverage. 3. Journalism—Social
aspects. 4. Mass media and minorities. 5. Foreign news.
I. Ogunyemi, Ola, 1962– editor.
PN4784.E78J68 2015
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Contents

List of Figures and Tables x

Foreword by Prof. Ralph Negrine xi

Acknowledgements xv

Notes on Contributors xvi

1 Introduction: Conceptualizing the Media of Diaspora 1

Ola Ogunyemi
Diasporic media 3
Production practices 4
News production and processing 6
Reception and consumption 6
The structure of this book 8

Part I Production Practices

2 Imagine What the Gentiles Must Think: Editors of the
US Jewish Press Reflect on Covering the Bernard
Madoff Scandal 17
Hinda Mandell
Jewish ethnicity and Jewish press literature 19
Jewish press divisions 19
Jewish demographics in the US as they relate to the
country’s press 20
Method 22
Interview protocol 23
Analysis 23
Carving our niche 24
Challenges to Jewish journalism 27
Pressure from Jewish organizations 28
Readers’ concerns about what gentiles think of them 30
Conclusion 31

v
vi Contents

3 Transnational Public Spheres and Deliberative Politics

in Zimbabwe: An Analysis of NewZimbabwe 34
Shepherd Mpofu
Theory: Deliberative politics and transnational public
spheres 35
The postcolonial public sphere 35
Transnational digital spheres 38
Conceptualizing deliberative democracy 39
Method and research questions 41
Homosexuality: A qualitative analysis of human rights
debate online 41
Conclusion 49

4 Negotiating Cultural Taboos in News Reporting:

A Case Study of the African Diasporic Media in the UK 53
Ola Ogunyemi
Research framework 55
The treatment of taboo news on the AHYS forum 56
Perspectives in users’ comments 62
Conclusion 65
Acknowledgements 66

5 Journalism of Turkish-Language Newspapers in the UK 68

Sanem Şahin
Method 70
The Turkish-speaking community and Turkish-language
newspapers in the UK 71
Journalism culture 72
What is news? 74
Organization 76
Challenges 77
The relationship with the community 78
Discussion and conclusion 79

Part II News Production and Processing

6 Discursive Inclusion and Hegemony: The Politics of
Representation in Spanish Migrant Minority Media 87
Lucía Echevarría Vecino, Alicia Ferrández Ferrer and Gregory
Dallemagne
Migrants as political actors 90
The representation of ‘Latino’ cultural identity 93
 Contents vii

Politics of representation and gender 95

Minority media as amplifiers of the democratic space?
Tensions and contradictions 98

7 The Voice of the International Community: A Critical

Discourse Analysis of Immigration Reports in the
Copenhagen Post 104
Teke Ngomba
Methodology 107
The Copenhagen Post: A brief overview 109
Sourcing immigration news in the Copenhagen Post (May
to December 2011) 111
Framing immigrants and immigration in the Copenhagen
Post (May 2011 to 4 January 2013) 115
Conclusion 118

8 The South Asian-Canadian Media’s Resistance to

Gender and Cultural Stereotyping 121
Anupreet Sandhu Bhamra and Paul Fontaine
Coverage of visible minorities in the Canadian press 123
Diasporic spaces of resistance 124
The role of culture in the diasporic coverage
of domestic violence 125
Violence cuts across cultures 128
Identifying the structural realities 129
Beyond a racist cultural framework 132
The trauma of gender stereotyping 133
Conclusion 134

9 The Impact of the Yom Kippur War (1973) in the

Jewish-Argentine Diaspora Press 137
Laura Schenquer and Liliana Mayer
The press: Expression of everyday sectoral interests 138
Months prior to the Yom Kippur War 139
Local reception of the Yom Kippur War: During and after 143
Conclusion 147

10 The Counter Journalism of Roma Minority Broadcasts

in Bulgaria 152
Svetlana D. Hristova
Some theoretical frameworks 153
Group representation 155
viii Contents

Community media broadcasts: A defensive vs. an

assertive image 156
Qualitative data analysis 157
Perspectives of Roma journalists 162
Conclusion 165
Appendix 166

Part III Reception and Consumption

11 Dispatches from the Dispersed: Comparatively
Analysing Internet-Based Diasporic Journalism within
Zimbabwean and Iranian Contexts 171
Donya Alinejad and Bruce Mutsvairo
Background: Zimbabwe 173
Background: Iran 175
Zimbabwe: Narratives from the Internet 176
Iran’s first ‘virtual bureau’ 178
Comparative analysis 180
Conclusion 182

12 Contested Place and Truth-Work: Investigating News

Reception and Diasporic Sense of Place among British
Jews 187
Eyal Lavi
Media and place-making 187
Jews in the UK 190
Practices of truth-work 192
Conclusion 198

13 Diaspora Media Consumption: UKZambians Magazine 203

Brian Chama
African diaspora and media consumption 204
Media of the African diaspora and the social-political
underpinnings 204
Reception and consumption of media 205
Methodology 207
Data analysis 207
Engagement 208
Orientation 209
Connectivity 210
Content appeal 211
 Contents ix

Alternative voice 213

Conclusion 215

14 The Use of New Media by the UK’s Palestinian Diaspora 218

Amira Halperin
Methodology 220
The Palestinian websites as an irrelevant news source 221
The Palestinian media – the social dimension 224
Reasons for using the Internet 227
Conclusion 231

15 Longing and Belonging: An Exploration of the Online

News-Consumption Practices of the Zimbabwean
Diaspora 235
Tendai Chari
Theorizing citizenship and diaspora 236
Zimbabwean online newspapers: An overview 238
Methodological considerations 239
Online news surfing as a diasporic ritual 241
Zimbabwean diaspora, surveillance and the
media-dependency syndrome 241
Transnational loyalty: Longing and belonging 244
Conclusion 247

Postscript: Prospects for Future Research 250

Ola Ogunyemi

Index 255
Figures and Tables

Figures

3.1 Reader comments on ‘Gay rights are human rights too!’ 43

Tables

3.1 Google analytics table showing website views between 1

March and 12 April 2001 37
4.1 Perspectives in users’ comments 56
6.1 Latino and Sí se puede characteristics 89
7.1 Number and genre of all reports analysed for 2011–2012 111
7.2 Sources used in reports about immigration and
immigrants 113
7.3 Top 7 sources 114
7.4 Categorization of front-page headlines about
immigration and immigrants 116

x
Foreword

In the introduction to this volume (Chapter 1), Ola Ogunyemi alerts

us to the importance of the media of diaspora in a changing world.
The idea that these are media that ‘are produced by and for migrants’
reminds us that this area of study continues to throw up some inter-
esting observations about populations that have moved or are on the
move, and their efforts to exist safely and comfortably in a globalized
world.
These themes resonate with similar themes that Robert Park explored
in his 1922 study of ‘the immigrant press’ and it is worth placing that
study in the background as we read this volume. For Park, as here, the
issues are fundamentally alike: how do migrant communities – or ethni-
cally and linguistically different communities – connect to one another
and to the societies into which they have travelled or been placed.
As Park wrote, the immigrant press ‘and its contents [inform us of] the
inner life of immigrant peoples and their efforts to adjust themselves to
a new cultural environment’ (1922, p. xix).
Admittedly, the communities and the people that he researched were
different from those who feature in this volume – his migrants were
usually poor and illiterate, for example, and did not live in a glob-
alized and technologically diverse world – but their newspapers did
things which we would recognize as not dissimilar from what media in
diaspora seek to do. The function of the ‘immigrant press’, according
to Park, included preserving ‘the foreign languages from disintegrat-
ing into mere immigrant dialects, hyphenated English, and to maintain
contact and understanding between the home countries and their scat-
tered members in every part of the United States and America’ (1922,
p. 55).
To what extent would contemporary editors and journalists see their
roles in the same way is clearly something addressed in this book, but
Park also reminds us that the press enabled communities to maintain
a semblance of unity and togetherness, both linguistically and cultur-
ally, and, at the same time, acted as a bridge to the new society into
which these communities had moved. The press helped to initiate ‘the
immigrant into the American environment, but is likewise a means of
translating and transmitting to him American ways and American ide-
als’ (1922, p. 87). It played many roles and it allowed communities to

xi
xii Foreword

form and maintain some sort of identity, to connect with the ‘home’
country but also to learn about the new home.
This theme of inward-facing and outward-facing media, a sort of com-
plex set of bridges, is a recurring one in this Foreword. To what extent
are there similarities with the media of diaspora discussed here? To what
extent are some of the findings from Park’s study relevant today?
There are some very obvious similarities and differences. The most
obvious differences relate to technology. Park researched the immigrant
press, a local and cosmopolitan press that served many communities
from Europe before radio and television impacted on the means of com-
munication in the US. We are now in the era of the Internet and this
means, in effect, that the ways in which content is produced and con-
sumed are vastly different from nearly a century ago. Those who wish
to connect with their communities can use old media but they can turn
to new means of distribution. In turn, production need not be central-
ized, nor does it have to come from teams of journalists. Individuals
can shape their own content, just as the consumers of news can interact
with content producers in different ways.
The scale of the change is breath-taking but technologies don’t neces-
sarily make things happen. What needs to be asked – and it is a question
that can be raised in the context of each chapter in this book – is
whether the essence of the ‘media of diaspora’/‘immigrant press’ is dif-
ferent today from what it was 100 years ago when Park studied it. At the
heart of the enterprise, are the aims and objectives vastly different?
Herein lies the issue of similarities. When individuals produce content
for the media of diaspora, are they doing so in a spirit similar to the one
that lived in the newspaper offices of the 1920 immigrant press in the
US, or indeed elsewhere? Are the media of diaspora, today as in the past,
seeking to maintain coherence among displaced populations, recent
arrivals or migrant workers? Are they seeking to preserve the language?
Are they seeking to preserve the culture and religion? Are they political
in their aims and objectives? It is worth noting that Park believed that
‘in America, as in Europe, it is language and tradition, rather than political
allegiances that unites the foreign populations. People who speak the same
language find it convenient to live together’ (1922, p. 5). Is this still true
today? If not, what are the conditions that have given rise, or give rise,
to the media/press that seeks to bring about change rather than ‘simply’
connect communities to their ‘new’ societies?
Three examples in this book are worthy of comment as they illustrate
the complexity of the media of diaspora in a globalized world. The first
illustrates the political dimension of the media/press not only for their
own sake but as a way of creating an alternative discourse from that
 Foreword xiii

available in the mainstream media. As Vecino, Ferrer and Dallemagne

suggest (Chapter 6), ‘the production of media targeting migrant and
Diasporic communities has been key in the creation of alternative dis-
courses about migration and multicultural societies’. As with Roma
journalism (see Svetlana D. Histrova’s contribution, Chapter 10), the
media of diaspora seek to counter harmful representations of the com-
munities in question and to put forward different versions. Whether
such alternatives move from the media of diaspora to mainstream media
is clearly a question worth asking and researching. If they do not, what
is the point of providing these alternatives? Nevertheless, the political
dimension of these media – as alternatives – is worth bearing in mind.
That said, we should not forget the other roles that the media of
diaspora play and this too is acknowledged in Vecino et al.’s contribu-
tion (Chapter 6) – indeed, in the same paragraph in which they denote
its political roles: ‘News related to the home and host countries are
widely covered, especially where it affects migrants, as well as suprana-
tional and local news, as a response to the diverse and often interrelated
contexts in which transnational migrants’ lives take place’.
We can observe the same set of themes in Svetlana D. Histrova’s
contribution on the Roma (Chapter 10). As the authors point out,

The study assesses the level of responsibility of Roma counter –

journalism in improving the representation of the marginalized
group. The research clarifies the role of the ethnically mixed teams
in promoting the mission of those programmes, which is to pro-
mote tolerance and empathy towards ‘the other’ ethnicity. Minority
journalists have been assigned a difficult role – to address the expec-
tations both of society at large and of the community in the process
of generating an unbiased ethnic discourse that complies with the
professional code of journalism.

As before, the media of diaspora are outward-facing but also inward-

facing. In this case they also need to satisfy codes of professional
journalism which could force the journalists to be ‘honest’ about trou-
bles within communities, as illustrated in Hinda Mandell’s study of the
Madoff scandal in the US (Chapter 2).
The second point worth considering takes off from the above com-
ment. In the age of instant and global communication, the media of
diaspora are no longer likely to be the only source of news. Some-
times this may mean that conflicting images and texts will be available
to consumers. In Hinda Mandell’s chapter on the Jewish press dur-
ing the Madoff trials in the US, that complexity is evident; as it is in
xiv Foreword

Laura Schenquer and Liliana Mayer’s contribution on the Jewish press

in Argentina (Chapter 9). People who read those newspapers would
also have consumed national and international news content. In those
circumstances, how do the media of diaspora negotiate the different
messages that are available to consumers who are no longer insulated
by language, geography or politics? How do those in the diaspora make
sense of the conflicting images and texts? Again, this is another area
worth researching because it alerts us to the ways in which individuals
can be aware of a much bigger media landscape than existed in the past.
In other words, and this is the final point to note here, the media of
diaspora exist in a globalized media landscape. While there are examples
of counternarratives and attempts to produce different representations,
in today’s globalized media landscape the sources of those images and
texts are many and various: they can be made available from the ‘home’
country, for example, and this may or may not work against opportuni-
ties to create media of diaspora. Instead of reading the local Arab press,
it may be possible to watch Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya. Does this make the
work of local content producers easier or more difficult? Does it force
them to rethink what they need to produce and the communities that
they seek to reach (and how they seek to reach them)? Does it make it
easier or more difficult to produce counternarratives?
Studying the ‘media of diaspora’ today, as in Robert Park’s day, offers
us opportunities to think about how migrant communities connect to
one another, seek to preserve their identity and also, in some way, seek
to find a place in a different and, literally, foreign environment. Some-
times, as many of the chapters in this book show, they have to fight to be
heard and to be heard properly; at other times they do not and tensions
with their ‘host’ community do not exist. Those who wish to create
the means of communication for their compatriots are always aware,
though, of the need to look to their communities and to their wider
societies; to explain themselves to one another, to offer them guidance,
support and a voice, and also to inform them of the environment in
which they exist. These simple responsibilities are as important today as
they were in Park’s day.

Prof. Ralph Negrine

University of Sheffield
May 2014

Reference
Park, R. E. (1922) The Immigrant Press and its Control. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Acknowledgements

The idea for this edited book was first mooted by the multidisciplinary
members of the Media of Diaspora Research Group (MDRG) at its Inter-
national Symposium at the TU Dortmund University, Germany, 8–9
September 2011. The symposium was supported by Faculty 15 of TU
Dortmund University, the Institute for Journalism at TU Dortmund Uni-
versity and the Erich Brost Institute for International Journalism, an
affiliate of TU Dortmund University.
The MDRG is based in the School of English and Journalism, Univer-
sity of Lincoln, UK. You can register to join at http://mediaofdiaspora.
blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/.

xv
Contributors

Donya Alinejad is completing her PhD research on second-generation

Iranian American Internet users in Los Angeles at the Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam and she lectures in digital anthropology at Amsterdam
University College.

Anupreet Sandhu Bhamra is a Canadian researcher and blogger who

deconstructs identity and belonging through the lens of her per-
sonal and professional journey. An award-winning journalist with
transnational experience, she has reported across major media plat-
forms for over 15 years. She is currently a PhD student at the University
of British Columbia in Vancouver. Her research focuses on the role of
diasporic media in shaping community identity.

Brian Chama is a lecturer at London Metropolitan University, UK. He

holds a PhD in cultural studies from Roehampton University and an
MA in communication studies from the University of Zambia.

Tendai Chari is a lecturer in the Department of Media and Commu-

nication Studies, University of Venda, South Africa. His articles have
appeared in African Identities, Ecquid Novi: Journal of African Media Studies,
Muziki and the Journal of African Media Studies.

Gregory Dallemagne obtained a master’s degree in international stud-

ies from the University of Montréal. He is currently a PhD candidate in
social anthropology at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) and
a member of the laboratory for prospective anthropology at the Univer-
sity of Louvain. His PhD thesis is based on multisited fieldwork among
transnational families in Spain and Ecuador, and his research interests
include kinship, transnational migrations, and gender and cultural iden-
tities. He is also a teaching fellow in the anthropology of kinship at the
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) in Spain.

Alicia Ferrández Ferrer obtained her PhD in social anthropology (2014)

from UAM. She has a BA in social anthropology (2004) and an MA in
migration and intercultural relations (2006). Her research focuses on the

xvi
 Notes on Contributors xvii

role of minority media in the acquisition of citizenship rights by migrant

minorities. She has carried out fieldwork in Spain and England.

Paul Fontaine is a former journalist and current doctoral student in

McGill University’s Art History and Communication Studies Depart-
ment. His research centres on diasporic communication networks, with
an emphasis on news outlets, advocacy groups and university centres
that cater to South Asian-Canadian communities. He is interested in
how these networks contribute to identity formation and the ways in
which they either resist or reinforce racist attitudes and practices.

Amira Halperin holds a PhD in communication and media from the

University of Westminster. Her research addresses diasporic media, new
media, media in the Arab world, political communication and investiga-
tive journalism. She worked as an investigative journalist and television
correspondent, both in Israel and in the UK. She was a broadcast
journalist on the BBC’s longest-running current affairs programme,
Panorama.

Svetlana D. Hristova is a junior researcher at the Institute for the

Study of Societies and Knowledge, Sofia, Bulgaria. She obtained her
MA in sociology from the Central European University and com-
pleted her PhD in 2010. Her research interests include ethnicity and
identity, intergroup relations, community media, European funds and
educational inequalities.

Eyal Lavi is a digital media consultant and teaches media studies at

Goldsmiths, University of London and the University of Bedfordshire.
His research is concerned with media, everyday space and the experience
of contemporary place.

Hinda Mandell is an assistant professor in the Department of Com-

munication at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.
She researches media coverage of scandal. Her writing on scandal has
appeared in the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, the Chicago Tribune,
USA Today and Politico.

Liliana Mayer is an associate professor at the University of

Belgrano. She has a PhD in social sciences, her research focusing on
the sociology of education and educational policy. She was a postdoc-
toral research fellow at the National Council for Scientific and Technical
xviii Notes on Contributors

Research (CONICET) and visiting professor at the Polytechnic Salesian

University of Ecuador. She is the author of Children of Democracy. How
Do Young People Think and Live? and School and Daily Conflict: How Do
Institutional Agents Deal with It?

Shepherd Mpofu is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of

Johannesburg, South Africa. He holds a PhD in media studies from the
University of the Witwatersrand. His thesis looked at public and new
media in the construction of Zimbabwean national identities. He is a
human and media rights activist. His research interests are media, audi-
ences and texts; African media systems; global media systems; media
and identity; media and memory; media, politics and democracy; and
development and cultural studies.

Bruce Mutsvairo investigates the interplay between digital activism and

political participation. He completed his PhD at Leiden University, the
Netherlands.

Teke Ngomba is an assistant professor in the Department of Aesthetics

and Communication, Aarhus University, Denmark. His research in the
fields of political communication, communication and social change,
and journalism and media studies has been published in several peer-
reviewed journals.

Ola Ogunyemi is Principal Lecturer in Journalism and Director of Col-

lege Academic Affairs, University of Lincoln, UK. He is also the convener
of the MDRG. He publishes in academic journals and his research inter-
ests are the African diasporic media and their audiences. He is the author
of What Newspapers, Films, and Television Do Africans Living in Britain See
and Read? The Media of the African Diaspora.

Sanem Şahin is a lecturer in the School of Journalism at the Univer-

sity of Lincoln, teaching journalism and ethics, international human
rights, and war and conflict resolution. She has a PhD and master’s
from the UK, and a bachelor’s degree from Turkey. Prior to an aca-
demic career, she worked as a print and broadcast journalist in Northern
Cyprus and in the UK. Her research interests include national identity,
peace and conflict reporting, international human rights and journal-
ism ethics. She was a Fulbright visiting scholar in the US and received
the Research Fellowship in Peace Studies by the Consortium of Peace
Studies in Canada.
 Notes on Contributors xix

Laura Schenquer is a professor at the University of Buenos Aires.

Her research areas include dictatorial social processes in Argentina and
Jewish studies. She was a postdoctoral research fellow at CONICET and
coeditor of Marginados y Consagrados: Nuevos Estudios sobre la vida judía
en la Argentina (2011).

Lucía Echevarría Vecino is a PhD candidate in social anthropology at

UAM and teaching fellow at UNED, Spain. She has carried out research
in the domains of migration and gender. Her current research deals with
citizenship, belonging, race and gender among children of Moroccan
migrants in Europe. She has carried out research in Spain, France,
Belgium and Morocco.
1
Introduction: Conceptualizing the
Media of Diaspora
Ola Ogunyemi

Diasporic media are a platform for self-expression, the representation

of cultural artefacts and the contestation of negative stereotypes by
migrant people in the public sphere. In the context of this anthol-
ogy, diasporic media are perceived ‘as the media that are produced by
and for migrants and deal with issues that are of specific interest for
the members of diasporic communities’ (Bozdag et al., 2012, p. 97).
Their functions have been articulated in previous literature, includ-
ing the production of ‘culturally relevant and locally vital information
to immigrants in the host society’ (Yin, 2013, p. 3); ‘orientation and
connective roles’ (Ogunyemi, 2012b); ‘open space for a self-reflective
discourse among migrants’ (Bozdag et al., 2012); ‘reinforce identities
and sense of belonging’ (Georgiou, 2006); ‘the (re-)creation of alterna-
tive imaginative space alongside existing mappings’ (Karim, 2003); and
contribution ‘to the ethnic diversity of a multi-ethnic public sphere’
(Husband, 2000, p. 206). However, we know very little about their pro-
duction practices because they are hardly used in empirical studies. This
hiatus in the literature is evident in the observation made by Wahl-
Jorgensen and Hanitzsch that ‘the work of US news organizations is
extremely well charted, whereas we know excruciatingly little about
what goes on in newsrooms and media content in Africa, Asia and Latin
America’ (Wahl-Jorgensen and Hanitzsch, 2009, p. 8).
Diasporic media have proliferated in the past two decades, thanks
to advances in information technology and to other factors, such as
increased audience demand and enabling political climates. The lat-
ter are partly driven by the awareness among policy-makers in the
developed world to connect not just to the mainstream but also to
the ‘ethnic media to get their message across to increasingly multi-
ethnic constituencies’ (see Matsaganis et al., 2011, p. xiv). However, the

1
2 Introduction: Conceptualizing the Media of Diaspora

tendency to regard ethnic media as speaking for and representing the

diasporic groups undermines the visibility of the diasporic media and of
the need for policy-makers to use them to get their message across to
diasporic groups. This is evident in the lack of invitation to their prac-
titioners to attend official press briefings or to be sent embargoed press
releases. Consequently, the sourcing routine of most diasporic media
revolves around monitoring the mainstream media for breaking news
(see Ogunyemi, 2012a).
The theoretical framework for conceptualizing the appropriation of
media by diasporic groups is interdisciplinary. For instance, some schol-
ars have examined it from the lens of race – that is, ‘ “non-white”
peoples who remain distinct as minorities in their countries of residence’
(Karim, 2003, p. 2). Some have explored it from the lens of migra-
tion – that is, involuntary relocation and displacement (see Cohen,
1997; Safran, 1991; Skrbis, 2008). And some have researched it from
the lens of the politically marginalized or powerless. However, Qui cau-
tions that ‘today, we can easily find diasporas that do not fit into any
of the traditional classifications of diaspora’ (Qui, 2003, p. 148). Hence
she proposes that the appropriation of media by diasporic groups be
examined from the lens of ‘knowledge diasporas’ – that is, ‘who are
not forced abroad by armies or persecution. Rather, they are pushed
into exile because the absence of a high-technology environment at
home deprives them of substantial opportunity and free choice for per-
sonal development’ (ibid., p. 148). These divergent but complementary
theoretical frameworks led Georgiou to conclude that ‘the diasporic
condition has become much more complex and diverse, with some
groups still living on the margin, but with most being in a position of
inside-outsider’ (Georgiou, 2006, p. 3).
However, I would argue that the lens of the active audience is the
missing link in literature in these conceptualizations of the appropri-
ation of media by diasporic groups. This theoretical framework is a
pertinent research enquiry because diasporic groups use their media not
‘as a result of a political consciousness of belonging to a certain commu-
nity and looking for, or producing political representation, but . . . more
in relation to broader fields of practices: information, entertainment,
engagement, commerce and faith’ (Bozdag et al., 2012, pp. 99–100).
Moreover, the diasporic media do not only ‘aspire to mainstream sta-
tus in terms of both programming and philosophy’ (Forde et al., 2003,
p. 317) but also become a ‘hybrid of alternative and mainstream media’
(Ogunyemi, 2012b, p. 179) in dealing with issues that are of specific
interest to their members.
 Ola Ogunyemi 3

Diasporic media

The conceptualization of diasporic media is mostly underpinned by the-

oretical frameworks such as the public sphere, alternative media and
identity. For instance, Cunningham and Sinclair argue that diasporic
media ‘share many of the characteristics 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 ethno-specific identities –
which are by definition “multi-national”, even global – to the wider
“host” environments’ (Cunningham and Sinclair, 2001, pp. 134–135).
Meanwhile Fraser contends that diasporic media inhabit the ‘subaltern
counter-publics’ – that is, the ‘discursive arenas where members of sub-
ordinate social groups can invent and circulate “counter-discourses”
through which to formulate “oppositional interpretations” of their iden-
tities, interests, and needs’ (Fraser, 1990, p. 67). However, Bozdag et al.
caution that ‘the metaphor of diasporic media as the focus of diasporic
networking is a more useful concept for understanding their role for
diasporic communities than alternative public spheres or alternative
media’ (Bozdag et al., 2012, p. 111).
Some scholars conceptualize diasporic media from the perspective of
alternative media and identity. For example, Karim argues that ‘much of
the cultural production of diasporas involves the (re-)creation of alter-
native imaginative space alongside existing mappings’ (Karim, 2003,
p. 9). And Nacify (2003) contends that their content is a mixture of pro-
grammes produced in the host country and imported from the home
country. In terms of identity, scholars claim that ‘they offer relevant
and contemporary cultural references for people to actively renew and
reinvent their identities and sense of belonging’ (Georgiou, 2006, p. 79).
This conceptualization gives us an insight into the appeals of diasporic
media, including ‘fostering an identity that is embedded in the local
experience specific to a migrant’s physical location’ (Yin, 2013, p. 3)
and ‘preserving ethnic culture and identity – promoting ethnic pride,
presenting symbolic ethnicity and unifying subgroups’ (Johnson, 2000,
p. 246; see also Jeffres, 1999; Yin, 2013; Zhang and Hao, 1999).
However, there is a gap in the literature on the production prac-
tices of diasporic media, its news-processing and its consumption by
the diasporic communities. Hence this anthology argues that diasporic
media are a bona fide media entity and, as such, there is a need to
understand their production practices, news-processing and audience
consumption.
4 Introduction: Conceptualizing the Media of Diaspora

Production practices

The culture, practice and ethics of diasporic media have not been ade-
quately interrogated in the scholarly literature, unlike their mainstream,
ethnic and alternative media counterparts. However, in the wake of the
Leveson Inquiry (2012) on the culture, practice and ethics of the press
in the UK, it is pertinent to examine and understand how the diasporic
media meets their ‘responsibilities to the public interest: to respect the
truth, to obey the law and to uphold the rights and liberties of indi-
viduals’ (ibid., p. 5). Such scholarly enquiry entails an exploration of
how their practitioners adhere to professional norms – that is, ‘the duty
to protect confidential sources, objectivity, balance and neutrality, sep-
aration between advertising and editorial content, between facts and
opinion, and the obligation to hear both sides of a story or argument’
(Brants and Haan, 2010, p. 424).
The scholarly enquiry also encompasses an exploration of the diver-
sity of skills in the newsrooms and its impact on the quality of pro-
duction and the appropriation of professional norms. For instance, the
quality of production in the African diasporic media is affected by the
finding that only a small minority have a background in journalism,
leading staff members to perform multiple designated roles (Ogunyemi,
2012b, p. 72). And Skjerdal’s study gives an insight into the impact on
their professional values by noting that

many of the managers of diaspora websites are not professional jour-

nalists in the common western sense of the term. They may not
belong to established media houses, they have not been educated
as journalists, they are rarely members of a professional media orga-
nization, their main occupation is something else than the media
venture, and so forth.
(Skjerdal, 2011, p. 728)

A scholarly enquiry into the institutional roles of diasporic media will

give us an insight into the similarities and divergence in journalism
practice across the media sector. For instance, the findings of Hanitzsch
et al.’s study are instructive in noting ‘that journalists across the globe
pay high regard to the normative ideals of detachment, providing
political information, and acting as a watchdog of the government’
(Hanitzsch et al., 2011, p. 280). And Shoemaker et al.’s study sets the
parameters for exploring their gatekeeping routine by emphasizing that
the concept should ‘be seen as the overall process through which the
 Ola Ogunyemi 5

social reality transmitted by the news media is constructed, and is

not just a series of “in” and “out” decisions’ (Shoemaker et al., 2001).
Hence Hanitzsch cautions that ‘the conceptualization of journalism’s
institutional roles is deeply coloured by a Western understanding of
news making and does not echo cultural variation across the globe’
(Hanitzsch, 2007, p. 372).
Scholarly enquiry needs to focus on how diasporic media distance
themselves from political power because Hanitzsch argues that at ‘one
end of the power distance dimension is represented by the “adversary”
pole (high); the other end should be labelled “loyal” (low). The adver-
sary pole of the continuum captures a kind of journalism that openly
challenges the powers that be’ (Hanitzsch, 2007, p. 373). A compar-
ative study reveals that a ‘relatively weak power distance, indicated
by the willingness of journalists to convey a positive image of politi-
cal and business leadership, exists among journalists in China, Russia
and Uganda’ (Hanitzsch et al., 2011, p. 281). While there is limited
research on power distance from the perspective of diasporic media,
Skjerdal’s study is instructive in noting that the Ethiopian diaspora
websites distance themselves from power by adopting three strate-
gies: ‘the first favours a self-proclaimed “peaceful struggle” against the
government in power’ (Skjerdal, 2011, p. 737); the second favours
a militant strategy, ‘which constitutes a close ally to the opposition
party Ginbot 7 and which more than once has declared armed strug-
gle as the only viable means to overthrow the Ethiopian government’
(ibid.); and the third ‘is less obvious in its political orientation, but
still carries a large amount of material critical of the government’
(ibid.).
Finally, scholarly enquiry should encompass the market orientation of
diasporic media. Previous studies note that market orientation ‘is high
in journalism cultures that subordinate their goals to the logic of the
market; it is low in cultures that produce the news primarily in the “pub-
lic interest” ’ (Hanitzsch, 2007, p. 374). But while there is a paucity of
research on the market orientation of diasporic media, we get a sense
that their market orientation sways towards a hybrid of market logic and
public interest in trying to balance two competing needs – that is, the
need for survival and to provide information for their niche audience.
Hence Callahan cautions that ‘economic interests in increasing profits
pressure news media to give people what they want, not the information
they need. Journalism already aims for lively communication, and desire
for popularity can override the duty to provide serious news reporting’
(Callahan, 2009, p. 7).
6 Introduction: Conceptualizing the Media of Diaspora

News production and processing

Scholarly enquiry on the news production and processing of the

diasporic media needs to focus on epistemologies in order to gain
an understanding of the orientation of their journalists. For instance,
Hanitzsch’s found a tendency for journalists to gravitate towards ‘inter-
ventionist, socially committed, and motivated’ (Hanitzsch, 2007, p. 372)
or ‘detached and uninvolved, dedicated to objectivity and impartiality’
(ibid.). From the perspective of diasporic journalists, Skjerdal’s study of
the Ethiopian diaspora websites found that ‘the websites contest the
objectivity dimension through a proclaimed political bias in reporting
and analysis’ (Skjerdal, 2011, p. 738). This finding is consistent with
previous studies which claim that the concept of epistemology ‘in jour-
nalism raise the question of whether or not the news can provide an
objective and value-free account of the truth and, if so, how such truth
claims are to be justified’ (Hanitzsch, 2007, p. 376). However, Matsaganis
et al. note that ethnic media journalists temper objectivity with consid-
erations for ‘the interests of the community they serve and the country
they live in simultaneously’ (Matsaganis et al., 2011, p. 237).
Scholarly enquiry should also focus on ethical ideologies from the
perspective of diasporic media. For instance, a comparative study found
‘that most journalists in the surveyed countries tend to obey univer-
sal principles regardless of situation and context. They also agree on
the importance of avoiding questionable methods of reporting, even if
this means not getting the story’ (Hanitzsch et al., 2011, p. 284). This
finding is consistent with Skjerdal’s study of the editors of Ethiopian
diasporic websites which found that ‘the editors express that they
belong to an occupational community characterized by shared ethical
norms and professional demarcations’ (Skjerdal, 2011, p. 738). However,
Callahan argues that ‘the universality of ethics is called into ques-
tion when we think of the differences in generations. For that matter,
existing differences in cultures and the present diversity between and
within societies challenges an ideal of a universal ethics of journalism’
(Callahan, 2009, p. 11).

Reception and consumption

The paucity of scholarly enquiry on the reception and consumption

of diasporic media could be attributed to the challenges of profiling
diaspora audiences. According to Cunningham, a diaspora audience is
‘typically a citizen of a western country, who is not stateless and is not
 Ola Ogunyemi 7

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’ (Cunningham, 2001, p. 137).
It could also be attributed to the discourse of media consumption. Hence
Georgiou notes that

diasporic media consumption might facilitate the emergence of dis-

courses that lead to the reinvention and redefinition of particular
identities. As media consumption is never singularly defined by
particularistic media, nor is it shared in its characteristics across a
group, the construction of identities in media cultures is complex and
involves different communication processes, appropriations of vari-
ous media and involvement in the production of various mediated
discourses on the consumption side.
(Georgiou, 2006, p. 72)

And it could be attributed to the pattern of their media consumption

leading to the evolution ‘of “digital diaspora” which reflects the engage-
ment of its members in activities related to information technology’
(Laguerre, 2010, p. 49).
Our understanding of the reception and consumption of diasporic
media is also limited by the lack of reliable statistics about their audience
reach, an important measurement which is useful to both the media
organizations and the advertisers. This is because they are not certified
by the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), they are excluded from the
National Readership Survey and they have a short lifespan. Despite these
factors, scholarly enquiry should focus on their

available/potential audience; the paying audience (especially for

some diasporic channels on BSkyB); the attentive audience (those
that actually read, watch, listen); the internal audience (those who
pay attention to particular sections, types or single items of content);
the cumulative audience (the overall proportion of the potential
audience that is reached over a particular period of time); and the
target audience (that section of a potential audience singled out for
reach by a particular source (e.g. advertiser)).
(McQuail, 2005, p. 413)

The traditions of audience research are an appropriate theoretical frame-

work for understanding the reception and consumption of diasporic
media. For instance, Bozdag et al.’s applied the uses and gratification to
8 Introduction: Conceptualizing the Media of Diaspora

reach the conclusion ‘that migrants do not only use diasporic media for
commonwealth-oriented discursive exchange as the concept of delib-
erative public sphere . . . , but also for religious exchange, commercial
purposes, or individual entertainment’ (Bozdag et al., 2012, p. 110).
Meanwhile, Titley et al.’s study found an orientation towards integrated
media use among Nigerian, Chinese and Polish diaspora in Ireland
which ‘involves relational viewing and engagement, in which Irish
media and other sources are compared and contrasted, and organized
in relation to each other according to different needs, political readings,
and pleasures’ (Titley et al., 2010, p. 11).
There is a need for scholarly enquiry to encompass other research
traditions, such as literary criticism (historical framework, text-reader
response theory, psychologically and sociologically oriented empiri-
cal studies); cultural studies (the impact of broad social and cultural
practices); reception analysis (the process of reception on the use and
impact of media content); and the constructivism and active audience
approaches (see Jensen and Rosengren, 1990; McQuail, 2005). These
theoretical methods will advance our comprehension of the appeals of
diasporic media and of the taste and preferences of their audience.

The structure of this book

A trawl of the literature indicates a gap in our understanding of diasporic

media regarding their production practices, news-processing and audi-
ence consumption. Hence this anthology brings together scholars from
interdisciplinary perspectives to examine, interrogate and reflect on
these issues. However, the contributors did not aim to celebrate or dis-
credit the production practices and consumption of diasporic media;
rather, they critically evaluate their appropriation of professional val-
ues, their articulation of discourses and representations, and their
engagement with audiences.
In selecting the case studies for this book, I was driven by their rel-
evance to the central theme underpinning each section and by their
contribution to the holistic understanding of the interplay between
the production practices, news-processing and consumption. Although
there was diversity in the geographical spread of case studies, some areas
were better represented than others. For instance, there were three case
studies of Zimbabwean diasporic media and of Jewish diasporic media in
the US, the UK and Argentina. Perhaps this slight preponderance points
to an upsurge in research on both countries and their diaspora. However,
what the volume also demonstrates is that there is growing research
 Ola Ogunyemi 9

on other countries and their diaspora, as evident in the inclusion of

case studies of diasporic media in Spain, Denmark, Bulgaria, Turkey,
Palestine, Iran, South Asian and the UK.
Part I of the book consists of four chapters (2–5), which examine
some dimensions of production practices. For instance, Hinda Mandell
(Chapter 2) focuses on the perspectives of some Jewish press editors
on the framing of ‘Bernard Madoff, the former chairman of NASDAQ,
who pled guilty in March 2009 to running a $65 billion Ponzi scheme’.
She claims that Jewish identity was at the centre of the discourse in
the newspapers analyzed. The researcher adopted a semipurposive sam-
pling technique to interview eight Jewish press editors in the US and
used grounded theory to systematically analyse the data. The analysis
revealed that ‘editors spoke of a general sensitivity among their readers
against publishing news coverage of Jewish scandal in their newspapers,
even if the general press is already covering the story’. Meanwhile, Shep-
herd Mpofu (Chapter 3) examines the practice of deliberative politics
in Zimbabwe as mediated through the Internet. Using critical discourse
analysis (CDA) to explore the discussion of homosexuality on the New
Zimbabwe forum (newzimbabwe.com), he concludes that the forum
adopts a professional approach to news coverage which enables it to
enhance its appeal and to become a platform for speaking to power.
Through a case study of the defunct Africa Have Your Say (AHYS)
website, Ola Ogunyemi (Chapter 4) examines how the moderators nego-
tiate the challenges of formal and ideological news values in reporting
taboo news. This is because taboo is an integral part of the belief sys-
tem of the Africans at home and in the diaspora, and its discussion in
the public sphere could be perceived as an ‘offensive emotional lan-
guage’. Ogunyemi adopted mixed methods – including an in-depth
interview with the editor and two moderators, an ethnographic study
of the newsroom, an analysis of the editorial document and an analy-
sis of the users’ comments – to understand how the moderators frame
taboo news and the evidence of the reproduction of ideology in users’
comments. He found that while some taboo subjects restrict the need
to tell the story and put a burden on practitioners to be sensitive to
audiences’ cultural sensibilities, the moderators at AHYS circumvent this
restraint by adopting a formal news-value approach in framing taboo
news. Hence the forum was a platform for deliberation where audiences
were free to reinforce or challenge pre-existing ideological positions.
Finally, Sanem Sahin (Chapter 5) argues that ‘the tensions created by
the conflicts by various groups (i.e. between Turks and Kurds or Turkish
Cypriots or within the Turkish Cypriot community) are reflected on the
10 Introduction: Conceptualizing the Media of Diaspora

diasporic life, influencing the press and its journalism’. Using a case
study of Turkish language diasporic press in the UK, she explores ‘its
production, distribution as well as interaction with the community’ and
conducts content analysis and qualitative interviews with the editors
and journalists to collate data.
Part II comprises five chapters (6–10) whose starting point is the inter-
rogation of the framing devices for projecting alternative perspectives
on civic issues and for promoting counterhegemonic discourses in the
news content. For instance, Lucía Echevarría Vecino, Alicia Ferrández
Ferrer and Gregory Dallemagne (Chapter 6) focus on the politics of
representation in migrant minority media in Spain. In analysing the
content of two newspapers, Latino and Sí se puede, they argue that ‘the
production of media targeting migrant and diasporic communities has
been key in the creation of alternative discourses about migration and
multicultural societies’. The analysis reveals that the representation of
some news items, such as religion and music, enables ‘the media to
build a bridge between indigenous identities and “modern” ones’. How-
ever, regarding gender representation, they found that ‘men are shown
mainly in the public domain, where power and decisions take place,
while women are mainly represented in domestic, familial and maternal
spaces’. Meanwhile Teke Ngomba (Chapter 7) focuses on the similar-
ity and contrast between the diasporic media and mainstream media
in the coverage of immigration and immigrants. He adopts framing
and CDAs to explore this issue using the case study of the Copenhagen
Post, a newspaper produced by and for English-speaking immigrants in
Denmark. He found that the newspaper ‘frames immigrants and immi-
gration as good and important for Denmark through different kinds of
reports which coalesce into an advocacy form of journalism for less strict
immigration policies’.
The next three chapters highlight how diasporic media promotes
counterhegemonic discourses in the public sphere. Hence Anupreet
Sandhu Bhamra and Paul Fontaine (Chapter 8) focus on how ‘the
diasporic media challenge the mainstream Canadian media’s construc-
tion of the culturalization of violence in the South Asian community
by providing a forum for community members to write letters and
through its own editorials’. Using three case studies, they demonstrate
how South Asian news outlets challenge the continued application of
a cultural framework to the issue of spousal abuse in ‘the mainstream
press’. More specifically, these newspapers introduce structures of sexism
as key factors in domestic violence. Meanwhile, Laura Schenquer and
Liliana Mayer (Chapter 9) examine the coverage of the Yom Kippur War
 Ola Ogunyemi 11

of 1973 in the Jewish-Argentine diasporic press and ‘the way they pre-
sented the information revealing their intentions or political interests’.
The case studies were chosen because they ‘represent sectors with diverse
political opinions in the Argentine Jewish field’. Hence the authors argue
that the divergence in opinions, ‘which could be in line with the edi-
torial or not, should not be nullified, but analyzed as conceptions in
conflict coexisting within the same media and whose approach enriches
the analysis proposed’.
Finally Svetlana D. Hristova (Chapter 10) ‘elaborates on the dynamic,
socially constructed representation of the Roma through community
broadcasts versus traditional representation of Roma in mainstream
media’. She adopts mixed methods, including content analysis, a focus
group, in-depth interviews and an ethnomethodology approach to com-
prehend the self-perceived we-image; the everyday attitudes towards the
Roma community; and the extent of their use as objects or subjects of
stories in the Bulgarian media. She found that the media for and by
Roma people face financial insecurity, and multiethnic media staff tend
to mutually enrich intercultural competences and understanding.
Part III consists of five chapters (11–15), which explore the reception
and consumption of diasporic media. They lead to the conclusion that
the audiences of diasporic media are active and engage in integrated
media use – that is, they use the mainstream and diasporic media con-
currently in comprehending social reality. For instance, Donya Alinejad
and Bruce Mutsvairo (Chapter 11) compare and contrast the consump-
tion patterns of the Zimbabwean and Iranian diaspora audiences. They
apply the ‘uses and gratifications model’ as a theoretical base for under-
standing ‘the role of Internet-based media in the everyday lives of key
Diaspora actors, treating them as both media producers and users at
once’. The in-depth case studies of websites dedicated to their diasporic
journalism reveal that ‘the intersection between internet media and
diasporic news production – central in these two cases – signals a change
in the relationships of these diaspora actors to events in the “country of
origin,” as well as to audiences in the “country of settlement” ’.
The other chapters in this section also contribute to the discourse of
active audience. For instance, Eyal Lavi (Chapter 12) argues that ‘engage-
ment with the truth-status of news is an act of diasporic place-making
and orientation to place’ and ‘that better attention should be paid to
the historical and geographical specificities of diasporic groups, both
between and within diasporas’. He adopts ‘in-depth double interviews
and a media diary exercise with 30 British and Israeli-born secular adults
residing in London’ to reach a conclusion that participants demonstrate
12 Introduction: Conceptualizing the Media of Diaspora

‘extensive knowledge of current affairs’. However, ‘some were apologetic

about being only interested in stories that affected them personally,
or being “not connected enough” to news’. Meanwhile Brian Chama
(Chapter 13) focuses on how the Zambian diaspora in the UK engage
with their online and print magazine. Using an in-depth interview to
explore the content preference of Zambians located in some major cities
in England, the analysis reveals a preference for current affairs about
Zambians at home and in the diaspora. However, Chama’s study found
that the audience was critical of the quality and immediacy of content.
The audience survey comments include that the magazine needs ‘to
change its approach in news content as it tended to present same indi-
viduals and news markers that were far more detached from issues that
affected their daily lives in the United Kingdom and in Zambia’.
However, Amira Halperin (Chapter 14) argues that ‘the Palestinians
in the diaspora are an active audience. They create websites and blogs
to disseminate their personal stories and to receive updates from Gaza
and the West Bank from the people who live there.’ Hence Halperin
focuses on the appropriation of new media by Palestinians for political
ends and for the expansion of their social networks. She conducted 52
individual interviews with Palestinians who reside in the UK and partic-
ipant observation of the community events organized by the Palestinian
community in the UK to collate data for analysis. Finally, Tendai Chari
explores the online news consumption practices of the Zimbabwean
diaspora and their appropriation of the media to imagine their citizen-
ship in the digital age. Using a questionnaire survey, he draws attention
to the way in which geographically dislocated populations use online
news platforms to relive memories about their native country and to
attest to their quest to belong to their motherland in a globalizing
world.
Finally, it is pertinent to thank the contributors for responding to the
‘call’ for chapters made via the European Communication Research and
Education Association’s (ECREA) mailing list. The quantity and breadth
of abstracts received demonstrate the international and intellectual
scopes of scholarship on the diasporic media. I would also like to thank
the anonymous reviewer for their clear-sighted and helpful comments
throughout the stages of writing. Most significantly, it is hoped that this
edited volume will strengthen the argument to establish diasporic media
studies in universities, will enhance research into diasporic media and
will encourage more scholars to join the MDRG based in the School of
English and Journalism, University of Lincoln, UK.
 Ola Ogunyemi 13

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Part I
Production Practices
2
Imagine What the Gentiles Must
Think: Editors of the US Jewish
Press Reflect on Covering the
Bernard Madoff Scandal
Hinda Mandell

It is hard to imagine a world where the editor of a Jewish newspaper had

never heard of Bernard Madoff, the former chairman of NASDAQ who
pleaded guilty in March 2009 to running a $65 billion Ponzi scheme,
which caused some Jewish charities across the US to shutter (Weiss,
2009). However, on the day when he turned himself into the federal
authorities, in December 2008, the name ‘Madoff’ had no meaning for
the editor of the Jewish Week, the newspaper with a readership of 70,000
that circulates in Madoff’s hometown, and to which his own attorney
subscribes (I. Sorkin, personal communication, 11 March 2009). The day
after Madoff’s arrest, the New York Times announced on its front page:
‘U.S. arrests top trader in vast fraud’ (Henriques and Kouwe, 2008). The
Wall Street Journal declared on p. 1: ‘Top broker accused of fraud’ (Efrati,
2008).
In the Jewish community, the story of the Wall Street maven who
bilked thousands of individual investors and institutions out of billions
of dollars had significance (Pogrebin, 2008). Madoff is a Jew who had
served in prominent leadership positions in the Jewish world, including
on the board of trustees at Yeshiva University, which lost an estimated
$110 million through investments in his scheme (Hernandez, 2008).
The Jewish community counts a disproportionate number of Jewish
investors and foundations among his victims (Gorilovskaya, 2009).
For those who oversee editorial coverage in Jewish newspapers, it
became clear that 2008 would end bitterly for many readers. Madoff
became known as the gonif, or common thief, in Yiddish (Siegelman,

17
18 Production Practices

2009). For Jews who were not directly taken in by his scheme, they
may have felt victimized regardless: ‘Jews are still tribal enough to
think of their coreligionists vaguely as family’ (Epstein, 2009). The pain
associated with a fellow Jew targeting his own people may have been
particularly acute.
The purpose of this chapter is to understand how editors of Jewish
newspapers approached news coverage of the Madoff story to make its
news content relevant to readers who were deeply interested in the sub-
ject. With limited resources compared with the general press, how could
the Jewish press carve out its territory in a story with serious implica-
tions in the Jewish community? I interviewed Jewish press editors from
a sample of publications across the US. The sample included editors
from the Jewish Daily Forward, the Jewish Week, New Jersey Jewish News,
the Baltimore Jewish Times, the Jewish Journal, the JTA, the global news
service of the Jewish people, and Commentary magazine.
The year 2008 ended and 2009 began with headlines from the main-
stream media focusing on Madoff’s connection to Jewish coffers. The
‘Jewish angle’ typically in the purview of the Jewish press was thor-
oughly covered by the New York Times, Slate magazine, the Washington
Times, the Huffington Post and Newsweek. On 23 December 2008, a front-
page story in the New York Times read ‘Betrayed by Madoff, Yeshiva
University Adds a Lesson’ (Hernandez, 2008). Inside the paper on the
same day, an article noted in its headline: ‘In Madoff Scandal, Jews
Feel an Acute Betrayal’ (Pogrebin, 2008). A couple of weeks later the
New York Times continued with its coverage of the Madoff-Jewish theme
in another article entitled ‘But is Madoff not so Good for the Jews?
Discuss among Yourselves’ (Cohen, 2009). It would appear that the
newspaper of record was crowding out the Jewish angle on the Madoff
story, leaving the Jewish press with bubkes.
It is necessary to review the damage that Madoff caused within the
Jewish world to establish this story as significant for the Jewish press.
The scope of Madoff’s scheme is breathtaking, and a document, 163-
pages long, lists his investor victims (Sabloff, 2009). Some of his most
famous investors include New York University (Go, 2008); Tufts Univer-
sity (Silverblatt, 2009); HSBC, which was reported to have lost $1 billion
with Madoff; actors Kevin Bacon and John Malkovich; and actress Zsa
Zsa Gabor (Sabloff, 2009). Jewish investors also include individuals who
are recognizable symbols of Jewish success in the US, including Steven
Spielberg, famed director of Schindler’s List; Elie Wiesel, Auschwitz sur-
vivor and Nobel laureate; and Sandy Koufax, the Major League Baseball
pitcher who famously refused to play ball on Yom Kippur (Sabloff, 2009).
 Hinda Mandell 19

Jewish charitable organizations suffered as well. Examples include the

Lappin Foundation in Boston, which sent Jewish youth to Israel before
closing operations upon learning of Madoff’s arrest. All of its money – an
estimated $8 million – was tied up with Bernard L. Madoff Investment
Securities (McCabe, 2008). Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization
of America, lost an estimated $90 million through its investments with
Madoff (Weiler-Polak, 2008), and the American Jewish Congress lost
$21 million of its $24 million endowment to the fallen financier (Weiss,
2009).
Given the extent to which the Jewish community has suffered from
Madoff’s confessed scheme, and the increased importance of niche
media (Viswanath and Arora, 2000), it is worthwhile analysing how
editors of the Jewish press differentiate their coverage from the general
press.

Jewish ethnicity and Jewish press literature

Jewish identity represents both a religious and an ethnic affilia-

tion. Judaism is described as a culture, religion and ethnicity in one
(Schlosser, 2006). Jewish ethnicity, however, does not mandate reli-
giosity (Friedman et al., 2005). In this context, ethnicity refers to a
connection between a group of people who share demographic char-
acteristics. It is regarded as playing a significant role in shaping the
conception of one’s self (Friedman et al., 2005).
The ethnic press has a historic role in the US newspaper industry
(Bjork, 1998). As early as the country’s establishment, publications serv-
ing an ethnic readership helped to assimilate its audience into the
‘melting pot’ of US life (Marty et al., 1963; Park, 1922; Remnick, 1994).
Ethnic media have grown significantly since late last century (Deuze,
2006). However, studies examining ethnic media use and their role in
US ethnic communities focus on recent immigrants or take a broad
approach to the subject (see Deuze, 2006; Jeffres and Kyoon, 1980; Olzak
and West, 1991; Viswanath and Arora, 2000). Articles focusing solely on
the Jewish press are mostly published in the Columbia Journalism Review.
They are presented more as news items than scholarly work (see e.g.
Beckerman, 2004; Eisenberg, 1993; Polner, 1991).

Jewish press divisions

The Jewish press consisted of two counterparts. These included the

daily Yiddish press, which is no longer in operation, and the weekly
20 Production Practices

Anglo-Jewish press, which remains the core of Jewish journalism today

(Marty et al., 1963; Miller, 1987). In histories of the ethnic press in the
US, the Yiddish press is lauded as the darling of the industry: ‘In the
Yiddish press the foreign-language newspaper may be said to have
achieved form’ (Park, 1922, p. 89). In 1916, at the height of the Yiddish
daily press, 532,787 copies of Forverts, Day-Warheit, the Morning Journal
and Daily News circulated among paid customers in New York City on a
given day (Park, 1922, p. 91). At this time an estimated 1.5 million Jews
called New York City home, representing more than a quarter of the
city’s population. The weekly Anglo-Jewish newspapers coexisted with
the Yiddish press, but barely. In an era when Yiddish papers represented
the voice of Jewish immigrants, Anglo-Jewish weeklies were known as
‘weaklies’, coined by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, ‘alluding . . . to their policy
of avoiding controversy’ (Miller, 1987, p. 218).
One of the challenges within weekly Jewish journalism is its own-
ership, typically, by a community federation (Marty et al., 1963).
A lack of independent ownership makes it more difficult for a pub-
lication to act as a community sentinel and to objectively report on
the federation that owns it: ‘Public or communal ownership of local
weeklies has the tendency to stifle criticism and encourage cultural
and religious gleichshaltung [cultural homogenization]’ (Marty et al.,
1963, p. 165).
The American Jewish Press Association boasts 250 member publica-
tions, according to its website, reaching 2.5 million Jews in the US.
That number represents more than a third of the Jewish population
(Jewish Virtual Library, 2009). The vast circulation of the Jewish week-
lies provides an argument for studying these publications. Additionally,
criticism of the Jewish press is less than contemporary, with most of it
dating from the 1960s to 1980s (see Marty et al., 1963; Miller, 1987;
Rosenblatt, 1977).

Jewish demographics in the US as they relate to the

country’s press

A closer look at the Jewish community in the US raises questions about

the challenges of the Jewish press in particular. Establishing an overview
of Jewish demographics in the US can offer an insight into the readers
of the Jewish press, as well as the motivations of the Jewish editors who
oversee it. Research on Jewish educational and economic success is well
documented (Burstein, 2007; Keister, 2003; Lerner et al., 1989). ‘Jews are
 Hinda Mandell 21

generally wealthier, better educated, and hold higher-status jobs than

the average American, but they remain the most liberal white ethnic
group in the United States’ (Lerner et al., 1989). Researchers speak about
Jewish educational and economic attainment in lofty terms: ‘By all
conventional measures, Jews are much more successful educationally
and economically than other ethnic, racial, and religious groups in the
United States’ (Burstein, 2007, p. 209).
Burstein (2007) summarizes research on Jewish attainment through
four proposed explanations:

• Jews attain success in the same way as successful non-Jews do:

through hard work and long hours;
• Jewish particularity, such as the historic importance of text-based
study in Jewish life, plays a role in achieving success;
• Jewish marginality nurtures a creative and ambitious sense;
• social capital, consisting of organized social networks and organiza-
tions, connects Jews to each other.

Yet Jews who experience discrimination as a result of their Jewish iden-

tity, or feel marginalized because of their religious practice, are not in
the minority. Friedman et al. (2005) conducted in-depth interviews of
Jews from a community in the northeastern US. They found that each
of the participants said that they had felt marginalized and knew of
discrimination against their coreligionists, or experienced it personally,
as a result of their Jewish identity. When studying those of the Jewish
faith it is important to note that while they have higher socioeconomic
status in the US compared with non-Jews, a sense of marginality often
shapes Jewish identity (Shapiro, 1992; Weisberger, 1992). I conjecture
that this sense of marginality affects readers’ reaction to news covered
in the Jewish press, as well as the non-Jewish press, since they might be
concerned that it will reflect badly on them. Additionally, Jewish read-
ers may feel more compelled to express concern over editorial content
to the editors of the Jewish press because of its perceived accessibility
and ethnic closeness.
Not all Jews are wealthy. However, if the readership of the Jewish
press resembles the demographic status of American Jews, editors of the
Jewish press may have distinct challenges in comparison with their col-
leagues in the ethnic press, since they may brush up against the interests
of the wealthy to a greater extent than other ethnic editors. Rosenblatt
22 Production Practices

(1977) recalls a speech in which an editor addressed a cohort of Jewish

journalists:

He sharply criticized the Jewish press in America for its tendency to

give in to pressures from ‘machers’ [leaders] who command, Thou
Shalt Print Everything We Say – whether or not it is news – and, Thou
Shalt Hallow and Glorify Our Name.
(Rosenblatt, 1977, p. 49)

Ultimately the Madoff story represents a singular opportunity to study

the relevance of the ethnic press and the culture of scandal involving
Jews. This study’s research questions ask:

1. How do editors of Jewish publications see their news coverage as

distinct from the mainstream media in the Madoff story?
2. What are the challenges associated with Jewish journalism when
editors cover scandal?

Method

I employed a semipurposive sampling technique to interview Jewish

press editors throughout the US. I initially had two rules relating to
sampling requirements. The first was that I would interview editors
who were associated with well-respected publications. It was impor-
tant for the validity of this research that I selected from publications
that offer readers original content. The second rule, which I relaxed
with my last interview, was that I would interview editors of editori-
ally independent news organizations that were not overseen by Jewish
federations. My assumption was that independent editors would speak
most freely. I relaxed this requirement in order to interview the editor
of the New Jersey Jewish News, who was highly recommended by one of
his colleagues for his decades of work in the field of Jewish journalism.
I was also driven to sample from publications located in areas that
were hard hit by Madoff, including New York and Los Angeles. In the
instance when I did interview an editor from a publication whose geo-
graphic area was less hard hit by Madoff’s scheme (such as the city of
Baltimore, Maryland), I was motivated by the reputation of the publi-
cation, as indicated by its numerous awards from the American Jewish
Press Association.
Interview dates ranged from 20 February 2009 to 2 April 2009. I con-
ducted three interviews over the phone, involving editors located in
 Hinda Mandell 23

Baltimore, Los Angeles and Whippany, New Jersey. These editors repre-
sented the Baltimore Jewish Times, the Jewish Journal and New Jersey Jewish
News, respectively. I conducted five in-person interviews in New York
with editors from the Jewish Daily Forward, the JTA (known as the global
news service of the Jewish people), the Jewish Week and Commentary
magazine. I conducted eight interviews in all, representing seven Jewish
publications.
It is worth noting that the New York interviews occurred in the week
prior to and throughout Madoff’s conflict of interest hearing and sub-
sequent guilty plea in court. The amount of attention that the press
paid to the subject was significant. At this time New York Magazine ran a
cover story with the headline ‘Bernie Madoff, Monster (Fishman, 2009)’.
It was available at every newsstand in New York. Madoff appeared to be
the subject in the New York press.

Interview protocol

A semistructured interview guided me through conversations with par-

ticipants. Of the five in-person interviews conducted in New York, all
except one took place in the editor’s newsroom. The exception took
place at a diner in the Upper West Side, at the editor’s request. All
interviews were recorded with the participants’ permission. I steered
the discussion by asking for specific examples of how these editors
covered the Madoff story, and how they thought their coverage pro-
vided a distinct service to readers. As is the case in qualitative research,
foreign-language expressions (in this case Yiddish) were included in
conversation (Friedman et al., 2005). No incentive was offered to par-
ticipants, nor were they offered anonymity, since their names provide
weight to what they have to say.

Analysis

My approach was rooted in grounded theory, which is a methodology

to systematically analyse data (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). I collected
data until I did not find any new concepts expressed by participants,
indicating that I had reached an appropriate level of theoretical satura-
tion. I transcribed each of the eight interviews, which ranged in length
from 27 minutes and 20 seconds to 1 hour 17 minutes and 49 seconds,
with an average of 46 minutes and 37 seconds. Editor deadlines may
account for the range in interview length. In qualitative work, coding
open blocks of text allows for fluid discovery of themes to emerge from
24 Production Practices

the transcripts (Creswell, 1998). The repetition of themes throughout

the different transcripts indicates reliability of the coding process (Stiles,
1993).
The participants included:

• Ami Eden, editor in chief of the JTA, which provides editorial content
to more than 100 Jewish publications, based in New York;
• Jane Eisner, editor of the Jewish Daily Forward, a weekly paper based
in New York with a circulation of 27,000;
• Rob Eshman, editor in chief of the Jewish Journal, a weekly paper
based in Los Angeles with a circulation of 60,000;
• J.J. Goldberg, editorial director of the Jewish Daily Forward;
• Phil Jacobs, executive editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times, a weekly
with a circulation of about 15,000;
• Gary Rosenblatt, editor and publisher of the Jewish Week, a weekly
based in New York with a circulation of 70,000;
• Jonathan S. Tobin, executive editor of Commentary magazine, a
monthly publication based in New York with a circulation of 27,000;
• Andrew Silow-Carroll, editor in chief of New Jersey Jewish News, a
weekly with a circulation of 55,000.

Carving our niche

During the first stage of analysis I found 5 overarching themes and 15

subthemes from the transcripts, which I derived inductively. In select-
ing three for inclusion in this paper, I was driven by the content that
most directly answered my research questions. Seven of eight partici-
pants addressed how they carved their niche to provide readers with
compelling, original content. Editors acknowledged that the scope of
the Madoff story was so great that it was necessary to take a step back
and assess how they would make an impact:

Professionally, it’s like Oh, man, this is a big story. What angle can
we – you know – where’s our niche? What can we write about because
everybody’s going to be writing about this.
(Gary Rosenblatt, the Jewish Week)

Editors generally felt that their journalism niche directed them to exam-
ine how Jewish organizations and philanthropy would be impacted
 Hinda Mandell 25

by Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, since these organizations have a direct

impact on readers’ communities. Editors agreed that, since the general
press has more resources, they needed to be resource-savvy in chasing
stories:

I’d say it’s difficult because especially a story that big, where other
newspapers have so many better resources than we do . . . that it’s hard
for us. . . . I’m about the Jewish community and I’m about my cor-
ner of New Jersey . . . And then we can ask internal Jewish questions,
which I don’t think the [New York] Times or some of the big papers
are comfortable asking.
(Andrew Silow-Carroll, New Jersey Jewish News)

Another editor, whose paper’s distribution area was not as hard hit by
Madoff, said that he is driven to make sure that his paper covers every-
thing Jewish-related within his geographic location. This passion defines
how he carves out his niche. He spoke with conviction:

I want to own all news that’s Jewish in Baltimore. I’m very, very
obsessed with that. And so if Madoff had grown up in Pikesville [MD]
I would have given the Baltimore Sun, with all of its reporters and
editors, a run for its money to cover it.
(Phil Jacobs, Baltimore Jewish Times)

While editors noted the challenge of reporting original content on

Madoff with a weekly deadline and a small staff, one editor said that
this dynamic is not specific to the Madoff story; rather, it is a weekly
reality within the niche journalism world:

It can be frustrating for weekly Jewish newspapers, especially since

dailies get seven bites of the apple to your one, and in an Internet
world it’s a 24–7 thing, not just seven times/one time. It’s very hard.
It’s the problem of the niche press or the weekly press in any story.
It’s not that unique. I don’t know that, you know, that Jewish papers
have too much to complain about there. They generally – the secular
press doesn’t really understand the Jewish community as a rule of
thumb.
(Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary)
26 Production Practices

The majority of editors noted the changing media landscape, the push
to put stories and break news online, even as they prepared their weekly
product for print. The JTA, the global news service of the Jewish people,
is an exclusively online media property. However, the current media
environment has even affected the way it approaches the angle of its
editorial coverage:

Now everybody has access to information. You don’t need JTA to

know that some synagogue in Prague was vandalized. Ten years ago
you needed JTA to know that.
(Ami Eden, JTA)

Yet even the print-based publications – although all of the publications

included in this study have an active website – take a bird’s-eye view
of the story, seeking to provide readers with more context. The weekly
deadlines demand that, editors say, since they assume that readers have
followed news developments of the Madoff story during the week.

I also think we didn’t want to chase it as sort of an incremental story.

We generally don’t write incremental stories here. We’re a weekly and
even though we post a lot of stuff online during the week . . . we’re still
essentially a weekly story and that means we take a different view.
I didn’t send somebody to go cover his [Madoff’s] court hearing.
(Jane Eisner, Jewish Daily Forward)

While editors acknowledged the rigorous task that lay before them in
carving out their niche, they also pointed to their success in doing so.
A number of the editors said that they were the first in their field to
cover a certain angle:

We were the first Jewish website to post something on Madoff because

when I saw, when I heard the news – what happened honestly is some
members of my family had money with him . . . So I heard the news
instantly from them and realized how deep this was going to be. And
I posted a blog called is ‘Bernard Madoff Jewish, Very Oy.’
(Rob Eshman, Jewish Journal)

This sentiment about being the first one out of the gate was echoed by
editors from four of the seven publications, illustrating the extent to
which they worked on this story to carve out their niche:
 Hinda Mandell 27

There were one or two times we were the first or sometimes the only
people to have concrete information. So we did get picked up in other
places, which is good for us on a lot of levels, like the New York Times
or the Washington Post. I felt, like, we were getting cited.
(Ami Eden, JTA)

Only one editor took a more critical look at his publication’s handling
of the Madoff story. He noted that internal and external pressure, and
his tendency to censor himself, prevented him from fully hounding the
story:

I regret this – we didn’t get anybody with an identified first name/last

name, how they belong to the country club in West Palm, they win-
ter in Florida and how they got kinda sucked into his [Madoff’s]
orbit.
(Andrew Silow-Carroll, New Jersey Jewish News)

Ultimately, the editors of the Jewish press carved out their niche on
the Madoff story in the same way that they pursue news stories each
week. They ask themselves what news – of interest to their readers – is
left out of the general press; they ask how their communities, networks
and organizations are affected by a particular event; and they seek to
optimally use limited resources.

Challenges to Jewish journalism

Reader pushback against Jewish scandal in Jewish newspapers: editors

spoke of a general sensitivity among their readers against publishing
news coverage of Jewish scandal in their newspapers, even if the general
press is already covering the story. There is something specific about
publicizing misdeeds of Jews in their local, Jewish paper that represents
an affront to them:

There’s always sensitivity and they certainly hate reading about –

Jews tend to hate reading about it in the Jewish press as opposed
to the daily press. They’ll take it from them . . . Jews are very sensitive
to its appearance in their own sort of family of hometown publica-
tions . . . It’s not merely adding dirty laundry. People tend to feel that
it’s, you know, that it’s shoving it in their face.
(Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary)
28 Production Practices

The negative nature of scandalous stories is perceived to have the poten-

tial to damage communities, says Andrew Silow-Carroll of New Jersey
Jewish News:

The scandals that end up happening are invariably an influential

moneyed philanthropist gets into some kind of legal trouble, either as
a result of Jewish activity or not. The other kind of scandal – invari-
ably a clergy sexual scandal. Those are the two biggies. Each one is
toxic for the community . . . Even if the Star Ledger in New Jersey or
whatever the local newspaper is has gone to town on this story and
we say we’re not reporting anything that didn’t already appear and
everybody knows about it. It doesn’t matter.
(Andrew Silow-Carroll, New Jersey Jewish News)

When readers express their displeasure with news coverage, they play
the ethnic card. They tell Jewish press editors that they did not expect to
find such coverage in a Jewish paper. Therefore the purpose of a Jewish
paper, according to the readers, is to publicize positive developments
that reinforce ethnic pride. Jeffres (2000) writes that reading the eth-
nic press reinforces a connection to the reader’s identity. Additionally,
Viswanath and Arora (2000) say that one of the functions of the ethnic
press is to serve as a ‘community booster’. Therefore one can assume
that learning about negative news while reading the ethnic press, such
as scandalous events that reflect poorly on the community, can invoke
a sense of shame.

You know people say that to us: ‘We expect them’ – whoever ‘them’
is, the [New York] Post, the Daily News or the [New York] Times – you
know, ‘to write about this, but you?’ Whatever the issue is . . . They
want to feel good about the Jewish community, all the charitable
works, all the organizations fighting anti-Semitism. They don’t want
to look in the mirror. We don’t want to be faced with, ah, all these
problems.
(Gary Rosenblatt, Jewish Week)

Pressure from Jewish organizations

Three of the eight editors spoke of external pressures from community

organizations and influential individuals who attempted to shape news
coverage. The literature addresses the dynamics between community
elites and the ethnic press. Viswanath and Arora (2000) write that in
a small, homogenous community the elite will not tolerate the public
 Hinda Mandell 29

washing of dirty laundry, in order to maintain their image as hardwork-

ing. The dynamic with the Jewish press is slightly different because the
elites’ motivation is to maintain their image as philanthropists or power-
brokers, rather than as hardworking ethnics. Some editors addressed
how these pressures played out during the Madoff story, while others
spoke more generally.

In short hand the first commandment of the journalist is to uncover.

And the first commandment of the organized Jewish community –
although it’s unwritten – is to cover up. We had a couple of stories
about Hadassah’s involvement in the Madoff scandal. They had lost
more money than they were saying . . . and they were stonewalling us.
(Gary Rosenblatt, editor and publisher,
Jewish Week)

Another editor, Andrew Silow-Carroll of New Jersey Jewish News, spoke of

the pressure that he experiences when there is a scandal in his commu-
nity. Even if the New Jersey Star Ledger has previously covered a scandal,
he receives a lot of pushback against covering the same scandal in the
Jewish press, which is seen as a site where people can protect their image:

Some of the philanthropists put a tremendous amount of pressure to

bear on my publisher . . . And it’s very difficult . . . . I don’t think I have
a great track record at this paper.
(Andrew Silow-Carroll, New Jersey Jewish News)

If the pressure from a powerful individual or an organization is severe,

it can lead to an editor’s self-censorship. Publicizing information that
a powerful community member does not want published, whether it’s
a publisher, a philanthropist or a Jewish organization, can result in the
loss of advertising dollars, a vital source of the financial health of the
paper. It can also result in an editor’s ostracizing or termination. Two
editors spoke at length about the effects of self-censorship:

The major obstacle is probably a certain level of self censorship

because we are of a close relationship to our readers, and in my case
my owner is the Jewish federation of Metro West New Jersey . . . I don’t
think we did a great job in the Madoff story because I think as
we approached each [investor’s] name we said ‘My God, this is 25
phone calls from every macher [big shot/leader] in town saying please,
“Please don’t embarrass, you know, so and so”’.
(Andrew Silow-Carroll, New Jersey Jewish News)
30 Production Practices

Editor Jonathan S. Tobin of New York’s the Jewish Week said sometimes
editors censor themselves when they face pressure not to run a story:

Jewish reporters – the people who are the sort of go-to reporters
in Jewish weeklies in major cities, in major areas – they’re always
showing up in the Jewish locker-room . . . It’s very hard to buck that.
It requires discipline; it requires courage . . . And that’s not always
there. The problem isn’t so much often pressure – it’s self censorship.
(Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary)

Readers’ concerns about what gentiles think of them

Four editors addressed Jewish anxiety about what is printed in the Jewish
press and what non-Jews will think of this content. These readers’ under-
lying assumption is that non-Jews read the Jewish press, that it shapes
their opinion of Jews and that this opinion will be negative. Viswanath
and Arora (2000) noted that the ethnic community views its press as
presenting a positive image to people outside their community. The-
oretically, readers’ concerns that outsiders will be influenced by their
ethnic press speaks to the third-person effect. Perloff (1989) studied
the third-person effect as it relates to news coverage of the Palestinian-
Israeli conflict. He found that Israeli partisans and Palestinian partisans
saw bias against their ‘side’ in the same news clip. He also found that
while both sides were concerned that neutrals would be swayed against
their side after viewing the news footage, it did not significantly influ-
ence neutral audiences. Editor Andrew Silow-Caroll of New Jersey Jewish
News said that his readers tell him that they think that stories in his
paper can be used against Jewish interests. It is worthwhile noting that
external conflicts have the power to increase the cohesion of internal
group members (Viswanath and Arora, 2000). Collective concern over
what gentiles think can reinforce Jewish identity, reaffirming in-group
membership:

Can you imagine if this gets into the hands of so and so? Um, that’s
a big concern . . . I’ve made the case for years saying you’re going to
get a fairer hearing among friends than you certainly will get from
a local newspaper reporter who parachutes into a story and doesn’t
understand the nuances.
(Andrew Silow-Carroll, New Jersey
Jewish News)
 Hinda Mandell 31

Gary Rosenblatt has had a similar experience with his community of

readers:

We worry about, you know, how the others are going to look at us.
‘You shouldn’t put that in your paper; other people might see it.’
(Gary Rosenblatt, Jewish Week)

Conclusion

External conflict reinforces ethnic cohesion (Olzak and West, 1991;

Viswanath and Arora, 2000), yet little research has looked at how eth-
nic communities respond when one of their own is perceived to have
betrayed and stolen from their co-ethnics. The Madoff story represents
a unique opportunity to learn how an ethnic group was motivated by
ethnic identity to monitor the press coverage of Madoff’s actions. If a
function of reading the ethnic press is to reinforce identity and allow
ethnics to feel positively towards their community, then how did Jews
react when they read the Jewish press? Future research can take any
number of paths. The first is to investigate how readers approach scan-
dal coverage of Jews in the Jewish press compared with the general press.
The second is to establish a theoretical framework for understanding
the factors that influence news content in the ethnic press, such as
self-censorship and internal pressures. The final avenue of research is
a textual analysis of Madoff news coverage in the Jewish press compared
with the general press.

References
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in the U.S.: An Encyclopedia. Chicago: Fitzroy, Dearborn, 207–209.
Burstein, P. (2007) Jewish Educational and Economic Success in the United States:
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14905/.
3
Transnational Public Spheres and
Deliberative Politics in Zimbabwe:
An Analysis of NewZimbabwe
Shepherd Mpofu

For a democracy to function there is the need for healthy argumentative

public discourse between the ruled and the rulers. In this case ‘consid-
eration of arguments for and against a policy or idea’ (Schneider, 1997,
p. 8) is encouraged as, according to Habermas, public opinion formu-
lation is ‘a grave and serious responsibility’ (Green, 2010, p. 120) that
leaders need to adopt in democratic governance. Kelsen (1961) further
adds that public opinion is the centrepiece of democracy or, as argued by
Barber (1984, p. 171), ‘strong democratic legitimacy . . . [is anchored on]
ongoing talk’. Agre (1989) also argues that dialogue is one of the first
obligations of citizenship. It should take place not only in the formal
political setting of society but also informally among ordinary citizens
in the town halls, traditional media and, of late, new information and
communication technologies like the Internet and satellite television.
This chapter looks at the practice of deliberative politics in Zimbabwe as
mediated through the Internet. This is no easy feat because the contours
of Zimbabwe’s political cleavages are intricate and difficult to negotiate
for various reasons. What is conspicuous, however, is the intervention
of the Internet in political communications in a society where there has
been a dearth of ‘ongoing talk’ between the ruling elite and the citizenry
in general.
Debates abound about whether the Internet-based media have the
capability of shaping deliberative politics (Dahlberg, 2001; Freelon,
2010; Gimmler, 2001; Kellner, 2004; Strandberg, 2008; Young, 2001).
These debates have seen scholars advocating two distinct positions:
the cyberoptimistic (those with high hopes and a positive outlook
on the democratic potential of the Internet to enhance democracy)

34
 Shepherd Mpofu 35

and cyberpessimistic (those who doubt the democratic-emancipatory

role of the Internet) views. This chapter adopts the former to dis-
cuss the role of the Internet in Zimbabwe’s deliberative politics using
the website NewZimbabwe as a case study. Specifically it looks at the
discussions around homosexual rights as they arose during the new con-
stitution writing process. Despite sexuality being a private ritual, it has
been politicized in the Zimbabwean context, hence its qualification as
‘political’ in this context.

Theory: Deliberative politics and transnational public

spheres

In Zimbabwean politics, the Internet has liberated those political

debates that have been suppressed by Zimbabwe African National
Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), the country’s liberation movement,
current ruling party (and former member of the government of national
unity between 2009 and 2013). One conspicuous limiting factor to the
practice of deliberative democracy through the media and town hall
debates has been the intolerance exhibited by ZANU-PF in dealing with
dissenting voices. This anti-democratic trend explains the rise of alterna-
tive media forms, such aspirate radio stations and diaspora-based online
newspapers established by journalists who fled Zimbabwe following the
escalation of the country’s socioeconomic and political crisis in 2000.
These are accessible in both the homeland and the diaspora and cover
a variety of news about Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans in the diaspora.
It is imperative to stress that media consumption in Zimbabwe, due to
economic challenges, is deemed to be a luxury because people do not
spend a lot of resources acquiring computers and other technological
gadgets to access information but they are more concerned about bread-
and-butter issues. Also it seems that those in the homeland have less
access to online media than those in the diaspora. This speaks to the
digital divide between the technorich and technopoor diasporas and
homeland communities, respectively. However, these cannot be used as
arguments to discount the possibility of online media being central to
public deliberations in Zimbabwean politics.

The postcolonial public sphere

Just like the bourgeoisie public sphere problematized by Habermas, the

Rhodesian (Zimbabwe’s colonial name) public sphere was elitist because
it served colonial interests. Soon after independence in 1980, there was
36 Production Practices

not much change in the Zimbabwean media environment as economic

ownership patterns followed the colonial model. In the colonial times
the ruling party, the Rhodesian Front, controlled the sole broadcaster,
the Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation. This was replicated by the new
black administration with the broadcaster’s name being changed to the
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation. Staffing remained largely white.
In the 1990s, the government deregulated the media playing field to
include privately owned media. This expansion of the public sphere
filled a glaring informational gap as the public media had failed to
be ‘the voice of the ordinary citizens and watchdog that safeguards
good governance by exposing abuse of power, violation of people’s
rights and all other forms of misrule and excess by governments’
(Manhando-Makore, 2001, p. 15). This honeymoon of free expression
was short-lived, as highlighted by President Robert Mugabe’s attack on
the private media as

filthy tabloids clearly of the gutter type, and are edited and run
through fronts of young Africans they have employed as puppet edi-
tors and reporters. In some cases these are also their homosexual
partners-and that is true
(Saunders, 1999, p. 16)

This was in reaction to exposés by these media on government cor-

ruption, abuse of power and their willingness to support civic organi-
zations – for example, in decampaigning the government’s sponsored
1999 draft constitution that was meant to replace the colonially inher-
ited Lancaster House constitution. ZANU-PF employed legal and extrale-
gal tactics that were reminiscent of the colonial times to deal with the
media.
During the colonial times, Ian Smith, the last Rhodesian prime min-
ister, used the media to maintain white dominance, and, when the
struggle for liberation heightened, the grip on the media was tightened
through the Law and Order Maintenance Act (LOMA; 1960), which was
instrumental in the banning of the then anti-establishment African Daily
News in 1964. The postcolonial administration used intimidation, tor-
ture and unlawful detentions to silence the media. After independence
ZANU-PF modified and crafted more laws to curtail the media. These
include the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) which was meant to
replace LOMA, new laws like the Access to Information and Protection
of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the Broadcasting Services Act were crafted.
AIPPA was used to close private media, including Daily News, Daily News
on Sunday (2003), Zimbabwe Tribune (2004) and the Weekly Times (2005),
 Shepherd Mpofu 37

and deportation of international journalists. This threat to the demo-

cratic space led many journalists and Zimbabweans to leave the country
as political or economic migrants. The number of those who have
fled Zimbabwe since 2000 is estimated to be between 3.4 to 5 million
depending on the source (Kanu, 2010; Landau, 2008; Tevera, 2008).
For instance, the NewZimbabwe website was launched in Wales in June
2003 by five former Zimbabwean journalists and it claims to be

Zimbabwe’s first and only rolling news site updated 24/7 with
all the latest news, sports and commentary. It is also a plat-
form for debate and intellectual release with vibrant live discussion
forums . . . designed and run by people who have seen how the dearth
of free expression can reduce progressive nations into pariahs where
the majority are always at the mercy of the powerful . . . seeks to
expose situations where this takes place, and we make no apology
for seeking the demise of such evil edifices wherever they appear.1

The name suggests a ‘new’ Zimbabwe that the website aspires to par-
ticipate in building. NewZimbabwe believes ‘that every Zimbabwean
and every African with a voice deserves to be heard – including those
who have forfeited the freedoms of the majority’.2 It gets its funding
from donors, well-wishers and advertising revenue (personal communi-
cation with the then editor, Mduduzi Mathuthu, 2012).3 Furthermore,
the website enjoys the status of being a leading website that covers
Zimbabwean issues. Its average hits are around 20,000 per day (see
Table 3.1).4

Table 3.1 Google analytics table showing website views between 1 March
and 12 April 2001

Country/territory Visits Percentages

UK 664,896 40.14
Zimbabwe 204,000 12.31
South Africa 174,758 10.55
US 152,863 9.23
Canada 84,076 5.08
Australia 80,900 4.88
Not set (unknown) 74,588 4.50
Botswana 30,260 1.83
New Zealand 24,584 1.48
Ireland 17,180 1.04
Total 1,656,544 100
38 Production Practices

Transnational digital spheres

In his magnum opus, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
(1989/1962), mapping the rise and fall of bourgeois participatory
democracy, Habermas defines the public sphere as

A realm of our social life in which something approaching public

opinion can be formed. Access is guaranteed to all citizens. A portion
of the public sphere comes into being in every conversation in which
private individuals assemble to form a public body . . . Citizens behave
as a public body when they confer in an unrestricted fashion – that
is with the guarantee of freedom of assembly and association and
the freedom to express and publish their opinions – about matters
of general interest . . . [it] is a sphere that mediates between society
and state, in which the public organises itself as a bearer of public
opinion . . .
(1989, pp. 73–74)

Habermas conceptualized this theory in an era where ‘the media of the

public sphere [were mainly] newspapers and magazines, radio and tele-
vision’ (1989, p. 73). Accordingly, McNair (1999, p. 19) says that the
term ‘public sphere’ was coined in 1781 in reference to the ‘critical
reflection of a [bourgeois] public competent to form its own judg-
ments’. Hence McKee (2005) claims that this is a metaphor that we
use to think about the way in which information and ideas circulate
in large (and disparate) societies. Similarly, it is now possible for peo-
ple to commune online, and discuss issues and find solutions through
alternative digital public spheres. These spheres which have also been
called ‘citizens media’, ‘participatory media’, ‘alternative media’ and
‘radical media’ (Peel, 2009, p. 35) have arisen due to the undemocratic
nature of Zimbabwe’s media landscape and a need to serve Zimbabweans
scattered across the globe. These media have attempted to forge a demo-
cratic dispensation and to revolutionize political communication in
Zimbabwe in different ways. One important way is by being able to
afford the marginalized, demonized and ostracized groups a space to
voice their sentiments, even on issues that are considered to be taboo,
such as challenging ZANU-PF’s version of democracy, ethnic relations
and sexuality.
Social, economic and political relations informed by emerging trends
of high mobility mean that these relations have been delocalized from
within nation-state borders and can now be regarded as ‘transnational’ –
 Shepherd Mpofu 39

a term that describes activities that are carried out from different local-
ities and that affect migrants’ current locations and places of origin.
Basch et al. (1994) define transnationalism as

the processes by which immigrants forge and sustain multistranded

social relations that link together their societies of origin and set-
tlement. We call these processes transnationalism to emphasize that
many immigrants today build social fields that cross geographic,
cultural, and political borders.
(1994, p. 7)

Websites such as NewZimbabwe are transnational digital public spheres

that help to maintain communicative links between the homeland and
diaspora communities. At the same time, these have deterritorialized
Zimbabwe’s socioeconomics and politics.

Conceptualizing deliberative democracy

In most debates the conceptualization of democracy has taken varied

approaches with leading scholars such as Barber (1984), Walzer (1995)
and Gimmler (2001) highlighting the citizen-oriented and social solidar-
ity approaches to democracy as important. The key aspect highlighted is
the openness of and, in discussions, uncoerced citizen participation and
a functional public sphere that is capable of hosting democratic delib-
erations on issues of the day. Habermas (1989) and Benhabib’s (1996)
conceptualizations of deliberative democracy edge those offered to date.
Through the public sphere concept, Habermas offers by far what is a ten-
able position on deliberative democracy. Three main characteristics are
worth articulating to support this argument of tenability. First, the posi-
tion is normative and this rests on the fact that democracy based on the
constitutional state and civil society can be justified as legitimate. This
justification is anchored on the discursive provision that allows rational
arguments from citizens to be used to make propositions and decisions
that affect society. As Benhabib argues, decisions are reached on the basis
that ‘the common interest of all is as a result from processes of collective
deliberation conducted rationally and fairly among free and equal indi-
viduals’ (1996, p. 69). Moreover, Gimmler emphasizes this by saying
that deliberative democracy is ‘constituted by equality among partici-
pants, the complete disclosure of procedures, the temporary suspension
of domination and structural power, and the creation of a situation in
which themes for discussion can be freely chosen’ (2001, p. 23). These
40 Production Practices

conditions provide for a secure discursive space that is meant to achieve

normativity.
Second, this position offers the advantage of diversity and pluralism.
Habermas’ conceptualization of deliberative democracy

takes account of an important sociological observation, namely, that

in pluralistic societies the moral, legal and functional spheres are dis-
tinct from one another; and the diversity of values, forms of life
and attitudes that compose them is an established fact of modern
societies. Indeed, this diversity is seen as valuable in itself.
(Gimmler, 2001, p. 24)

The only imaginable space where issues of plurality, multiplicity

or diversity could be achieved in society remains the idealized
Habermasian public sphere as no other known alternative has been
proposed.
Finally, the Habermasian model of deliberative democracy offers what
Gimmler calls the ‘advantage of legitimacy’ where

institutionalised procedures of parliamentary decision-making are

connected with the public sphere and civil society. The legitimacy
of the whole procedure, therefore, relies on two forms of popular
sovereignty: the constitutional democratic state and its parliamen-
tary legal institutions, on one side, and the public sphere of civil soci-
ety and its more direct communicative and discursive foundations on
the other.
(2001, p. 24)

In this model the public sphere is an integral space for debating impor-
tant issues, resolving disputes in a space that is characterized by equality
rather than domination by the press or government. In the above quote
you will notice that the public are involved both in the choice of par-
liamentary office bearers and in the public sphere of civil society, hence
validating the ‘advantage of legitimacy’ assertion.
It is not my intention to discuss the weaknesses of the model, but suf-
fice it to say that there are three problems in basing decision-making in
a diverse society like Zimbabwe – for instance, on deliberation. These,
according to Valadez, are ‘the absence of unitary political communi-
ties, the existence of moral and cognitive incommensurable differences
within the polity, and the dilemma of group inequalities’ (2001, p. 30).
 Shepherd Mpofu 41

Method and research questions

This research looks at the discussions about the possibility of

accommodating gay rights in Zimbabwe’s new constitution through
NewZimbabwe as a single case study. The examples of reader comments
are deliberately picked to serve the purpose of this research especially
where reader discussions are concerned. There are three groups of com-
ments used in this case study: anti-gay, pro-gay and neutral. A case
study is an ‘enquiry’ that explores and investigates real-life phenomena
through the detailed contextual analysis of a limited number of events
or conditions, and their relationships (Zainal, 2007). In addition, the
exploration takes place where ‘the boundaries between phenomenon
and context are not clearly evident . . . ’ (Yin, 1984, p. 23). The case
study used in this research is descriptive but with some explanatory
characteristics.
In this chapter I deliberately select one opinion piece by Daniel
Molokele (2010) and its accompanying discussion comments because
it encapsulates the argument that is foregrounded here – that is, delib-
erative discussion of issues using online media. The issue of gay rights
in the new constitution has been discussed in various media platforms.
However, it is used here as a case study within a case study to highlight
the conduct of deliberative democracy. The analysis of the empirical
material – that is, the readers’ comments – is based on Critical Dis-
course Analysis (CDA), which is an ‘explicitly normative analysis of how
texts and discourses work in ideological interests with powerful politi-
cal consequences’ (Luke, 2002, p. 96). In addition, this chapter looks
at how ‘dominance and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted
by text and talk in the social and political context’ (Wang, 2010, p. 254).
There are many public spheres in society and, even though results from
studying NewZimbabwe as a case study cannot be universally applied,
the research shows that different public spheres have the potential to
play effective roles in society. The questions that the research seeks
to answer are (i) how NewZimbabwe has opened up the public sphere to
reader participation; (ii) how Zimbabweans have used NewZimbabwe as
a public sphere to deliberate on issues; and (iii) what the effects of these
communicative practices on diasporic journalism and audiences are.

Homosexuality: A qualitative analysis of human rights debate

online
There are probably few instances where ZANU-PF and its former
dissonant partners (Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and
42 Production Practices

Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai (MDC-T)) during the

times of the Government of National Unity (GNU) (2009–2013) found
consonance. However, the issue of gay rights in the new constitution
was a controversial subject that saw the usually ‘warring’ GNU part-
ners in consonance. The article ‘Mugabe, Tsvangirai Slam Homosexuals’
(NewZimbabwe, 2010) records that Mugabe and the MDC-T (then prime
minister) leader Morgan Tsvangirai struck a rare chord as they vowed
that they would not support gay rights in the new constitution. The
writing of the new constitution from April 2009 meant that the issue of
gay rights needed to be addressed as gays and lesbians in the country
felt discriminated against by the old constitution.
Based on this, Mugabe then declared: ‘I heard that some people want
us to discuss the issue of gays in the new constitution. How do we even
begin to talk about it?’ This set the tone and agenda for the government-
controlled public media and this meant that they were going to cover
the issue in support of his pronouncements. Mugabe is quoted in the
same article as saying: ‘those who engage in homosexual behaviour are
just crazy. It’s just madness. Insanity. We can’t do it or the dead will
turn in their graves.’ He further argued that homosexuality is uncultural
and destroys nationhood, and since it defies procreation laws he would
not allow it to happen in Zimbabwe: ‘in Britain and the United States,
I saw an archbishop blessing a gay wedding . . . I want to see how they
will procreate. If they manage, then I will admit that I don’t know . . . ’.
In an attempt to see if there might be alternative discourses to those
of Mugabe and the public media, I assumed that private online and
alternative media such as NewZimbabwe offer different views on the
matter.
Molokele, a South African-based Zimbabwean and human rights
lawyer, responded to Tsvangirai and Mugabe’s assertions through a blog
entitled ‘Gay Rights are Human Rights too!’ He argued that their sen-
timents ‘represent one of the most outrageous attacks on the sanctity
of freedom and democratic values and norms that they both purport
to represent and stand for . . . [through] retrogressive and anachronis-
tic attitudes on the national agenda’.5 Molokele’s (2010) response also
highlighted the two leaders’ abrogation of the 1948 United Nations Dec-
laration of Human Rights to which Zimbabwe is a signatory. The article
stands out as one of the most debated on the website, with 169 reader
comments. It is here that this chapter interrogates issues of delibera-
tive politics enabled by a transnational public sphere operating outside
governmental ambits and control. The argument that the transnational
public spheres have activated deliberative politics is concomitant with
 Shepherd Mpofu 43

Froomkin’s (2004, p. 3) assertion that ‘new technology may enhance the

quantity and especially the quality of mass participation in a represen-
tative democracy, perhaps even make it possible to find a path towards
the enhanced democracy suggested by Jürgen Habermas’. Similarly, this
chapter suggests that the digital public sphere or diasporic journalism
and audiences have the potential to enhance Zimbabwe’s democracy
regardless of the geographical location of the medium or audiences.
Molokele’s (2010) response to Mugabe and Tsvangirai attracted reader
responses from Zimbabweans across the globe. Reactions varied from
those who agreed with Molokele’s (2010) stance to those who were neu-
tral or opposed. Of the 169 comments from readers, 131 were against gay
rights, 20 were neutral and 18 were pro-gay rights, representing 77.5%,
11.8% and 10.7%, respectively. Figure 3.1 below shows the distribution
of opinions expressed in the debate.
The website makes it difficult to tell the geographic location of read-
ers except in a few instances where they highlight such information.
However, based on Table 3.1, most readers are based in the diaspora and
the rest in the homeland, and these attributes have not interfered with
their ‘patriotism’ to participate in national debates. In addition, the site
resembles a physical public sphere as people address each other as if
in a physical arena. For instance, this can be gleaned from such com-
ments as Leroy Brown’s, where he says ‘I agree with Khosi ka Nkosi . . . ’,

90.00

80.00

70.00

60.00
Percentages

50.00

40.00

30.00

20.00

10.00

0.00
Anti-gay rights Pro-gay rights Neutral
Series 1 77.50% 11.80% 10.60%

Figure 3.1 Reader comments on ‘Gay rights are human rights too!’
44 Production Practices

or Chemhere’s response to @Manuel, ‘@Manuel you are an Engineer and

should know about the design of . . . The male and female anatomy’
and ex-UZCU Brother’s support of Bro Prayer ‘Bro Prayer you are right,
in this article Fortune Mguni turned his back to the Word of God.’ Con-
trary to Wilhelm’s (1999, p. 98) conclusions that readers’ debates online
generally lack ‘the listening, responsiveness, and dialogue that would
promote communicative actions’, the discussions here prove that the
Internet does not necessarily promote a forum for monologues where
‘strident individuals . . . dominate each other from their own “pulpit”
without really exchanging arguments’ (Freelon, 2010, p. 8).
Those who agree with Molokele’s (2010) argument about the need for
the inclusion of homosexual rights in the constitution are few, but they
still freely air their views as a clear display of how new media allow non-
hegemonic players to challenge the status quo. For example, tom tom
asserts:

No black person should discriminate against gay people. Given

our history, I cannot understand why anyone with common sense
fails to see that gay people are unfairly discriminated against and
marginalised. The parallels with racism are staggering but then again
you are too dumb to see it [sic].

And Bhekilizwe B Ndlovu comments thus:

You all speak nonsense. Fortune is right. You all deserve the oppres-
sion you get from Mugabe. May it always be like that as long as
you dont seek to understand gay pple. Long live Mugabe. Give them
hell [sic].

Further, bubbles adds that

gay rights are in fact rights to. Not for debate sake but what is a con-
stitution that marginalises people because they are a minority? Let it
be countermajoritarian who cares? not you because you are not gay
anyway. Then let there be no constitution at all. Where is the con-
stitutionalism if some people do not enjoy the same benefits of the
law? if the same law shall stigmatise them? i think gays deserve that
right.

Cases of flaming – that is, the use of rabidly hateful, hostile and
intolerant language meant to dismiss opponents’ arguments – abound,
 Shepherd Mpofu 45

especially from those comments that are against gay rights (Alonzo and
Aiken, 2004). This supports a counterargument to the belief that in
public sphere deliberations, civility and politeness are key, but Lyotard
(1984) and Papacharissi (2004) repudiate this. They argue that demo-
cratic deliberation needs at times to be ‘robust and heated’ (Papacharissi,
2004, p. 259) and even anarchist (Lyotard, 1984), because ‘anarchy,
individuality, and disagreement, rather than rational accord, lead to
true democratic emancipation’ (Papacharissi, 2000, p. 9). NewZimbabwe
seems to have an admixture of rational debate and anarchy, agreements
and disagreements, and selfishness/individuality and selflessness – all of
these being characteristic of the diversity that is lacking in the public
media.
Some opinions suggest intolerance towards gay rights, arguing that
homosexuality cannot be a ‘right’ in Zimbabwe. Pungwiros’ opinion that
‘I think there should be nothing as “gay rights” in Zimbabwe. people
should just accept that whats wrong is wrong. we are not Europeans
and should not just accept to be used like that [sic]’ serves as an exam-
ple. What stands out in most debates that are characterized by flaming
is that people attempt to cultivate ‘social cohesion and group iden-
tity above the fulfilment of individual desires’ (Freelon, 2010, p. 1180).
Pungwiros’ contribution establishes the ‘us/them’ dichotomy where ‘we’
‘straight people’ are against ‘them’ (homosexuals), whose desires should
be suppressed in the interests of a homogenous heterosexual collective.
This promotion of the ‘homogeneous-heterosexual-collective’ argu-
ment resonates with most readers’ main discourse that homosexuality is
a Western culture that is alien to Africa, hence ‘we are not Europeans . . . ’
(Pungwiros). Nkalanga adds that ‘God created ADAM and EVE not Adam
and Steve. Guys lm shocked how cud you change your life deprive your
culture in sake of being a western [sic].’ In addition, the perception that
‘we are a Christian’ nation and they that practise homosexuality are not
godly enough and therefore belong to the devil forms the dominant dis-
course. The description of queer sexualities as Western impositions on
the African culture by leaders such as Mugabe, Sam Nujoma of Namibia,
the late Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi, the late John Atta Mills of Ghana
and many others has been challenged by various scholars who argue
that homosexuality was practised prior colonial intrusion (Amory, 1997;
Anderson, 2007; Conrad, 2001; Epprecht, 1999) and Christianity in
Africa. However, that historical fact is not considered in society because
some Zimbabweans feel that ‘our’ country cannot allow such rights to
be included in the constitution. As Tobaiwa says, ‘Let’s have vote and
I am sure the majority of Zimbabweans will vote NO, simple as. We are
46 Production Practices

a Christian nation and our founding principles are based on that, end of
quote [sic].’ Furthermore, Christianity is used as a moral standard upon
which to measure and secure the country’s ‘cleanliness’, as argued by
Dingumuzi Masuku:

Zimbabweans please no homosexuality allowed in our clean country.

If we truly believe in Christianity then this sickness can never be
allowed in our society what! even dogs can not do such abomination
its totally sick and disgusting yak[sic].

Master Terenz further adds that this type of sexual orientation is devilish,
from which people need deliverance. He writes:

We do not accept the recognition of any sin through the guise of

human rights; never. If USA, Britain, South Africa etc accept this, that
is not a reason for us to succumb to the devil and recognise any sin
in Zimbabwe. The only solution to overcoming sin, homosexuality
included is to seek Christ.

Homosexuality is labelled as an abominable sickness and sign of mental

imbalance. Nkalanga’s comment illustrates this:

brothers and sisters we can debate till the next decade but one thing
for sure gay pple has no right in Zimbabwe . . . I cant imagine my child
being gay that is so sick. NO GAY rights in ZIMBABWE, we are sick
and tired . . . GODBLESS ZIMBABWE[sic].

Bushwcker in Birmingham UK besides revealing his location adds that

If westerners introduce imperialistic retrogressive, dirty sickening

filth in the name of human rights are we supposed to just follow like
sheep. We are human beings with brains not everything that comes
from the west is right Daniel [sic].

Mampofu argues that this is a ‘mental sickness’ that cannot be toler-

ated as ‘we Zimbabweans dont tolerate that nonsese yakadaro [nonsense
like this] i[t’s a] mental issue they need to be locked mumahospital [in
hospital] all gays’.
Jimmy Jimalo adds in an inflammatory tone:

We can not sacrifice our cultural heritage because of a few misguided,

insane borrowers of rotten Western culture of madness. To hell with
 Shepherd Mpofu 47

your article, go f∗∗ k the ass of your fellow mentally deranged gays
there[sic]!

According to Habermas, the deliberative public sphere deals with issues

that are brought into the forum for discussion without necessarily ques-
tioning one’s personal mental capacity and wellbeing. In the digital
public sphere, comments sometimes become personal as the ‘speakers’
tend to attack not only the idea presented but also the ‘speaker’. Regard-
ing this, Schudson says that ‘conversation needs to be more robust, rude,
and self-absorbed’ (in Papacharissi, 2004, p. 259). Online deliberations
are also characterized by verbal attacks and the following comment from
discussant Wekumusha testifies to this:

My Friend, after having read your previous article when you were
praising Sodhindo Banana, and mentioning that you used to go
to his house in MP. I am now convinced you are gay, its high
time you just come out in the open and not hide behind constitu-
tional debate. I dont care your views about freedoms I say TO HELL
WITH HOMOSEXUALISM . . . I thought you were an SDA [Seventh
Day Adventist] I have lost all respect for you[sic]!

While some comments are neutral and argue that issues of

homosexuality are not worth quarrelling about, others express shock
about the blog as they know Molokele from previous interactions, espe-
cially at the University of Zimbabwe. To show this, they address him
with the name (Fortune Mguni) that he used while still in Zimbabwe.
He is labelled as an outcast, greedy, gay and persona non grata by some
readers. Nesto banhwa says:

i cnt believe its you fortune mguni who wrote this. i dnt think u
were in your mind. this article has made me to drop all the respect i
had for. how dare you . . . write that a person whom we thought walks
according to the principles of God. Anyway this article has shown the
world that you have since backsliden . . . you are full of immoral con-
cepts . . . people like you we dnt need them in our zim society . . . better
you stay there in S.A forever. [sic]

In addition, Khosi ka Nkosi says:

I know Fortune from far back when he was at the UZ . . . There are two
possibilities here Fortune I want to be fair with you as I was when
we were together at the NCA in Zimbabwe, You want to please your
48 Production Practices

funders so they can extend or increase your pocket or you are Gay
yourself forget about the beautiful wife you have and its a shame if
you married her for publicity as a window dresser she deserves more
than that[sic].

Some contributors speak to fellow discussants in the same robust

manner, pointing out their ‘hypocrisy’, such as Dave, who asserts:

You Zimbabweans amuse me. Most of you are against gays hav-
ing rights in Zimbabwe which is fine, everyone is entitled to their
opinion. Most if not all of you say that you reject these ideas as
western and not part of Zimbabwean culture then in the same sen-
tence you talk about your christian values. Where exactly did you
get those christian values? You got them from the white man, you
hypocrites.

Further, MuzicalMhondoro cannot

understand why Zimbabweans become so vocal on gays issues but yet

silent on critical issues like the lack of freedom in our country. Thats
why there is still oppression 30 yrs after so called independence. You
expect to be free yet dont give other people their freedom – what
hypocrisy! Only God knows who the real gays are. Most of them
have so called families and you dont see them. Zimbabweans pliz
get mature ASAP!!

What is clear from the foregoing is the assortment of views that are not
characteristic of the ZANU-PF-dominated public media. The vibrancy
shown here maintains Valadez’s (2001) misgivings about deliberative
democracy as it becomes increasingly difficult to factor in the diverse
needs of everybody in society. Zimbabwe’s human rights discourse is not
isolated as gay rights are increasing gaining currency in world political
debates. Like most conservative African countries, Zimbabwe is char-
acterized by a traditional and political leadership that is against gay
rights and supported by a conservative community thinking along the
lines of Leo, who asserts: ‘There is nothing human about homosexuality;
so why even think about discussing human rights for homosexuals.
Homosexuality and human rights can never be in the same sentence
or paragraph.’
Some discussants, such as anan2000, do not take a homophobic
stance, as his comment suggests: ‘A very good piece. Its a shame that
 Shepherd Mpofu 49

so many of the comments below are so hateful and lack insight into
what it means to have human rights and indeed be human. We have
some way to go yet [sic].’ While Mugabe and other discussants have pre-
viously argued that homosexuals are ‘worse than pigs and dogs’, Thulani
Ncube challenges these assertions:

By the way, I have had a lot of Zimbabwean saying gays are lower
than animals. This just shows that most of the homophobes are
not really observant and are just blubber mouths. Personally I have
observed a number of animals having homosexual sex behaviour. I
understand Mugabe was a herd-boy, he should know better. The fol-
lowing mammals can be observed exhibiting homo sexual behaviour
(although some of you deny this in pretence): African Elephant,
Brown Bear, Brown Rat, Buffalo, Cat (domestic), Cheetah, Common
Dolphin, Bison, and Human beings . . . Chicken (Domestic), Gulls,
Darks, Geese, and Penguins . . . Dolphins are gay . . .

Gava ‘mocks’ those who use the Bible to advance homophobic senti-
ments as not Christians at all. He says: ‘I’m sorry most of these people,
especially males, condemning homosexuality using the bibles are not
church goers. Just check out the attendance figures of churches.’
From the foregoing it is clear that the Internet has offered
Zimbabweans a less laborious mode of expression where they debate
issues in an unbounded sphere. Previously, technological and financial
challenges meant that ‘only governments, large organisations, and the
mass media . . . had access to the means to produce and distribute sub-
stantial amounts of idea containing material’ (Ganley, 1992, pp. 2–3).
User and producer power relations have shifted with readers having
agency as never seen before, and in the process significantly altering the
way we have known political deliberation in repressive societies such as
Zimbabwe.

Conclusion

The contention of this chapter is that diasporic journalism and the par-
ticipation of audiences in these media help to foster new possibilities
of deliberative politics that are consistent with deliberative democracy.
The concept of the (alternative digital) public sphere has been employed
here to frame the discussion about the constitution and homosexual
rights debates revealing that NewZimbabwe has emancipated users into
freely articulating their views. The study demonstrates that new media
50 Production Practices

are instrumental as alternative public spheres to offer the massifica-

tion of discourse where participants commune from any location in the
globe and make their voices heard (Moore, 1999). This further shows the
relevance of diasporic journalism in repressive societies as these media
not only circumvent governmental interference but also liberate the
voices of the people. New media in this case resurrect the role of the
media as the fourth estate in an environment where public media have
become lapdogs. While concerns about ethics in ‘uncontrolled’ online
media are a major point of disputation, media such as NewZimbabwe
have adopted a professional approach to news coverage, hence their
influence in the diaspora and homeland (this does not suggest that
they do not have ethical lapses). Allowing readers a platform to voice
their thoughts, new media give citizens an opportunity to speak to
power. Whether power listens or not may be another matter but the
influence of online media as highlighted above cannot be underesti-
mated, especially in cases where they have been used to organize offline
activities, as happened in North Africa and the Middle East during the
Arab Spring. In addition, the openness of debates raises awareness about
global trends, since the world is globalizing and people are more wor-
ried about what is happening in other countries as these have local
ramifications.

Notes
1. NewZimbabwe (2003) About Us. Retrieved on 13 April 2010 from http://www.
newzimbabwe.com/pages/us1.html.
2. Mathuthu left the website in 2014 to join (as an editor) the government
controlled Chronicle newspaper based in Bulawayo.
3. Retrieved on 13 April 2010 from http://www.mediatico.com/en/goto.asp?url=
10213.
4. New Zimbabwe (2010) Mugabe, Tsvangirai Slam Homosexuals. Retrieved
from http://www.newzimbabwe.com/NEWS-2109-Mugabe,+Tsvangirai+slam+
homosexuals/NEWS.aspx.
5. Molokele, Daniel (2010) Gay Rights Are Human Rights Too. Retrieved on
13 April 2010 from http://www.newzimbabwe.com/blog/index.php/2010/04/
dmolokele/gay-rights-are-human-rights-too/.

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4
Negotiating Cultural Taboos in
News Reporting: A Case Study
of the African Diasporic Media
in the UK
Ola Ogunyemi

News reporting conforms to the basic journalistic principles of news

values, gatekeeping, sourcing routines and ethics. However, some taboo
news poses an editorial challenge to these professional principles
because of its impact on the relationship between media and their audi-
ences. Hence Gans argues that news embeds dual attributes – that is,
‘the values in the news and the value implications of the news’ (Gans,
2004, p. 40). Hall succinctly explained the differences between these
attributes by noting that the former (i.e. the formal news value) refers to
‘the elaboration of the story (photo + text) in terms of the professional
ideology of news – the common sense understandings as to what consti-
tutes the news in the newspaper discourse’ (Hall, p. 179) – and the latter
(i.e. the ideological news values) refers to ‘the elaboration of the story
in terms of its connoted themes and interpretations’ (ibid.). These con-
trasting operational definitions imply that news reporting is influenced
by sociocultural factors in the process of meaning creation.
Taboo news shares some attributes of the formal news values, such as
unambiguity, cultural proximity, relevance, unexpectedness, reference
to persons and reference to something negative. As a result, taboo news
has the capacity to connect ‘stories and events with persons: it attached
qualities, status, positions in the social world to anonymous events: it
searches out the “drama”, the “human interest”, behind impersonal
historical forces’ (Hall, 1976, p. 180). However, van Dijk cautions that
reporting taboo news calls for the ‘evaluations of actions and events
that are relevant for the members of an ideological group, . . . evaluated

53
54 Production Practices

on the basis of these ideologically applied general community norms

and values’ (van Dijk, 2012, p. 388).
From this perspective, the African diasporic media weigh the news
values of certain news items against the ideologically applied general
community norms and values within the African community. Previ-
ous studies reveal that such sensitivity to the cultural sensibilities of
audiences is prevalent among journalists from other cultures. For exam-
ple, Pintak’s study of journalists in Indonesia and Pakistan found that
‘Islamic values shape their approach to the mission of journalism as they
struggle to balance international professional standards with the val-
ues of their religion and culture’ (Pintak, 2013, p. 2). This supports the
claim that journalists in Muslim-majority regions engage in ‘balancing
the western journalistic aspiration with a more culturally sensitive desire
to report “truth with restraint” ’ (Rao and Lee, 2005) and also supports
the claim that ‘many journalists, particularly in the developing world,
modify western ideal-types to fit their own values’ (Pintak, 2013, p. 3).
The negotiation of professional and cultural ideologies is also driven
by the editorial philosophy to serve as a platform ‘for cultural expres-
sions in the sense that cultural folklore and languages are regularly used
in reporting and programming’ (Ojo, 2006, p. 351). Consequently the
black African press in the UK treats stories about incest, suicide and
homosexuality (Ogunyemi, 2008, p. 871) with sensitivity. Moreover, sto-
ries that connote ‘offensive emotional language’ (Jay, 2009, p. 153), on
the one hand, or physical danger – that is, the perception that ‘some
harm would occur if a taboo word is spoken’ (Jay, 2009, p. 153) – on
the other, have diminished news values. To illustrate the latter, some
Africans believe that ‘witches take the lives of their victims slowly, drain-
ing their strength, then gorge upon their freshly buried bodies’ (Green,
2005, p. 251). However, oversensitivity to taboo news could further
undermine free speech because Bunce’s study found that the ‘cultural
and traditional taboos that keep young people from freely discussing
their sexuality are hindering efforts to curb the spread of HIV among
that population group’ (Bunce, 1997). Therefore the African diasporic
media have a role to play in contesting cultural taboos.
Hence the study examines the editorial document of the AHYS forum
(AHYS, 2009) because it is very specific about reporting taboo news.
It explains how journalists should negotiate the dilemma between
telling a story and sensitivity to the cultural sensibilities of the users.
Furthermore, it conducts in-depth interviews with the moderators about
the challenges of making a distinction between the professional and
cultural ideologies. The study also conducts a textual analysis of the
users’ comments on a taboo subject in order to determine the extent of
 Ola Ogunyemi 55

liberal and conservative perspectives. The AHYS is a pertinent case study

because it was established by the BBC World Service in 2005 for Africans
at home and in the diasporas, and it is guided by the mainstream profes-
sional ideology of public service, objectivity, autonomy, immediacy and
ethics (Deuze, 2005). Prior to its demise in 2012, it had become a refer-
ence point for African online users searching for alternative perspectives
on issues about their country of origin.

Research framework

Taboo subjects are rarely featured in the African diasporic press. Hence
the first research question to explore is when taboo news becomes
newsworthy. Then there is a need to explore how the editorial policy
empowers moderators to make a distinction between the formal and
ideological news values in reporting taboo news. Finally I examine users’
comments for evidence of conservative, negotiated or oppositional per-
spectives. However, it is pertinent to state that the qualitative data used
in this chapter were collated in June 2009 when I was writing a research
monograph (Ogunyemi, 2011). Two things have happened since my
visit to AHYS: the editor left and the forum became defunct in 2012. But
without doubt its penchant to hold African authorities to account and
challenge cultural taboos will be missed by the registered users and visi-
tors to the site. The message on the website states that ‘the forum is now
replaced by the monthly programme BBC Africa Debate which will har-
ness new technology to reach audiences, that is, social media networks:
via Facebook on the BBC Africa page – via twitter #bbcafricadebate; and
on Google+ BBC Africa’ (AHYS, 2012).
The data relating to taboo news are used for the first time in this
chapter to shed light on the challenges of posting taboo news online.
The data for the first question were collated through a content analy-
sis of the archive of AHYS from April 2010 to August 2012, which was
accessed in June 2013 for evidence of taboo subjects. In addition I used
the data relevant to taboo subjects from the in-depth interview con-
ducted with the editor, David Stead, and two moderators, Alex Jakana,
who was a presenter on the weekly radio to complement the forum, and
Alice Muthengi, who was a producer, for their perspectives on the news-
worthiness of taboo subjects. Regarding the second question, I used the
data relevant to taboo subjects from an ethnography study of the news-
room which was collated by spending a day with the news team and
attending the morning conference at BBC African Productions, which
was then located at BBC Bush House, London. I observed that the team
is made up of a mixture of Caucasian white and black African journalists,
56 Production Practices

who demonstrate a deep understanding of African political, economic

and sociocultural fabrics because of years of journalism experience in
Anglophone African countries.
Moreover, an ethnographic document analysis of the editorial policy
was conducted to understand the journalistic standards applied in dif-
ferentiating between the formal news values and the ideological news
values. Using a case study of witchcraft debate posted during the period
of the ethnographic study in 2009, I examined the perspectives in users’
comments by adopting Morley’s thesis that ‘readings are always dif-
ferentiated into different formulations of dominant and oppositional
ideology, and in their differential focus on the ideological problem-
atic and/or the mode of address and discourse’ (Morley and Brunsdon,
1999, pp. 266–267). Hence the operational definition of conservative
perspective includes reference to religious and cultural roots, deperson-
alization (i.e. exclusion of name and country of location at the end of
the comment), and advocating lethal or non-lethal punishment, such as
lynching, ostracism and extrajudicial killing. The operational definition
of negotiated perspective includes reference to faith and the victim’s
story – that is, personal narrative about encounters with witches. And
the operational definition of oppositional perspective includes refer-
ence to liberalism/atheism, personalization (i.e. the name and country
of location at the end of the comment), attribution of individual
responsibility, human rights and education, as shown in Table 4.1.

The treatment of taboo news on the AHYS forum

Scholars claim that online fora could be classified into two broad
types – that is, discussion and deliberation. The former ‘is an online

Table 4.1 Perspectives in users’ comments

Conservative perspective Negotiated Oppositional

perspective perspective

Religious/cultural roots – Faith – 4.74% Liberal/atheistic views –

12.07%
Depersonalization – 9.22%
Lethal/non-lethal
punishment – 1.08%
Grand total: 22.37%
14.11%
Victim’s story – 2.71% Personalization – 46.94%
Individual
responsibility – 3.39%
Human rights – 3.25%
Education – 2.44%
7.45% 70.13%
 Ola Ogunyemi 57

discussion forum with a primarily non-political focus, but where politi-

cal talk emerges within conversations’ (Wright, 2012, p. 254). The latter
‘would take seriously a range of forms of public talk, from the informal
and conversational to the consultative and evidential’ (ibid., p. 255).
From this perspective the editorial philosophy of AHYS suggests that it
straddles both functions. First, the claim by the editor that ‘we allow
the users to question leaders. In doing that, we give users access to
African leaders and to knowledge they may otherwise not get access to’
(D. Stead, interview, 24 June 2009) is consistent with the notion that the
Internet enables ‘a more expansive and interactive kind of accountabil-
ity to take place’ (Coleman, 2005, p. 190). Second, the establishment of
the forum based on the findings of a study by the BBC World Service
(BBCWS) that

there was a perception tinged with a sense of frustration among

the African listeners that some news are not coming from African
perspective; that there was tendency for news to have colonial talk
undertone; that audiences want a way to talk back (to counter-
negative stereotypes or correct misconception of Africa) (D. Stead,
interview, 24 June 2009) is consistent with the notion that the
Internet accommodates ‘a pluralistic network of representation’.
(Coleman, 2005, p. 190)

Third, the claim by the editor that the forum ‘offers an opportunity for
Africans to tell their stories’ is consistent with the argument that the
Internet creates ‘new spaces of public self-representation and experien-
tial reflexivity’ (Coleman, 2005, p. 190). According to the editor,

it’s about personal stories and also about drawing similarities and
common threads between countries. For example, a discussion on lit-
ter problem in Freetown led to information about how it was solved
in Nairobi. Hence, there is a sense of engagement as it offers the
opportunity for people to listen to each other.
(D. Stead, interview, 24 June 2009)

During the ethnographic study, the editor reflected on the evolution of

the forum by noting that it began life as

‘Talk about Africa’ – a pre-recorded panel discussion which ran for

10 years. In 2000, we started ‘Africa Live’ – the first interactive
programme which discusses one topic a week to enable a pan African
58 Production Practices

conversation. But when the World Have Your Say (WHYS) began as
a global interactive phone-in and it was decided that ‘Africa Live’
should change its name to Africa Have Your SAY (AHYS).
(D. Stead, interview, 24 June 2009)

Moreover, the forum extended ‘its radio broadcast from Tuesday to

Thursday via short wave (SW) and FM relays to 80 partner stations in
Africa including in Anglo and Francophone countries’ (ibid.). This trans-
formation is consistent with the cyberoptimistic perspective that ‘the
Internet would revolutionize political conversation and debate because
it was thought, amongst other reasons, to have a democratic structure
that would facilitate deliberative conversation’ (Wright, 2012, p. 245).
The demise of the forum could be attributed to a combination of tech-
nological and economic factors. The technological impact was predicted
by the former editor when he stated that ‘mobile technology is grow-
ing and broadband and fibre optic cable are making inroad to Africa.
Communication is becoming cheaper and easier to access. Therefore, the
AHYS is preparing itself for high level of access. Africans are using social
networking media a lot such as tweeter’ (D. Stead, interview, 24 June
2009). This prediction was validated when the new editor, in giving the
reason for the demise of the forum, stated

that the African Have Your Say team will broadcast the programme for
the last time . . . Our programmes needed to adapt to meet the chang-
ing demands of our African audiences and to make sure we make the
best use of our resources . . . We know more and more of our audi-
ence are accessing our journalism online or via mobile phones. So we
have dramatically increased our work online with more and more
text, audio and video stories.
(AHYS, 2011)

The economic impact on the demise of the forum was evident in the
statement that ‘we like many areas of the BBCWS faced the challenge
of the reduced financial settlement in the last government spending
review’ (AHYS, 2011). However, the BBCWS reiterated its commitment
to African audiences by stating that ‘we realise there are more and more
stories that our African audiences want to share and comment upon
on social media sites. So our journalists will invest time to find out
what those stories are and to identify new, passionate, knowledgeable
contributors to our programmes’ (AHYS, 2011).
Generally, taboo subjects straddle the basic distinction of news
types – that is, ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ news. The former ‘is characterised
 Ola Ogunyemi 59

by a high level of newsworthiness, i.e. news value (usually regarding

politics, economics and social matters) demanding immediate publi-
cation’ (Lehman-Wilzig and Seletzky, 2010; Limor and Mann, 1997;
Smith, 1985; Tuchman, 1972; Whetmore, 1987). Meanwhile the latter
‘does necessitate timely publication and has a low level of substan-
tive informational value (if at all), i.e. gossip, human interest stories,
offbeat events’ (Lehman-Wilzig and Seletzky, 2010, p. 38). Hence the
AHYS moderators take cognizance of this distinction in selecting taboo
news. For instance, most of the taboo news posted on the forum falls
under the hard news type. For example, ‘sex strike Kenya (commen-
tary on Kenyans women on sex strike), gay (homosexuality), witchcraft,
rape, polygamy, suicide, female genital mutilation and male impotency’
(D. Stead, interview, 24 June 2009). However, the editor noted that news
about ‘incest’ has never been posted because ‘it has not made the news
agenda’ (ibid.). This further supports the argument that high infor-
mational values underpin the selection of taboo news. Therefore the
informational values negate the cultural ideological values as a mod-
erator asserts that ‘there are no limitations in doing topics on these
issues because we have a responsibility to explore and challenge them’
(A. Jakana, interview, 24 June 2009).
The content analysis of the archive reveals the ratio of taboo sub-
jects to non-taboo subjects that have been posted on the forum. For
instance, it found that percentage of non-taboo topics was 98% (213
topics) and that of taboo topics was 1.8% (4 topics). While the ratio
of taboo topics is not statistically significant, it further reinforces the
fact that informational values underpin the editorial selection of taboo
news and that its treatment is underpinned by the professional ideology
of objectivity, immediacy and public service. For instance, the moder-
ators demonstrate objectivity by citing official sources, as noted in the
framing of witchcraft debate, that

in the last six months, as many as 150 elderly men and women
accused of witchcraft have been lynched in Kenya, according to local
officials.
(Debate, 2009)

The moderators demonstrate immediacy by stating that

the BBC’s Odhinambo Joseph, who personally witnessed the burning

alive of five people accused of being witches in western Kenya, will
be taking questions from you on Africa Have Your Say.
(Debate, 2009)
60 Production Practices

And the moderators demonstrate public service by noting that

many were killed in gruesome ways, including being buried alive,

by members of their own families and communities. Similar ‘witch’
killings have occurred in recent months in Nigeria and the Central
African Republic.
(Debate, 2009)

It is evident that the informational value is an overriding criterion for

selecting taboo news. In justifying this editorial approach, the editor
notes that

if we did a programme you might term as taboo breaking, it will be on

current issues. For example, homosexuality programme was linked
to gay priests and about the position of some sections of African
churches. The ‘witchcraft programme’ we are doing tomorrow is
linked to the news of the lynching of witches in Kenya.
(ibid.)

The implication is that the forum became a platform for projecting ‘a

vision of communicative action that emphasises dialogue and calls for
the active participation of media institutions in providing opportunities
for critical debate’ (Wahl-Jorgensen, 2002, p. 78).
Besides conforming to journalistic standards, a good understanding
of the users is another factor in reporting taboo news. For instance, it
was evident during the ethnographic study that the moderators have a
good perception of users’ profiles, despite the lack of a formal survey
by the BBCWS. For instance, the editor stated that ‘the users of AHYS
are literate, cut across a wide age group, urban, middle class people and
engaged with global issues’ (D. Stead, interview, 24 June 2009). And a
moderator added

that 90 percent of users is male and that a critical mass of the AHYS
users is between 30 and 45 years old because their profile indicates
that they are professionals or doing postgraduate studies. And judg-
ing from their comments online, most have liberal views, broad
minded and exposed to different views.
(Alice Muthengi, interview, 24 June 2009)

The analysis of the editorial document also reveals that informational

value is embedded in the editorial philosophy, treatment of stories and
 Ola Ogunyemi 61

journalistic standards. Hence the news agenda was clear in stating that
the forum ‘provides context and debate and gives callers the chance
to question directly those making decisions about their lives’ (AHYS,
2009). The editorial document alludes to informational value in the
treatment of stories that ‘the tone of AHYS is informed, provocative,
lively, journalistic and rigorous, and its presentational style should
reflect these qualities’ (ibid.). And it alludes to informational values in
maintaining journalistic standards by stressing journalistic and techni-
cal competences. The former refers to ensuring that the forum ‘responds
proactively to breaking news, seeks to develop new angles on major sto-
ries and aims to put newsmakers on the spot’ (ibid.). And the latter
refers to ensuring that the moderators aim ‘for the highest produc-
tion standards with clear branding and signposting. Good audibility is a
priority’ (ibid.).
Most significantly, the editorial document cautions against applying
ideological news values by stating that ‘we should not be afraid of
challenging taboos’ (AHYS, 2009). The editor argues that the editorial
document reflects the social reality of users because the ‘constant dia-
logue of modernity versus tradition is the key issue AHYS users want to
discuss’ (D. Stead, interview, 24 June 2009). Moreover, the implication
of the informational value is that ‘we will rigorously explore taboos and
understand where people are coming from, that is, trying to understand
our users’ (ibid.). But in doing that the moderators must conform to the
journalistic standards – that is, ‘the subject for debate should be clear
and focused, and resonate with listeners around Africa’ (AHYS, 2009).
However, the application of informational value does not imply that
the moderators are not sensitive to the cultural sensibilities of their
users. According to the editor, ‘you can discuss taboo without being dis-
courteous or critical of it. We are sensitive to cultural taboos because
our producers are Africans and their understanding of how far they can
push an issue is important. AHYS wont take a position that taboo should
not be there’ (D. Stead, interview, 24 June 2009). Moreover, the mod-
erators feel the pulse of users’ cultural tolerance through the readers’
comments and feedback. Consequently the editor was pleased to note
that ‘we have not had any emails saying we should not be going this
from our users’ (ibid.).
The advantages of adopting an informational value include the lived
experience that it helps to build relationships with users irrespec-
tive of their education, gender, age or creed. It gives users a sense
of ownership of the forum. Also, according to a moderator, it moti-
vates users to be ‘honest about their experiences regarding the taboo’
62 Production Practices

(A. Jakana, interview, 24 June 2009) and to ‘feel comfortable in [the]

AHYS environment’ (ibid.).

Perspectives in users’ comments

It is apparent from the collective action of some people in Kenya, Nigeria

and the Central African Republic against those accused of witchcraft
practice that cultural and religious taboos have the power to influence
attitude. The aim of this section is to examine how users use language to
reproduce or challenge the witchcraft taboo. I examined the witchcraft
debate posted on Wednesday 24 June 2009 and found that it generated
a total of 323 comments. The analysis reveals that 120 comments were
rejected, the reason for which could be attributed to the use of profan-
ities in contravention of the ‘House Rules’ (BBC, n.d.). According to a
moderator, the BBCWS monitors comments for any of the 312 profan-
ities on its database. Moreover, the ‘House Rules’ warn users that ‘we
reserve the right to fail messages which are considered likely to disrupt,
provoke, attack or offend others; are racist, sexist, homophobic, sexu-
ally explicit, abusive or otherwise objectionable; contain swear words or
other language likely to offend; break the law or condone or encourage
unlawful activity’.
However, the main purpose of moderation is not only to detect offen-
sive comments but also to ‘choose comments that help a debate; to
moderate the way you express your view online and to moderate for rel-
evancy’ (A. Jakana, interview, 24 June 2009). From this perspective the
moderators claimed that their job is not onerous because ‘users under-
stand the rules. They are astute about how they want to project their
views. They understand they are coming on BBC platform’ (ibid.).
The analysis of the comments is premised on the notion that language
conveys a person’s thoughts and that it can be used ‘to justify or refute
a standpoint, with the aim of securing an agreement in views’ (van
Eemeren et al., 2012, p. 85). It can also be used to shape public opinion.
Hence scholars claim that ‘frames influence how the public thinks of an
issue by defining the issue, stating who is the cause, and what should
be done’ (Kensicki, 2004, p. 56). In conveying their thoughts about
witchcraft, opinion leaders have the power to act as the arbiter of public
conscience by reinforcing a conservative sociodominance orientation.
However, the analysis of the comments reveals that the oppositional
perspective at 70.13% completely overshadowed other perspectives, as
shown in Table 4.1. This confirms the moderators’ claim that users are
educated and exposed to divergent views.
 Ola Ogunyemi 63

Contrary to the claim that cultural taboos ‘are sanctioned or restricted

on both institutional and individual levels under the assumption that
some harm will occur if a taboo word is spoken’ (Jay, 2009, p. 153),
the analysis reveals that users did not hide their identity because they
‘signed off’ their comment with their name, hence the high percent-
age of personalization at 46.94%. This also confirms the moderators’
claim that users are comfortable on the forum. Moreover, the users
did not hide their country of location and the analysis found that the
most cited locations in descending order are the UK, the USA, Nigeria,
Liberia and Ghana. However, a closer examination of the columns
for the conservative and oppositional perspectives reveals a small per-
centage ratio between the religious/cultural roots at 12.07% and the
liberal/atheistic views at 14.11%. The former is consistent with the nor-
malization perspective of the Internet that ‘deliberation might reflect
the social power structure and reinforce pre-existing inequalities’ (Baek
et al., 2012, p. 364). For example, a user lamented the erosion of culture
and advocated cultural revival by noting that,

currently, most Africans have sadly lost their supernatural world view.
African governments should promote indigenous beliefs which were
practised for many years before Christianity and Islam
(Mesganaw Andualem, Hawassa, Ethiopia)

Not surprisingly, those who expressed a conservative perspective are

most likely to advocate lethal/non-lethal punishment for witches. For
example, a user wrote that

witchcraft is very real and if you don’t believe me, then round up
several hundred witches, send them to Guantanamo and see who
doesn’t own up after some sleep deprivation and water boarding.
Then burn them
(Jamie, London)

However, those who expressed an oppositional perspective have a ten-

dency to challenge the sociocultural power structure. For example, a user
wrote that

It seems the people who always have the tendency to believe in

the existence of witchcraft always come from poor and ignorant
societies . . .
(Musa Kalowo Gonga, London)
64 Production Practices

Moreover, those who expressed an oppositional perspective are most

likely to attribute responsibility for action to individuals and to advocate
upholding the rule of law and education as a panacea. For example, a
user attributed individual responsibility by stating:

I think it’s an idea we use in order to avoid taking responsibilities

for our actions. Whenever, we black Africans cannot explain a phe-
nomenon or an occurrence, however simple or complex, we conclude
its witchcraft
(Efosa, Abuja, Nigeria)

Another user alluded to the role of international organizations in

protecting human rights in Africa by writing that

the UN has to put a stop to this. It is a violation of other people’s

right to exist . . .
(Lamin Bojang, Stockholm, Sweden)

And a user highlighted the role of African governments in eradicating

such a belief system by stating that

the government must also provide education and economic oppor-

tunities and development so these beliefs have no place in our
society
(Innocent Monya-Tambi, Washington, DC)

Moreover, the analysis reveals evidence of argumentative discourse by

users who expressed a negotiated perspective. This orientation could
be ‘associated with ideals of reasonableness, rationality, and a tendency
towards truth’ (van Eemeren et al., 2012, p. 91). From the analysis, two
dominant elements in the negotiated perspective are ‘faith’ at 4.74%
and ‘victim’s story’ at 2.71%. An example of the former is as follows:

Its really heart breaking to see fellow Africans have faith in things that
retard their own progress. Until all Africans become philosophers,
witchcraft will continue to exist in their minds.
(Joachim Arrey, Ossing, Cameroon)

The example of the latter is as follows:

 Ola Ogunyemi 65

sure it is real. I have personally experienced witchcraft and its effect.

My mum died from the attack by witches. Believe it or not, it is real.
(Frank Akyea, Tema, Ghana)

Overall, it is fair to say that none of the perspectives presented a reso-

lution to the witchcraft taboo but they gave an insight into the shift in
opinion towards an oppositional perspective among Africans at home
and in the diaspora. However, it remains to be seen if this will translate
into ‘a new form of community, empowering citizens and challenging
existing power structures’ (Wright, 2012, p. 248) in Africa.

Conclusion

This chapter posits that taboo news straddles formal and ideological
news values and that there is a tendency among African diasporic
journalists to be sensitive to the cultural sensibilities of audiences in
reporting taboo news. However, the study found that adherence to
good practice in journalistic standards could mitigate against this self-
censorship and enable more news stories with high informational value,
but shrouded in cultural taboo, to be discussed in the public sphere.
Using the case study of the AHYS website, the study found that hav-
ing a robust editorial document that sets clear journalistic and technical
competencies helped the moderators to negotiate the contrasting pro-
fessional and ideological values in reporting taboo news. It also helped
them to engage and maintain a good relationship with the users.
There are a few lessons for other African diasporic media to take away
from these findings. For instance, the findings demonstrate how they
can aspire to good journalistic standards without compromising ethical
principles in reporting any story, irrespective of its ideological conno-
tations. The findings point to the need to develop a robust editorial
document to guide experienced and new journalists in order to achieve
consistency in the selection and treatment of stories. The findings also
point to the need to develop confidence among journalists to chal-
lenge cultural taboos by undertaking continuous development training
in order to enhance their skills and share experiences in a learning envi-
ronment. The findings demonstrate that journalists could respect the
cultural sensibilities of audiences while upholding the human rights of
the victims of cultural taboos. Most significantly, the findings demon-
strate that audiences are not static in their cultural orientation owing to
exposure to global culture. As a result they are more open to new ideas
and to multiple perspectives on sociocultural, economic and political
66 Production Practices

issues. Therefore the African diasporic media should grasp the oppor-
tunity to address a younger audience without alienating the older
generation.

Acknowledgements

I should like to thank Mr David Stead, former editor of AHYS, Alex

Jakana, presenter, and Alice Muthengi, producer, BBC African Produc-
tions, for their support in collating data for this study.

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5
Journalism of Turkish-Language
Newspapers in the UK
Sanem Şahin

Various research has explored and proffered explanations for the growth
of diaspora media. These explanations have varied from increasing
immigration to fragmenting audiences for mainstream media and the
emergence of community, alternative and participatory media (Deuze,
2006; Georgiou, 2005; Lin and Song, 2006; Rigoni and Saitta, 2012).
In any case, it is accepted that diaspora media are different from the
mainstream media in form, function and reason of existence (Skjerdal,
2011). They have a ‘complex and changing system of their own,
with internal differences in history, ownership, self-identity, production
process, distribution pattern, degree of involvement with mainstream
media and so on’ (Shi, 2009, p. 613).
Diaspora media speak to particular ethnic, linguistic and religious
groups in a host society, create and maintain ethnic cohesion and cul-
tural identity, and support integration into the host society (Aksoy
and Robins, 2003; Christiansen, 2004; Georgiou, 2005; Karim, 1998,
2003). They function as a mobilizing force, an indicator of social
change and a resource for members of diaspora (Matsaganis et al., 2011;
Ogunyemi, 2012; Rigoni and Saitta, 2012). By advocating community
rights and organizing collective actions, they also act as watchdogs (Shi,
2009). Minority communities that are critical of their invisibility or
negative representation by the mainstream media turn to their com-
munity media channels and use them as platforms for discussion and
exchange (Baffoe, 2012; Husband, 2005; Matsaganis et al., 2011; Seo and
Moon, 2013).
Even though the function of the media that are produced and con-
sumed by immigrant communities can be generalized as meeting their
cultural, political and economic needs, they should not be treated
as homogenous but as fragmented by age, gender, class and political

68
 Sanem Şahin 69

affiliation (Husband, 2005; Shi, 2009). Reflecting differences in political

orientations, religious beliefs, class and gender attitudes within a com-
munity, these media can also become a ‘centre of cultural tensions and
political ideology’ (Ojo, 2006, p. 352).
Whether these characteristics make diaspora media an alternative to
mainstream media is another issue that has been investigated. Acting
against injustice, organizing collective action, providing visibility and
different perspectives to their audiences, they have the characteristics of
alternative media (Atton, 2002). However, as Shi (2009) points out, eth-
nic media have a tendency to cover stories that are related to a generic
audience which can mean that they avoid reporting controversial issues
within the community. As a result, they may offer an alternative to
mainstream media only to the extent that they act as a watchdog on
injustices in the mainstream but not within their own communities
(Shi, 2009). This makes them, as Ogunyemi (2012, p. 179) describes it, a
‘hybrid of alternative and mainstream media’.
While diaspora media have attracted scholarly attention within the
framework of ethnic diversity, identity and the media, the journal-
ism practices of diaspora media have failed to get similar attention.
This could be because it is difficult to position them within the dom-
inant journalistic notion of professionalism. Different pressures on the
news-production process imposed by diaspora consumption and eco-
nomic circumstances pose different challenges for these journalists and
cause their practices to be criticized for a lack of professionalism (Hus-
band, 2005; Matsaganis et al., 2011; Ojo, 2006; Skjerdal, 2011). For
example, a tension between professional, political and ethnic identi-
ties is one such challenge for these journalists. As various research has
shown, divided between their commitment to both professionalism and
their communities’ needs, these journalists frequently negotiate their
roles as journalists (Husband, 2005; Ogunyemi, 2012; Shumov, 2012;
Skjerdal, 2011).
This different form of journalism also leads to a questioning of exist-
ing concepts of journalism culture and ideology. The literature on news
production cultures has explored journalism to find out if there are
universal journalistic values and a common journalism culture among
journalists around the world (Deuze, 2005; Hanitzsch, 2007; McNair,
1998; Schudson, 2003; Willnat et al., 2013). Some studies highlight
shared characteristics which are seen as the common traits of journal-
ists’ professional identity, while others stress significant differences in
the way in which journalists perceive and practise their roles. Yet these
studies usually focus on national news media and fail to extend their
70 Production Practices

scrutiny to other cultures of journalism, including diaspora. Studying

the journalism of diaspora media not only informs and enriches the
dominant theories of journalism, as Ogunyemi (2012) suggests, but also
encourages a rethinking of the role of the media in the construction of
community, national identity and ethnic difference (Shi, 2009).
Based on these arguments, this chapter examines current Turkish-
language newspapers’ operations and journalism practices in the UK
in order to provide an insight into the dynamics of the journalism
of diaspora media. For the journalism culture of diaspora media to be
understood properly, the particular conditions in which the diaspora
media function should be taken into consideration. Therefore the
chapter sets out to explore the professional identities, journalism cul-
ture, news-production processes and organizational structures of these
news organizations to provide a broad picture of journalism culture
within the Turkish speaking diaspora. Understanding the motivations
of journalists and the circumstances in which they function helps us
to gain an insight into how these media produce stories that play a
significant role for their communities.

Method

At the time of writing there are five newspapers that are being pub-
lished in the UK for the Turkish-speaking community – namely, Londra
Gazete (London Turkish Gazette), Olay (Event), Haber (the News), Avrupa
(Europe) and Telgraf (Telegraph). Research data for this research are
mainly collected through face-to-face, semistructured interviews with
seven journalists and news editors from these newspapers to find out
the characteristics of journalism that are specific to Turkish-language
newspapers. The individuals interviewed were all responsible for the
news content of the newspapers that they worked for at the time of
the interviews.1
The data are supplemented with readings of the papers starting from
January 2012 to understand more about the news-evaluation and pro-
duction process by identifying what kind of issues or events became
news. Therefore only news articles are included in the study; lifestyle
features, advertising and opinion articles are excluded. In the analysis,
comparisons are made between the topics of the articles, and common
characteristics of the emerging themes are highlighted.
In appearance, Turkish-language newspapers are very similar to
each other: they consist of around 30–50 pages filled with commu-
nity news, plentiful colour pictures and advertisements. Pictures and
advertisements fill a large part of these papers, with news articles
 Sanem Şahin 71

placed around them. As some journalists pointed out (T. Ekingen,

interview, 21 August 2012; N. Fehmi, interview, 14 January 2014;
Ö. Yörük, interview, 14 January 2014), pictures are the main selling
point for these publications. Their use encourages more people to buy
a copy of the paper, especially if they or their acquaintances appear
in them.

The Turkish-speaking community and Turkish-language

newspapers in the UK

The community, which is usually referred to as ‘Turkish speaking’,2 con-

sists mainly of Turks and Kurds from Turkey, and Turkish Cypriots from
Cyprus. Each of these groups, which arrived in the UK at different but
overlapping times, have different reasons for coming and experiences of
integration (Change Institute, 2009; King et al., 2008). Turkish Cypriots
started coming to the UK in the 1950s, mainly for economic reasons.
Further migration happened during the 1970s and 1980s due to the par-
tition of Cyprus in 1974 (Atay, 2010; Change Institute, 2009; Greater
London Authority, 2009; King et al., 2008). Mainland Turks started arriv-
ing in the UK in the late 1960s and early 1970s, mainly for employment.
However, the military coup in Turkey in 1980 led more Turkish people
to follow in order to seek political asylum. Kurds from Turkey began
migrating to the UK in the 1980s when the conflict between the Kurdish
Workers’ Party and Turkish armed forces intensified, forcing some to flee
the country and seek refuge and asylum (ibid.).
Various reports show that the Turkish-speaking community in the UK
does not trust the British media and believes that it is prejudiced against
the community as its coverage focuses on negative events (Ahmet,
2005; Change Institute, 2009; Greater London Authority, 2009). ‘As a
result of mistrust of the British media and its focus on mainstream
British culture,’ says one report, ‘many in the community turn to the
Turkish media for news and entertainment’ (Change Institute, 2009,
p. 9). However, it is important to note that the community’s use of
Turkish-language media may not always be in response to mainstream
representations but, as Rigoni explains, in order to give ‘a definition of
the community they intend to represent’ (Rigoni, 2003). This also helps
the community to create its own socialization space through the media
(Atay, 2010).
There is a range of media channels that provide the community with
news and entertainment: satellite television channels from Turkey and
North Cyprus, newspapers from Turkey, radio stations based mainly in
London and newspapers that are produced and circulated in the UK.
72 Production Practices

Turkish-language newspapers are run by small teams of people. The

core team in each paper consists of a managing director, a news edi-
tor/reporter, a salesperson and a page designer. The owners are also the
managing directors of the papers and in some cases the editors in chief.
While the first group looks after the business side, leaving the news-
making decisions mostly to the news editors and reporters, the latter
group is involved in the news-production processes. For example, Nesim
Fehmi, the owner of Olay, is involved in every aspect of news selec-
tion and the production of stories, including writing, editing and page
design.
Journalists working for these newspapers have varying levels of jour-
nalism experience: some, such as Özcan Yörük, the editor in chief of
Haber, have previous journalism experience. But others, such as Sanem
Şahin,3 have learned journalism at the paper they are working for. Car-
rying out editorial and reporting responsibilities without much help or
feedback from more experienced staff can be a problem for some of these
journalists who want to progress in the profession. One example is Figen
Güneş (interview, 12 June 2012), who expressed her desire to work with
an experienced editor who could provide guidance and advice about
journalism.
As these newspapers are all distributed free of charge, advertising
becomes a driving force in the production of the papers and holds a
crucial place in the presentation of the content. It is also influential
in editorial policies. In order to reach as many advertisers and readers
as possible, the newspapers avoid being identified with any political
ideology, group or organization. Only one – Telgraf – positions itself
ideologically, by subscribing to the ideals of the Kurdish nationalist
movement in Turkey.
They are all weekly newspapers apart from Olay, which comes out
twice a week. The main language is Turkish. Among them only Londra
Gazete has some English pages, while Telgraf includes some Kurdish
news. Their websites have the same content as the print version, as well
as an e-newspaper, which is an exact copy of the print version. While
the content of the websites is not updated regularly, the latest issue of
the newspaper can be read online.

Journalism culture

Journalism culture can be described as ‘a particular set of ideas

and practices by which journalists, consciously and unconsciously,
legitimate their role in society and render their work meaningful for
 Sanem Şahin 73

themselves and others’ (Hanitzsch, 2007, p. 369). Understanding this

culture requires a closer look at journalists’ value systems and actions,
and the processes by which they validate and give meaning to their work
(Deuze, 2005). So what are the ideas, values and actions that are evident
among journalists working for Turkish-language newspapers?
Those working in the Turkish-language press describe their publica-
tions as community papers and their role as providing a public service
to the community. They share the view that their role as journalists
varies from being a watchdog for the Turkish-speaking community to
being collectors and disseminators of information. It shows, as Deuze
(2005) suggests, that they are using the public-service ideal to validate
and give meaning to their actions and position in society as journalists.
It is important to note that achieving this public service is related to the
functions of the paper in the community. These publications provide
information and analysis from the country of origin which can be seen
as performing a connective function (Husband, 2005; Matsaganis et al.,
2011; Ogunyemi, 2012). However, some journalists believe that their
main aim is to help community members to adjust to the host coun-
try. Sinayic (interview, 14 January 2014), the news editor and reporter
of Telgraf, sees the role that these newspapers play in the adaptation
process to the host country as more important. Fehmi (interview, 14 Jan-
uary 2014), who believes that many members of the community can’t
or don’t follow what’s happening in the UK, regards it as his newspa-
per’s responsibility to help them to understand the country’s politics,
and its social and economic developments. Therefore the papers provide
information about resources and services that are available to the com-
munity and tell them about developments in issues that affect them,
such as immigration, housing and education. By focusing on events
within the community, they also connect members with others from
the same home country (Georgiou, 2006; Matsaganis et al., 2011) and
give them a sense of belonging in a new community, which fits in with
an orientation function (ibid). As Yörük (interview, 14 January 2014)
and Fehmi (interview, 14 January 2014) explain, these newspapers keep
people informed of each other. In their view, without these publica-
tions, community members would have limited communication with
each other.
Institutional roles and professional culture are also determinants of
journalism culture (Hanitzsch, 2007; McNair, 1998). In the case of the
Turkish-language press, journalism is heavily influenced by the rela-
tionship between the journalists and the community. Journalists find
it difficult to maintain a balance between their ethnic and professional
74 Production Practices

identities. This is because they are seen not only as news providers
but also as defenders of the community’s interests and are therefore
expected to promote community values and rights. These expectations
pose a challenge to journalists who try to stay detached but frequently
find themselves renegotiating their professional role. Journalists inter-
viewed for this study admitted that despite their efforts it is not always
possible to distance themselves from their subjects. Therefore they all
feel vulnerable to the charge of unprofessionalism.
Regarding objectivity, an important professional standard shows how
these journalists are committed to journalism culture where a set of
professional values and norms is perceived to be crucial (Schudson and
Anderson, 2009; Tuchman, 1978). However, fulfilling this commitment
while reflecting the interests of their community is not easy for them.
Therefore they are seen as ‘less objective’ because they are viewed as
community advocates (Husband, 2005; Matsaganis et al., 2011) or, as
some journalists described it, as ‘amateurs’ or ‘unprofessionals’. This per-
ception shows the domination of the professional culture that views
objectivity as the key element of the professional self-perception of
journalists (Deuze, 2005).

What is news?

Research has produced broad evidence of how gatekeeping occurs at

multiple (organizational and individual) levels to influence the selec-
tion of stories (Shoemaker and Reese, 1996; Shoemaker, et al., 2009).
The gatekeeping process is not different for journalists working for
Turkish-language newspapers. In their case, selection, filtering and the
processing of information is usually undertaken by one journalist (or the
news editor). Yet when they are making these decisions they take into
consideration the story’s impact on the organization’s economic inter-
ests, its level of importance to their audience and whether it is an event
that they are able or willing to cover.
News values are related to the audience and accessibility, and they
involve consideration of whether an event or an issue is important to
the audience, would hold their attention, would be understood and
enjoyed, and would be registered or perceived as relevant (Golding and
Elliot, 1979). Journalists working for Turkish-language newspapers select
information to become news based on their perception of who their
readers are and what their expectations are. There are no data on the
characteristics of their readership. However, they all aim to present the
news in a way that would appeal to their less educated readers ‘who
 Sanem Şahin 75

would simply look at the paper rather than read it’ (Yörük, interview,
14 January 2014). In a similar way, Güneş (interview, 12 June 2012)
focuses on stories that would also interest ‘immigrants who can’t speak
English’, while Fehmi (interview, 14 January 2014) targets tradesmen
who need help in understanding the UK’s politics.
The resources that are available to these papers are also a factor in
their selection of which events to follow. As Allern (2002) states, the
more it costs to follow up a story, the less likely it will become a news
story. The news personnel in all of these papers consist of one or two
people, which makes it difficult to cover all events in the community.
They therefore choose those that will not take too much time or person-
nel. Having to cover a broader range of events in the community with
just a few reporters means that these papers use staff from their other
departments. For example, sometimes events that are organized by busi-
nesses are followed by sales people. Some journalists, such as Mahir Tan
from Avrupa, resent this practice of giving the job of a reporter to a sales-
person as they believe that it undermines reporters’ value and role in
the community.
Concerns about upsetting or causing offence to different groups
within such a diverse community affect the news-selection and con-
struction stages. Issues or incidents that may cause offence to religion or
the identity of a group are reported in a way that will not upset them, or
are not covered at all. For example, crime is a topic that these newspa-
pers are not keen to report, especially if it involves different groups from
the community. As Tan (interview, 21 August 2012) explains, they avoid
reporting on conflicts between different groups because, regardless of
how the story is written, one side or other will be offended by the cover-
age. Some journalists also stated that they received threats after writing
such stories (Güneş, interview, 12 June, 2012; Şahin, interview, 12 June
2012; Yörük, interview, 14 January 2014).
So what kinds of issue or event become news for the press of the
Turkish-speaking community? Examination of the newspapers reveals
that news stories have certain common characteristics. Drama is one
such feature. In these types of story, events are presented as emotional,
exciting or something unacceptable. Good news, another common char-
acteristic, is usually about the achievements of individuals or groups in
business, education, arts or sports. These stories are always celebrated
as the success of ‘one of us’ and are given as examples of positive role
models for the community. In contrast, any bad news, such as an indi-
vidual’s involvement in crime, is isolated from the community as that
individual’s actions rather than as tainting the community. Relevance is
76 Production Practices

also another factor that influences the selection of information as a news

item. For example, new immigration or citizenship policies are covered
by the press to inform the community how they may affect its members;
or announcements by local authorities are usually reported on issues
such as housing and education in areas where the Turkish-speaking com-
munity is concentrated. The statements or actions of individuals within
powerful elites, such as the Turkish ambassador or the London represen-
tative of Turkish Cyprus, are also featured in the news reporting of the
diaspora press.

Organization

The press of the Turkish-speaking diaspora is composed of small-scale,

independent organization that are owned by a member of the commu-
nity as their primary business. As the newspapers are distributed free of
charge, the main source of revenue is advertising and in a limited market
this makes the competition for advertising very vigorous. They struggle
to sell space to a small number of businesses and organizations that can
pay for advertising. Lowering advertising charges, reducing news staff or
pressurizing reporters to sell some advertising space to pay their wages
are some of the measures that these papers take in order to cope with
the hardship that competition for advertising revenue poses for them. As
one interviewee stated, forcing reporters to sell advertising space turns
them into ‘half reporter and half sales person’ and damages their image
as professionals (Güneş, interview, 12 June 2012).
Circulation affects advertising as a larger number of readers make
the newspapers more attractive to advertisers. However, in the context
of the Turkish-language press, since circulation does not provide any
income, attracting advertising has become the main concern. Timur
Ekingen, Haber’s news editor, explains that getting advertising has
become more important for these papers than the news (T. Ekingen,
interview, 21 August 2012). In an effort to attract businesses to adver-
tise with them, the newspapers frequently publish stories that promote
the commercial interests of businesses as news. For example, a public
event organized by a business can be published as news regardless of
its news value, just to keep the advertiser happy. However, as the inter-
views revealed, journalists working for these papers do not approve of
the practice and see it as being in conflict with journalism.
As advertising is their lifeline, the papers avoid publishing any news
items that would upset businesses and organizations that advertise
 Sanem Şahin 77

with them. This means that reporters need to consider whether the
information that they are processing shows such a business in a nega-
tive light. If it does, then they don’t run the story. They admit to heeding
the warnings of their managing directors or owners against covering a
story that would harm commercial links with a business. However, this
situation causes concern among some journalists because they see this
practice as undermining their professional integrity. Many of the jour-
nalists interviewed for the study stated that there had been cases where
they did not cover important, newsworthy events simply for this reason.

Challenges

Working for an ethnic press comes with many challenges. Staff short-
ages mean long hours and heavy workloads for employees. Research,
news-gathering, reporting and editing can be one person’s responsibil-
ity. With a limited number of staff, these newspapers choose to report
on issues and events that are easy and inexpensive to process. There-
fore the majority of news items are based on one source’s statement,
which is most of the time prepared by the source itself. These journal-
ists express their desire to work on more important issues that affect the
society, such as gang culture, high suicide rates and education problems.
But, as some explained, their workload leaves them no time to concen-
trate on such stories (Güneş, interview, 12 June 2012; Yörük, interview,
14 January 2014).
A lack of good English-language skills is one of the biggest challenges
for journalists working for these newspapers. They all complain of their
lack of skill in writing news stories in English. Language skills also
affect their news-gathering, practices especially if they need to contact
a government office, public body or authority for information. Ekingen
(interview, 21 August 2012), who sees a lack of English as the biggest
problem for reporters in the Turkish-language press, gives this example:
‘In [the] near past there were delays in processing visas for Turkish peo-
ple. All the Turkish language press reported on the concerns of people
waiting for their visas but none called the Home Office’s press office to
ask for an explanation for the delay. Why? Because of lack of English lan-
guage.’ In some cases a failure to make contact to seek more information
may result in unbalanced reports and a strengthening of misconceptions
among the community towards these bodies and authorities. Güneş
(interview, 12 June 2012), who is critical of such practices, explains that
‘when you report on a Turkish man who claims to have been mistreated
78 Production Practices

by the police and describes the act as ‘racism’ if you don’t contact the
police for information or investigate what really happened, you’re not
doing your job properly. You are unfairly portraying the police as racist
and playing with people’s perceptions.’

The relationship with the community

The vast majority of the Turkish-speaking community live in London

where these newspapers are also based. Budget and staff constraints limit
the newspapers’ capacity to report on communities in other parts of the
UK, which results in their content being more relevant to the commu-
nity in London. However, they all claim that through the online version
of the paper they can reach the Turkish-speaking community elsewhere
in the UK.
Keeping a close relationship with the community helps these papers
to stay informed about events, debates and trends within the com-
munity. For those such as Sanem Şahin, who is in contact with other
members of the community through both her work and her personal
life, it is not difficult to understand people’s problems and expectations.
Feedback from readers is an important factor in the news production for
these papers. Usually received in face-to-face situations or by phone and
email (and sometimes letter), feedback reflects the reaction of readers
to various issues covered in the press. It helps newspapers to recog-
nize their readers and to identify their needs and interests. Inevitably,
readers’ perceptions affect news-selection and production processes.
When it comes to how the community views the journalists, the
answer is similar: ‘some regard us as journalists but some don’t’. Accord-
ing to Ekingen (interview, 21 August 2012), ordinary people view the
news staff in the papers as journalists and treat them with respect
because they see them as people who can promote their interests and
voice their concerns, and through which they can gain public atten-
tion and support. However, people whose businesses advertise with
the paper know that they are supporting the paper financially, so the
respect and attitude that the first group shows to journalists may not be
there. Ekingen explains that it could be because ‘they see the relation-
ship between themselves and journalists like employer-employee level’
(Ekingen, interview, 21 August 2012). Sinayic (interview, 14 January
2014) also claims that the respect that journalists get from the com-
munity depends on how the newspaper that they work for is deemed:
‘if it is regarded highly they treat you with respect. If it is not then they
are cold towards you.’
 Sanem Şahin 79

Discussion and conclusion

By examining the journalism of Turkish-language newspapers, this study

aims to advance an understanding of the role of diaspora news media in
immigrant communities. As journalism studies focus overwhelmingly
on national journalism, my objective was to highlight the importance
of diaspora news media for their communities.
Georgiou (2005) explains that diasporic media could bring people
closer by giving them a sense of belonging to the diaspora community,
regardless of their different and sometimes conflicting experiences in
their homelands. As this research shows, these newspapers see their role
as serving the ‘Turkish speaking community’. They act as a diasporic
public sphere for their readers, providing them with a common space
to meet. Despite generalizing their readers as a ‘Turkish speaking com-
munity’, they all ‘reproduce and create the discourse on the group they
aim to represent’ (Rigoni, 2003) and generate content that they believe
is appropriate for their readers.
However, their close relationship with elite groups and advertisers
raises questions about how well they speak to and for their reader-
ship. As long as managerial priorities favour elite groups’ and adver-
tisers’ political, cultural and economic sensitivities, it remains an issue
whether they represent the community and guard their interests or
whether they are dominated by commercial concerns. As this chapter
demonstrates, Turkish-language newspapers juggle the two interests,
producing a tension between them that can be discomforting for their
journalists.
Turkish-language community papers are not homogenous but diverse.
Different ideological, political and economic factors have influenced
their development in different ways. Despite their sympathies towards
certain ideological or political groups related to homeland politics, they
claim to have no political affiliation with any group or organization.
As the interviews showed, they avoid reflecting cultural and political
tensions so as not to upset any groups or advertisers. Instead, they cover
stories that people can easily relate to without bringing much analysis
or criticism. The reading of these papers also showed that they don’t
produce politically, culturally or socially radical discourse. They avoid
reflecting the internal tensions and conflicts within the community.
Even though they act as watchdog to injustices in mainstream society,
they fail to do the same within the community.
Journalism in Turkish-language newspapers, despite similarities in
organizational structure and professional values, is different in its
80 Production Practices

function and production practices than the mainstream press. Differ-

ent pressures on news production, consumption and distribution create
different challenges for the journalists working for these newspapers.
The most significant is the conflict between their professional and eth-
nic identities: while they struggle to follow professional norms, such as
objectivity, they also feel the pressure to advocate their community’s
rights, which can be inconsistent with their professional ideals and
practices. The result is journalism that sits between activism and pro-
fessionalism, which makes these journalists feel as if they are not ‘real
journalists’ (Deuze, 2005, p. 444).
Added to this are the tensions between meeting the demands and
interests of their public and the commercial concerns of managers. Jour-
nalists frequently feel the need to question the impact of their stories on
the businesses that advertise with them and avoid publishing any story
that might give them bad publicity. Even though they regard this as
against the norms of the profession, they accept it as a necessary prac-
tice in their jobs to avoid any financial loss as they all share the pressure
of generating sufficient revenue to sustain the newspaper. However, this
also casts doubt on their professionalism.
The journalists are in close contact with their readers. As members of
the diaspora community, they are aware of its problems and try to high-
light them. Outside writing articles for their papers, as members of the
community they communicate with their readers, and these readers not
only become sources of information and feedback but, in some cases,
also produce content for the paper, displaying a degree of citizen partic-
ipation in the production of the newspaper. Although this relationship
differs from the traditional journalistic autonomy of news production,
it does not mean a demarcation of boundaries between news produc-
ers and readers. However, it means that readers’ voices are not only
represented but also included as participants (Deuze, 2006).
Practised in circumstances that are specific to a diaspora community,
these journalists are frequently renegotiating their professional roles as
journalists and trying to find a model of journalism that is economically,
culturally and politically acceptable to the community. Their current
practices may not match the dominant values of professionalism, such
as objectivity, impartiality and balance, but, as research shows, they do
not reflect their professional ideals either. Therefore their journalism
should not be dismissed as unprofessional but explored in order to fur-
ther our understanding of the professional orientations and functions
of journalism.
 Sanem Şahin 81

Notes
1. The interviewees held the stated positions at these newspapers at the time
when these interviews were conducted but may no longer occupy them.
2. Categorizing these three subgroups into one ‘Turkish-speaking community’ is
not to ignore their diverse social and political realizations but to highlight
their common position as an audience.
3. The interviewee Sanem Şahin by coincidence shares my name.

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Willnat, L., Weaver, D. H. and Choi, J. (2013) The Global Journalist in the Twenty-
First Century. Journalism Practice, 7(2): 163–183.
Part II
News Production and Processing
6
Discursive Inclusion and
Hegemony: The Politics of
Representation in Spanish Migrant
Minority Media
Lucía Echevarría Vecino, Alicia Ferrández Ferrer and Gregory
Dallemagne

Migrants settled in Spain feel deeply dissatisfied with the criminalizing

and stereotyping discourses about migration to be found in the main-
stream media (Díaz, 2006). The poor take-up of migrants as sources of
information, the limited possibilities for migrant journalists to join the
Spanish media sector (Ferrández Ferrer, 2012) and structural conditions
of Spanish mainstream media which limit the possibilities of a more
in-depth journalistic investigation have led to a ‘discursive exclusion’
(Herzog, 2011) of migrant minorities in the media.
In this context the production of media targeting migrant and
diasporic communities has been key in the creation of alternative dis-
courses about migration and multicultural societies. By the end of 2008,
more than 300 migrant minority media were produced and distributed
in Spain (Ferrández Ferrer, 2009). Their emergence in this country must
be situated in a context of opportunities that are highly favourable to
this kind of project. The lack of regulation in the telecommunications
sector (Gaya, 2003), the transformation of the urban and economic fab-
ric of Spanish cities due to migrant entrepreneurship (Solé et al., 2007),
the interest of transnational and national capital in businesses targeting
migrant minorities, and the change in the approach to migrant pop-
ulation – from a disposable labour force to potential consumers – all
favoured the success of this media field.
The content and discourse of migrant minority media have evolved
since 2000, from news related to the juridical and socioeconomic

87
88 News Production and Processing

situation of migrants as a recently arrived labour force, to a discourse

pointing in the direction of a long-term integration process: political
participation, labour rights, sexual and reproductive rights, education,
health care, predatory loans and so on. News related to the home and
host countries is widely covered, especially where it affects migrants, as
well as supranational and local news, as a response to the diverse and
often interrelated contexts in which transnational migrants’ lives take
place. The analysis of the representation of migration in such media
reveals the existence of a proactive discourse, favourable to immigra-
tion, in contrast with mainstream media reactive discourse. Minority
media represent migration as a non-reversible historical process, and as
an opportunity for society. While mainstream media tend to represent
migrants as problematic, migrant minority media tend to interpret these
problems as emanating from the obstacles to integration posed by the
legal and economic structures of the host country. Migrants are repre-
sented as young, hardworking people, interested in the news of their
home countries but also in the national and local space where they set-
tle, consumers of goods and services, senders of remittances to their
home countries, political actors, proud of their cultural and national
origins.
However, a more thorough analysis of minority media discourse com-
pels us to be prudent. In a departure from uncritical celebrations of
minority media as being ‘alternative’, Georgiou has recently posed
this insightful question: ‘Do alternative and community media chal-
lenge hegemonic discourses of ethnic and gender stratification?’ (2012,
p. 792). This pushes us to analyse the discourses and images present in
these media without assuming that entering the media sphere entails an
immediate counterhegemonic nature.
Sure enough, migrant minority media are not beyond the struggles,
negotiations and dynamics that affect both the journalistic and the
social field. A certain level of agency in this struggle for power does not
mean emancipation from the structure of the field in question. Indeed,
alternative practices and discourses do not always look for a deconstruc-
tion of the hegemonic principles but instead they participate in the
struggle for power within a certain ‘space of possibles’ (Bourdieu, 1996),
as will be shown.
Migrant minority media are here considered as agents which have an
important participation in the public sphere, where social and politi-
cal issues are articulated and negotiated (Habermas, 2001 [1964]), and
struggles over hegemonic meanings take place. As Bourdieu states, the
public sphere is a space of struggle ‘over the imposition of the dominant
 Lucía Echevarría Vecino et al. 89

principle of vision and division’ (2005, p. 36). Discourse plays a sig-

nificant role in this struggle for power, both as an instrument for the
reproduction of social inequality and as a means for social change,
through the construction of imaginaries that display a specific repre-
sentation of reality (Van Dijk, 2003). The politics of representation refer
to the competition among groups over what is to be taken as the correct,
appropriate or preferred representation (Wenden, 2005).
This chapter focuses on the politics of representation pervading two
leading migrant minority media produced in Spain, Latino and Sí se
puede, targeting a Latin American public. This research encompasses a
content analysis of Latino and Sí se puede weekly editions published
between June 2008 and June 2009, when they were leading publications
in the Spanish migrant minority media sector. More than 2,000 texts
and images were selected, registered and analyzed (Table 6.1).1
The analysis is done through three transversal and interrelated ana-
lytical axes. First, the representation of migrants as political actors will
be analyzed, showing some of the changes and alternative visions that
migrants’ discursive inclusion in such media brings about. Then an

Table 6.1 Latino and Sí se puede characteristics

Latino Sí se puede

Motto La voz de nuestra El periódico de la

comunidad (the voice of integración (the
our community) integration newspaper)
Frequency Weekly (Friday) Weekly (Saturday)
Price Free Free
Audience Latin Americans Immigrants (mainly Latin
Americans)
Language Spanish Spanish (some
translations into
Romanian and Arabic)
Foundation April 2005 November 2004
Pages 20–24 16–24
Regional edition Madrid, Barcelona, Madrid, Barcelona,
Levante Levante
Paper size Tabloid Tabloid
Weekly distribution∗ 150.775 162.896

∗ Source: ACPI (2008).

90 News Production and Processing

analysis of the construction of ethnic and cultural identities, and of gen-

der representations, will allow a further reflection on to what extent the
politics of representation of these media challenge national or global
hegemonic discourses and structures (political, economic, ethnic or
gendered).

Migrants as political actors

A content analysis of mainstream and migrant minority media reveals

some salient differences between them in the representation of politi-
cal issues affecting migrants. First, the main players in migrant minority
media are the migrants’ countries of origin, thus moving the centre of
interest from the north to the south. Second, the diversity of regional,
national and supranational contexts that appear in the minority media
leads to a consideration of the complex cartography of transnational
political participation. Finally, the representation of migrants as politi-
cal subjects is completely different. Spanish mainstream media usually
portray immigrants as passive actors, objects of debate, legislation and
regulation. The representation of immigrants as political actors is very
unusual, if not non-existent. Migrant minority media, on the other
hand, represent migrants as active political actors, active individuals
involved in both conventional and unconventional political practices.
This type of representation appears in both the national (referring to
the host country) and the international (referring to the home coun-
try) pages. Political, economic and social current affairs are discussed in
these sections, especially where they affect migrants.
This kind of information is relevant, as research on empowerment
through information and communications technology has proved that
citizens who have access to them are more likely able to share informa-
tion and to participate in public debate, and ‘such debate is desirable
prior to political action, whether in an institutionalised form such as
voting or in a form outside conventional political structures such as
mass demonstrations’ (Oates, 2003, p. 32).
In this regard, Mata (2006) highlights the role of media as ‘spaces
for citizenship production’, spaces where citizenship rights and duties
can be reproduced and represented to the public/society. Therefore the
use of the media to achieve progressive changes in other social spheres
is gaining importance. It is what Hackett (2000) calls ‘democratisation
through the media’, which is based on the media’s capacity to introduce
new debates in the political agenda and, of course, to silence others.
A content analysis of national and international pages shows the
growing interest of both host and home countries in maintaining and
 Lucía Echevarría Vecino et al. 91

strengthening relations with a mobile population. This becomes evident

in the representation of measures such as the approval of dual nation-
ality, voting rights for people living abroad, or bilateral agreements
such as those signed by Spain and other countries to allow migrants
to vote in local and regional elections. These are all examples of ‘con-
ventional political practices’, defined as those which are promoted by
institutions and elites and use institutionalized participation channels
(Anduiza and Bosch, 2004). According to Mata (2006, p. 10), media
reporting on this kind of political participation constitutes ‘the media
model of democracy’.
Migrants are therefore represented as voters who must be informed
in order to decide what to do with their votes. Thus during election
processes in the homeland, minority media report about campaigns,
candidates, political programmes, and when, where and how to exercise
voting rights when living abroad. Homeland politicians use these media
as platforms to reach a widely dispersed population, in accordance with
what has been called ‘deterritorialized nationalism’ (Basch et al., 1994).
The rest of the time, the media keep a close watch on elected leaders,
highlighting their successes but also criticizing bad political decisions.
As regards the host country, the progressive acquisition of civil, polit-
ical and social rights, even if they are not related to formal citizenship
(understood as becoming a member of a nation-state), is present in
media reporting about national and local political issues. Here, minor-
ity media focus on issues that affect migrants at both the local and
the national levels. The extension of voting rights to migrants, and
therefore the need for political parties to address these new voters, has
pushed political leaders in the host countries to establish communica-
tion channels through migrant minority media. This includes interviews
with local and national political leaders, information about electoral
programmes, measures affecting migrants and so on. This shift in the
consideration of migrants from unqualified workers to political actors
was clear between 2008 and 2009, when the Spanish government pro-
moted voting rights for alien residents, through bilateral agreements.
Migrant minority media followed the process with great interest and
highlighted the power that migrants acquired as participants in the
Spanish democratic system.
Despite all of this, migrants’ participation in elections is limited,
and some studies have uncritically assumed a sort of political apa-
thy or passiveness on their part (see Guarnizo et al., 2003). However,
content analysis of minority media shows that migrants have proved
very active in other types of political practice, categorized as ‘non-
conventional’. Thus apart from ‘the voter’, a different mode of media
92 News Production and Processing

representation of migrants is that of ‘demonstrators’. These less conven-

tional and extraparliamentary forms of political participation are often
most relevant when they are collective. In most cases they presuppose
the constitution of a collective actor characterized by a collective iden-
tity, and some degree of organization through a process of mobilization
(Martiniello, 2005). And here, migrant minority media play an impor-
tant role as creators of an ‘imagined community’ (Anderson, 1983).
In this regard, discourse analysis reveals an appeal to migrants to join
forces and struggle for their rights, regardless of their national and eth-
nic identity, on the basis of common interests. Discourse about migrant
collectives’ demands tends to focus on human rights, thus dissociating
substantive citizenship (set of civil, political and social rights) from for-
mal citizenship (membership of a nation-state) (Marshall, 1998 [1950]).
Interestingly, images of the demonstrations show banners with slogans
such as ‘rights for all’, ‘no human being is illegal’, ‘respect’ or ‘dignity’,
accompanied by a plethora of flags and homeland symbols.
The visibility of migrants’ claims is central to their consideration as
political actors because the portrayal of people’s demands in the media
has usually been considered a guarantee of their condition as citizens
(Mata, 2006).
Some of their demands are related to the status of ‘immigrants’, such
as protests against police raids, racism and social exclusion, the Spanish
Aliens Law reform, and campaigns for the regularization of undocu-
mented immigrants. In addition to this, there are some demands which
are shared with the native population, which point in the direction of
a long-term integration process. Labour rights, sexual and reproductive
rights, education, health care and predatory loans are some examples.
As a whole, migrants’ demands portrayed in the media seem to follow
Nancy Fraser’s (2008) theory of social justice, asking for redistribution in
the economic sphere, recognition in the sociocultural sphere and repre-
sentation in the political sphere. Representations of protests and politi-
cal claims reach the home countries as well, especially when indigenous
communities are involved, whose demonstrations and claims for rights
are usually silenced or criminalized by the mainstream media.
The construction of migrants as a collective body allowing claims over
democracy, rights, citizenship or integration requires the creation of
‘imagined communities’. And such communities are very often based
on the construction of imaginaries (regarding the nation, the commu-
nity, ethnicity, cultural identity and gender) that tend to be concealed,
depoliticized or naturalized. For this reason, our analysis requires further
deconstruction.
 Lucía Echevarría Vecino et al. 93

The representation of ‘Latino’ cultural identity

In his classic work Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson (1983)

showed how the invention of the newspaper made it possible, for the
first time, for people to imagine themselves as members of modern
nation-states. However, the nation-state is no longer a narrowly defined
political or cultural entity. As migration processes have spread the
nation all over the world, the ‘imagined community’ is made possible
through the construction of cultural identities that combine different
migrant groups and go beyond national frameworks.
‘Cultural identities’ produced by migrant minority media can differ
from those produced by migrants themselves. Minority media represent
cultural identity as an ‘essence’ shared by all Latin American migrants,
focusing on three topics: the indigenous origins, the Catholic religion
and the ‘Latino’ popular music.
Regarding the first issue, the analysis of the media representation of
indigenous groups reveals a tendency to emphasize the commercializa-
tion of the ‘indigenous culture’. Examples can be found in news about
‘traditional’ Latin American street markets reported as celebrations of
the diversity of the home countries. Also the representation of indige-
nous people taking part in cultural events in Spain emphasizes the
visible traits of the ‘distinctive culture’ – such as dances, regional cos-
tumes and gastronomy – while barely mentioning the political demands
which are frequently present in such events, as our fieldwork data reveal.
This superficial representation of indigenous cultures is part of the
global process of commercialization of popular traditional culture.
Going hand in hand with the construction of the transnational mar-
ket in late capitalism, this use of traditional culture was only possible
through the resignification of ‘handicraft’ (Clifford, 1995). After this
resignification, transformations occurred at political, economic and
cultural levels, eventually leading to an evolution of the ‘handicraft’
necessary to go from the popular-traditional culture to the popular-mass
culture (Hall, 1981). The discourses on indigenous groups in Latino and
Sí se puede are clearly linked to these new significations of tradition and
thus follow the dominant regimes of representation.
Even more interesting is the role of the indigenous populations in the
construction of a cultural identity that is common to all Latin American
migrants, as the religious dimension proves. A significant number of
news items with religious content are published in Latino and Sí se puede.
Focusing on those related to Latin American communities, media rep-
resentations of religious practices seem to homogenize the practice of
94 News Production and Processing

faith, focusing mostly on the Catholic religion. These news items are
accompanied by pictures of virgins – with references to their regional
and sometimes ethnic origins – and their devotees. Emotive words and
concepts, such as ‘devotion’, ‘faith’, ‘delivery of oneself to God’, ‘atone-
ment of sins through self-flagellation’, are commonly used, especially at
Easter time. Here Catholicism is represented as a shared characteristic
of Latin American countries, in this way erasing national particulari-
ties and overshadowing other religious options, such as Pentecostal and
Evangelical movements, which have grown rapidly over recent decades
in Latin America and among Latin American migrant communities.
As far as syncretism is concerned, it is only superficially represented in a
few articles. As a result, the dissident character of these practices is com-
pletely silenced. This is significant because most religious syncretism
reflects the way in which subordinated cultures managed to maintain
certain traits of their beliefs under colonial regimes in order to adapt
to hegemonic religions, such as Catholicism, transgressing orthodoxy
through the transformation of some of their practices, and producing
new identities that enable them to survive beyond assimilation. This
story is usually untold, and minority media are complicit in keeping
silent about it.
The representation of religion allows the media to build a bridge
between indigenous identities and ‘modern’ ones. On the one hand,
the discourse of the memory of the colonization that represents the
common history of all Latin American countries is used. For example,
the Catholic faith is represented as having come from Spain to Latin
America, and then back to Spain with the last migration flow. On the
other hand, an imaginary of a popular-traditional culture of common
Amerindian basis is built. Both newspapers represent particular reli-
gious practices within the Catholic faith as belonging to distinct ethnic
groups, leaving implicit the fact that each country ‘preserves’ a tradi-
tional reference of his pre-Columbian ethnic identity. Consequently,
regional particularities are represented as ‘national realities’, using the
nation-state as a foundation to build this shared cultural identity on the
grounds of ‘one common faith: the Latino faith’.
Music is also a strong instrument for building a pan-national iden-
tity in both media analyzed, something that could be related to cultural
industries and the market tendency to target migrant groups as particu-
lar consumers. News related to music published in Latino and Sí se puede
reveal that most of the bands and artists there represented are part of
a popular mass culture dominated by international commercial trends
(commonly known as pop music). These media rarely mention other
 Lucía Echevarría Vecino et al. 95

popular music bands that are closely related to Latin American styles,
such as cumbia, San Juanitos, salsa and vallenato, although this is the
kind of music most listened to by Latin Americans in Spain (especially
among the first generation). Instead, these newspapers usually portray
Latin American artists who have embraced the pop music market and
denote imaginaries of professional and personal ‘success’, interestingly
related to the ‘bourgeois ideal’ of the ‘American Dream’.
In short, the linking of the traditional and mass cultures enables the
media to create a specific ‘Latino’ cultural identity. ‘Latino’ identity
integrates a pan-national imaginary built upon an indigenous (tradi-
tional) common identification as a particularity shared by most Latin
American countries that implies a shared colonial history, common
religious practices and a musical mass culture.
But again, a further critical analysis is required, as both the construc-
tions of Latin American migrants as collective political agents, and of
Latino cultural identities and imaginaries, are gendered constructions.
A final step in our analysis will reveal new aspects that qualify our
previous arguments.

Politics of representation and gender

As many authors have shown, the construction of nations, citizen-

ship, political communities, identity and culture is always gendered
(Yuval-Davis, 1997). Gender representations are core elements in such
constructions: they are visual and discursive symbolic productions con-
cerning relations between men and women, their place in society, and
their social and psychological characteristics (Del Valle et al., 2002,
p. 28).
Gender has often been represented dichotomously, by associating
women with nature and the domestic sphere, emotions and reproduc-
tion, and men with culture, the public domain, reason and production
(Maquieira, 2001). Migrant minority media are no exception in the
reproduction of such stereotypes.
A focus on gender applied to the media construction of migrants
as political actors reveals significant trends. News relating to elections,
political conflicts, the infringement of migrants’ rights, and social and
citizen demands show a dichotomy in the representation of men and
women. Men are shown mainly in the public domain, where power and
decisions take place, while women are mainly represented in domestic,
familial and maternal spaces. Significantly, even when they hold posi-
tions involving public responsibility, women appear in political spheres
96 News Production and Processing

that are traditionally related to more ‘feminine’ values, such as social

and humanitarian issues, or family management.
Additionally, migrant women are constantly represented as moth-
ers. As the literature on Latin American migrations has often shown
(Gregorio, 1998; Pedone, 2008), women experience long-lasting periods
of separation from their children, who remain in the home coun-
tries. Sending remittances, and therefore economic and work issues,
are central problems in migrant women’s lives. However, such matters
appear only as marginal, whereas the tragedy of family separation is
over-represented. Even when women are leaders in campaigns or polit-
ical demands, they are portrayed as loving and self-sacrificing mothers.
In such political contexts, men tend to be shown as the representatives
of migrants’ organizations. Their role in the public sphere is central: cit-
izenship (real or potential) is mainly associated with masculinity. In the
final analysis, the political subject is basically a masculine one.
A difference exists, however, between the two newspapers analyzed.
Sí se puede seems to bring about a more plural, less stereotypical vision
of women. Yet a careful analysis shows that these women are, in fact,
either Spanish professionals and politicians, or presidents and ambas-
sadors from the home countries. Migrant women tend to be represented
as passive beneficiaries of public policies in the host country, benefit-
ing from the state instead of producing. This kind of representation
hints at an assimilative ideal of migrants’ integration, in which the
achievements of the host country’s policies are emphasized as being
the architects of migrants’ integration. Such representation is partly
based on Spanish women being depicted as successful and empow-
ered as against dependent migrant women. Therefore, although migrant
minority media tend specifically to incorporate the idea of migrants’
integration, their notion of integration can also reproduce hegemonic
class and majorities/minorities divisions and inequalities.
Regarding the representations of ‘Latino’ cultural identities, a gen-
der perspective also reveals some interesting findings. Many authors
have pointed out that women’s representations play a central role in
the maintenance of ethnic and national identities (Anzaldúa, 2004;
Echevarría, 2012; Maquieira, 1999; Yuval-Davis, 1997). The analysis of
Latino and Sí se puede reveals that women really play a leading role in
such domains. Concerning the religious dimension, a gender lens shows
that women are the main characters in news relating to religious events,
such as processions of virgins. Virgins can be considered as ‘symbols
or culturally available metaphors’ (Maquieira, 2001), transmitting gen-
der ideals (virginity, chastity and purity on the one hand; maternity
 Lucía Echevarría Vecino et al. 97

on the other). Women are represented here as bearers of the spiritu-

ality, devotion and emotions of the community, as hegemonic gender
representations require.
The imaginary of the ‘traditional’, maternal and virginal woman is
combined with an opposing but equally patriarchal set of stereotypes of
hypersexualized women. References and images of erotic bodies are dis-
played in relation to diverse sorts of celebration and especially in beauty
contests. ‘National’ or ‘Latino’ pride is represented here through women
in ornamental roles.
Also an essentialized and reductionist version of the home places’
culture and tradition is sustained by gender representations. The most
stereotypical version of gender roles appears in Latino: the assumed ‘tra-
ditional’ or ‘popular culture’ – ethnic, national or pan-national – is often
embodied by women. Sí se puede does not provide alternative models
either. Although it does not overemphasize the safeguarding of tradi-
tions or the importance of maternal virtues as Latino does, it also depicts
migrant women as representing some sort of ‘Latino culture’ in its most
superficial traits – wearing traditional costumes, cooking and dancing.
In short, the display of women and gender relations in Latino and Sí
se puede reproduces hegemonic stereotypes, binary roles and reduction-
ist constructions. This can be understood, on the one hand, as a form
of discursive resistance. Latino’s persistent representations of women
through discourses of mothering, sacrifice, preservation of traditions
and collective emotions, and the use of objectifying images in which
they incarnate the homeland’s ‘essence’, can be seen as a response
to potential transformations affecting gender orders that are related
to migration. The maternity issue easily allows an understanding of
these dynamics. As Pedone (2008) has pointed out, the feminization
of the Latin American migratory flow that started in 1999 generated a
deep social concern. This was related to the disintegration of the fam-
ily, child neglect and the school performance of children involved in
transnational migration. Such changes in family and gender structures
can be resisted at a symbolic level by concealing such realities and
overemphasizing more ‘traditional’ gender models. Although migra-
tions can potentially erode gender structures, as many authors have
pointed out (Echevarría, 2012; Gregorio, 1998; Mahler and Pessar, 2006;
Suárez Navaz, 2004), resistance also emerges, frequently at the symbolic
and discursive levels.
On the other hand, idealizing women’s ‘traditional’ gender values
can also be read as a response to racism experienced by migrants in
the receiving contexts. In the struggle over hegemonic representation,
98 News Production and Processing

minority media rely on supposedly idealizing gender constructions

that express ethnic, national or ‘Latino’ pride that can be under-
stood as attempts to counteract discrimination on other levels. The
problem is that this much-used strategy often reactivates patriarchal
representations. Such dynamics can neutralize, to a certain extent,
changes emanating from other structural transformations previous to
or caused by transnational migrations (Echevarría, 2012; Suárez-Orozco
and Baolian, 2006).
Sí se puede reproduces a similar rationale, operating the other way
round. In this case the absence of counterhegemonic models of Latin
American women supports the construction of a positive representa-
tion of the host society. Again, such a strategy makes use of gender
imaginaries, portraying Spanish women as liberated and successful,
holding positions of superiority, while migrant women are represented
by stereotypical, ‘traditional’, simplistic or exotic images and discourses,
as receivers of privileges presumably emanating from the receiving
context.

Minority media as amplifiers of the democratic space?

Tensions and contradictions

This chapter has focused on issues such as the extent to which the
discourse of migrant minority media can be seen as alternative, in com-
parison with dominant representations of migration in the mainstream
media; the extent to which some alternative politics of representation
in certain domains are followed or not by counterhegemonic repre-
sentation of migrants and migration processes in others, considering
ethnicity, identity, gender, class and processes of global capitalism,
and what the implications can be in terms of transforming the public
space.
The main specificity of these media lies in the proactive discourse
about immigration, and especially in the construction of migrants as
political subjects. The fact that migrants stop being a problem to society,
or just a labour force, to become active in the struggle for citizen-
ship rights is undoubtedly relevant. The potential of minority media
as platforms for the expression, discussion and exchange of generally
marginalized collectives must be recognized. These media open up new
possibilities and, to a certain extent, are agents in the construction of
migrants’ political agendas. Information and discussions about voting,
political participation, integration, citizenship, human rights, repre-
sented as accessible and legitimate possibilities, allow a certain degree
 Lucía Echevarría Vecino et al. 99

of civic formation, new forms of political thought, and an enlargement

of migrants’ visions about their role as political actors. Minority media
constructions of an identifiable collective agent, made through the pro-
motion of a feeling of community cohesion and collective strength, are
also central features. All of this undoubtedly has an empowering effect
and opens up new ways for political participation.
Consequently it is possible to conclude that such media discourses
bring about changes in the way in which the public sphere is under-
stood and in the role that migrants play in it. They contribute to its
enlargement, amplifying the issues that can be debated, negotiated
and struggled for. They can be considered as generators of citizen-
ship (Mata, 2006). The visibility of demands and public protests, either
national or global, opens up new political spaces for struggles over cit-
izenship, beyond the possibilities that are offered by the mainstream
media.
However, other elements that qualify such conclusions need to be
considered. As previously stated, media contents are affected by the
struggles and dynamics that affect journalistic and social fields. Minority
media are indeed platforms from which different dimensions of power
are exerted. The defence of migrants’ rights coexists with other political
and economic interests. First, there is an instrumental use of these media
by political leaders, who use them to reach the migrant population. Sec-
ond, there is an economic interest which derives from the need to keep
migrants connected to the home countries and informed about news
that is related to them, as they are potential voters, senders of remit-
tances and participants in economic transnational projects (Guarnizo
et al., 2003).
The economic dimension is omnipresent. Migrant minority media
here analyzed were born in a phase of liberalization that character-
ized capitalist expansion, which targeted potential consumers and were
mainly financed by advertising. Consequently, the migrant citizen con-
structed in these media as able to participate in the public sphere is
also, in an important respect, defined as a consumer. The representa-
tion of identity and culture in accordance with the demands of the
transnational market and the cultural industry is central: dominant
regimes of representation are reproduced as cultural diversity becomes
a consumer good. As a result, the representation of the Latin American
community as a political body of citizens who are able to enter the pub-
lic sphere coexists with an opposing discourse of a community whose
identity remains depoliticized, constructed through superficial, folk-
loric, ‘for export’ images that neutralize the idea of an empowered and
100 News Production and Processing

politicized Latin American community that exists, in fact, in the Spanish

society.
Although a further analysis of the political economy of such media
would be required, such dynamics can possibly be explained by the ten-
sions between the need to reach consumers and the need to remain
within a capitalist order that guarantees, among other things, media
financing. A certain dose of criticism and political content promoting
migrants’ rights is necessary in order to keep in touch with consumers’
interests, but the potential for critical views, discourses and represen-
tations remains limited. Latin American journalists working in these
media probably put into practice a certain level of agency, but structural
restrictions also constrain such agency and make the abovementioned
‘space of possibles’ quite narrow, so that hegemonic representations
remain unchallenged.
Similar processes affect gender structures that remain unchallenged.
The empowered, politicized Latin American community that appears
in some discourses is de facto a gender-biased one. The creation of
an enlarged democratic space also has gender limitations, as the citi-
zen is fundamentally defined as a male one. This limitation that has
existed from the birth of the concept of citizenship has not been com-
pletely deconstructed yet. Again, hegemonic representations conceal the
political investment and relevant participation of many Latin American
women that in fact occur in Spanish society.
Other transformations that have taken place in gender orders are
also denied in media representations. The implications need to be
considered. If gender hegemonic representations provide normative
models of identification, gender imperatives constantly insisting on
maternal care, domesticity, family or emotional support of the com-
munity can contribute to the destabilization of changes already taking
place.
Patriarchal power is (re)produced in these media representations.
In fact, it is mobilized in different power struggles. Latino’s attempts
to counteract racism by constructing positive imaginaries and collec-
tive pride use problematic strategies that reinforce hegemonic repre-
sentations. These mechanisms require a more nuanced consideration
of minority media as amplifiers of the democratic space: as collec-
tive empowerment is partly represented through the subordination
of women, the question about what kind of democracy, and whose
democracy, needs to be set out. In the case of Sí se puede, the dis-
course in favour of integration sometimes tends, when women are
concerned, to an assimilative model reinforcing hegemonic class and
 Lucía Echevarría Vecino et al. 101

ethnic representations that requires once more a questioning of the

potential of such media as spaces of democratic inclusion.
In short, a critical perspective of the politics of representation in
migrant minority media shows an enormous complexity that forces the
rejection of more simplistic approaches which assume that discursive
inclusion in the media sphere automatically implies a challenge to hege-
monic discourses. Issues related to migrants’ rights, integration, citizen-
ship, class, ethnicity, gender or global capitalism frequently reproduce
dominant regimes of representation coexisting with more alternative
discourses. This complexity is coherent with the idea of the media as
active agents in the negotiations and struggles that take place in the
public sphere, as multiple, contradictory, overlapping and changing
interests are always part of such negotiations.

Note
1. This work is part of the research project ‘Politics of Representation in the
Transnational Migratory Field. Production, Diffusion and Consumption of
Media Contents in the Migratory Context’, financed by the Spanish Min-
istry of Science and Innovation and directed by Dr Liliana Suárez Navaz
(Universidad Autónoma de Madrid). A preliminary version was published in
Revista de Ciencias Sociales (Dallemagne et al., 2012).

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7
The Voice of the International
Community: A Critical Discourse
Analysis of Immigration Reports in
the Copenhagen Post
Teke Ngomba

Research on mainstream media coverage of immigration and

immigrants in both Western and non-Western societies has, within the
last four decades in particular, concluded that the dominant tendencies
in the coverage of immigration by these media have been to sideline
immigrants as sources and to frame immigration and immigrants as
‘economic; social; cultural and political problems’ with risks for national
security and the sustainability of the welfare state (Gemi et al., 2013,
p. 270). These conclusions have also been echoed in several research
projects on Danish mainstream media coverage of immigration and
immigrants (Horsti, 2008).
Given the abovementioned tendencies of the mainstream media,
immigrants have constantly expressed dissatisfaction with their medi-
ated representations in the mainstream media of their host countries
and, as a result, they have tended to create their own media platforms.
Arguably, most of the published academic research on these media,
popularly referred to as ‘ethnic minority media’, has focused on examin-
ing media produced by particular ethnic or racial minorities, especially
in Western democracies. While this focus has offered us some useful
insights into the kinds of media produced by particular ethnic groups,
such as Turks in Germany and Chinese in the US, there are still impor-
tant gaps in our understanding of the different kinds of media produced
by immigrants, not least because of the significant variety of these
media.

104
 Teke Ngomba 105

Lee (2012) and Ross (2013), for instance, have shown that the
diversity of the kinds of media produced by immigrants signal that
beyond ‘ethnicity’ there are important dimensions, such as ‘class’ or
simply ‘identity’, around which immigrants come together to produce
media, and such media are also worthy of attention as we attempt to
build a more comprehensive picture of immigrants and their media. The
basic point in these is that by focusing on media produced by particular
ethnic groups, the scholarly radar has sidelined the analyses of certain
media produced by immigrants who do not come from a particular
ethnic group.
Added to this scholarly drawback is the general limited understanding
that we have at the moment of journalistic practices in and the contents
of media produced by and for immigrants. Although there is now some
growing research on journalistic practices in ethnic media (Matsaganis
and Katz, 2013), as Brantner and Herczeg (2013, p. 212) recently empha-
sized, ‘there is still [a] lack of studies on the content of ethnic media and
on their producers and journalists’.
This paucity of research on the contents of media produced by and
for immigrants, especially with regard to the coverage of immigration,
is pronounced in the Nordic region and in Denmark in particular,
where research on immigrants and the media has mainly focused
on analysing media-consumption patterns of immigrants; mainstream
media coverage of immigration and immigrants; and the mapping
of the ethnic minority media landscape rather than a systematic
study of the contents of media produced by and for immigrants
(Horsti, 2008).
This chapter seeks to contribute to the closing of this research gap
by looking at the coverage of immigration and immigrants in the
Copenhagen Post, a newspaper produced by immigrants and targeting,
principally, English-speaking immigrants in Denmark.
As in many countries in the West, the number of immigrants in
Denmark has increased during the last three decades, making Denmark,
a country once touted as ‘ethnically homogenous’, ‘more heteroge-
neous’ (Togeby, 1998, p. 1137).1 This rise in immigration in Denmark
has led to at least three important developments: a significant increase
in the political saliency of immigration and its consequent prominence
in the mainstream media;2 the rise of the far-right Danish People’s Party
(DPP) as a major political force;3 and the tightening of immigration laws,
especially between 2001 and 2011, to the extent that Denmark earned
the reputation of having the strictest immigration policies in Europe
(Schmidt, 2013).
106 News Production and Processing

It was against the background of these developments that parlia-

mentary elections in Denmark took place on 15 September 2011, with
pledges from the Social Democrats in particular to repeal the very strict
immigration laws enacted between 2001 and 2011 if they were elected.
After these elections a new coalition government was formed by the
Social Democratic Party, the Social Liberal Party and the Socialist Peo-
ple’s Party.4 This new government has so far made some changes to the
immigration laws although some observers think that these don’t go far
enough to repeal the strict immigration laws introduced between 2001
and 2011 (Schmidt, 2013).
With the mainstream political and media spheres ‘infested’ with
polarizing debates about immigration in Denmark, it becomes all the
more interesting to look at what happens in ‘alternative’ media plat-
forms as far as discussions about immigration are concerned. Media
produced by immigrants are one such alternative platform since they
arguably tend to ‘offer an alternative view to the news and commen-
taries in the mainstream media’ (Ojo, 2006, p. 344).
In a context where, as indicated at the beginning of this chapter, the
Danish mainstream media tend to cover immigrants and immigration in
predominantly negative ways, the Copenhagen Post has declared itself to
be ‘the voice of the international community in Denmark’ with a man-
date to provide news ‘for the thousands of foreigners making their home
in Denmark’. How did this self-declared ‘voice of the international com-
munity in Denmark’ cover the contentious immigration issue shortly
before, during and after the 2011 Danish parliamentary election? This
chapter addresses this core issue by empirically examining the following
two key research questions:

• Which sources were used in news reports about immigration and

immigrants in the Copenhagen Post shortly before, during and after
the 2011 Danish parliamentary election?
• Overall, how were immigrants and immigration framed in the
Copenhagen Post shortly before, during and after the 2011 Danish
parliamentary election?

Through its empirical examination of these issues within the analytical

framework of framing and critical discourse analysis (CDA), this chapter
sheds more empirical light on the varieties of diaspora media produc-
tion, in particular the ways and extent to which mediated immigration
discourses in media produced by and for immigrants is similar to and or
different from those in the mainstream media.
 Teke Ngomba 107

Methodology

This study is grounded on two types of data: newspaper reports and

interviews with staff of the Copenhagen Post. As concerns newspa-
per reports, this study analyses selected reports about immigrants and
immigration published in the Copenhagen Post between May 2011 and
December 2012. As pointed out above, the study addresses two key
questions. To address the first, the data analyzed are selected reports
about immigrants and immigration published between 20 May 2011
and 5 January 2012. I looked at this particular period because it covers
three months before the 2011 parliamentary elections, which were held
on 15 September 2011, and also the first three months after the election
of a new government. To address the second dimension, the data ana-
lyzed include all reports about immigrants and immigration published
between May 2011 and 4 January 2013. By looking at this longer period
(about 19 months), it is hoped that a more detailed picture will emerge
about recent coverage of immigrants and immigration in these special
media produced by and for immigrants.
PDF versions of the printed newspapers were obtained from the news
editor of the Copenhagen Post. Through an examination of headlines
and/or leads, all relevant news reports, editorials, features, interviews
or opinion pieces were selected for analysis. For a report to be selected
for analysis, it had to fulfil the following key criteria: it must be about
immigration in Denmark (e.g. covering issues that can be classified as
addressing aspects of immigration policies, challenges and debates); and
it concerns an immigrant(s) or immigrant community. If a story con-
cerned an individual with an immigrant background, for instance, but
did not make reference to this ‘immigrant identity’, it was not selected.
However, if the report contained this information, it was selected.
Furthermore, the Copenhagen Post publishes a series of reports with
several pictures about different ethnic groups in Denmark under the
section entitled ‘Community’ – usually pp. 11–13 of each issue. Since
the principal focus of this study is to examine how immigration and
immigrants are covered in the news, almost all of the reports analyzed
were those printed in the ‘news and opinion section’ (usually pp. 1–10).
In a few issues, some opinion pieces addressing immigration policies in
particular were published in the ‘Community’ section. In such cases the
article in question was selected. The table below shows the distribution
of the different genres of report analyzed.
Prior to presenting the findings of each of the key questions addressed
in this study, a presentation is made of relevant methodological
108 News Production and Processing

approaches and decisions. In addition to these newspaper reports, two

senior staff of the Copenhagen Post (the news editor and the executive
editor) were interviewed on 20 September 2013 in the head office of
the Copenhagen Post in Copenhagen. Overall the interview with the two
staff lasted about 190 minutes and touched on issues such as the history,
challenges and future of the Copenhagen Post; the professional ideologies
and day-to-day practices of its journalists; and its relevance as a newspa-
per produced by and for immigrants. The interview was transcribed and
relevant sections have been used in the analysis.
This study draws analytically from framing and CDA. According to
Entman (1993, p. 52), to frame is to

Select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient
in a communicating text in such a way as to promote a particular
problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and/or
treatment recommendation for the item described.

This will be the basic framework used to analyse the selected news-
paper reports about immigrants and immigration – which particular
interpretations are highlighted or emphasized and which ones are de-
emphasized. This framing analysis is combined with CDA, focusing in
particular on an analysis of the sources used in news reports about immi-
gration in the Copenhagen Post. As an analytical approach that integrates
discourse with sociopolitical analyses, CDA looks at the use of and role
of language, discourse and communication in particular ‘social, cul-
tural and political contexts’, to (re)produce or challenge ‘dominance and
inequality’ (van Dijk, 1993, p. 279, 1994, p. 435).
One of the ways in which dominance and inequality are discursively
enacted and or challenged in mediated platforms is through the regu-
lation of ‘access’ as seen practically in who is allowed to speak or not
through the media. This touches on the thorny issue of sourcing pat-
terns in the media. Sources are extremely important in journalism and
their importance lies not so much in the simple fact that they provide
the news media with the ‘raw materials’ for their trade but, as scholars
like Avraham (2002, p. 72) have argued, the choice of sources by jour-
nalists constitutes an ‘important routine that may shape’ the ways in
which an issue or place is covered.
Sourcing practices are therefore clearly vital given the ways in which
they can contribute to the furtherance or not of dominant or par-
ticular perspectives about contentious issues such as immigration. So,
 Teke Ngomba 109

in addition to addressing other ‘conventional CDA issues’ – such as

the different kinds of topic reported about immigrants; the evaluative
discourses about immigration, immigrants, immigration policies and
the discursive strategies in particular text sections, such as headlines
and leads of immigration-related reports – this study will examine in
detail the sourcing practices in the Copenhagen Post to find out who
got to speak about immigrants and immigration. Such analyses can
also give us a better platform to discuss the ways and extent to which
sourcing practices about immigration reports in media by and for immi-
grants is similar to and or different from those from mainstream media.
The findings of this study are presented below, beginning with a brief
presentation of the Copenhagen Post.

The Copenhagen Post: A brief overview

Unlike several other media produced by immigrants in Denmark (Horsti,

2008), the Copenhagen Post is not produced by and for a particular ethnic
group but rather it is principally produced by and for English-speaking
immigrants in Denmark.
Established by San Shepherd, a British citizen, and first published
in 1998, the weekly paper, with a current print run of 10,000–12,000
copies, currently has a news team made up of just five people (all non-
Danes), ‘plus some interns who rotate every three to six months’ (news
editor). According to the news editor, all of the staff on the news team
have a background in journalism or communication. The paper calls
itself ‘Denmark’s only English language newspaper’ and ‘the voice of
the international community in Denmark’, with aims to, among oth-
ers, provide news coverage for the ‘thousands of foreigners making their
home in Denmark’ (Copenhagen Post). With regard to this news coverage,
according to the news editor,

I mean, I am not gonna try to exaggerate what we do here. The most

of what we do here is frankly to read things in the Danish press and
re-do it into English. Because we have like I said a very small staff and
we have an even smaller budget. I mean we have no money . . . I am
the news editor so it’s my job to decide what we are gonna write. And
basically, I am doing that by and large by seeing what the Danish
press is writing about and asking myself like which of these stories
do I feel we have to tell, whether our readers find interesting or not
and which stories are going to be particularly appealing to non-Danes
110 News Production and Processing

leaving in Denmark. And third consideration is which of these stories

should the wider world be aware of . . .
(news editor)

As seen from the quote above, the Danish mainstream media in particu-
lar sets extensively the agenda of the stories covered by the Copenhagen
Post, although medium-specific news values such as the three considera-
tions listed above subsequently influence what is eventually published.
While at some level such story-acquisition techniques can be seen
as constitutive of ‘English echoes’ of news published in Danish by
mainstream Danish media, the news editor rejects the view that the
Copenhagen Post is simply an ‘echo chamber’ of the Danish mainstream
press, arguing that

I definitely wouldn’t say echo because even when we take a story

from the Danish press and essentially just re-do it, what you always
have to consider its being re-done by a non-Dane from a different
perspective than the Danish press and that can be something as sim-
ple as the Danish press taking something for granted that a Danish
reader is going to understand whereas we know that our readers are
not going to understand that and then we have to add a bunch of
background information. Or it can be something a little more along
the lines of the angle we take because we are interpreting this as non-
Danes and there are certain things that you know, maybe it’s a little
just everyday type story to a Danish reader but we might read it and
go ‘wait a second, this is very weird to us, this is a concept that doesn’t
make sense to us let’s explore it a little in more detail’.
(news editor)

Previous research has also shown that the structural features and con-
straints facing the Copenhagen Post, as well as the professional patterns
regarding news selection and coverage as indicated above, are com-
mon among media produced by and for immigrants (Matsaganis et al.,
2011). The argument that the Copenhagen Post does not simply ‘echo
the Danish news’ but rather engages in an ‘essential re-doing’ of stories
from a different and, in particular, non-Danish perspective anchors the
objective to empirically probe in what ways and to what extent the cov-
erage of contentious issues, such as immigration, in the Copenhagen Post
is actually similar to and or different from what previous research has
shown us in relation to mainstream media performance on these issues.
Below I present the key findings.
 Teke Ngomba 111

Sourcing immigration news in the Copenhagen Post (May to

December 2011)

This section addresses the first research question: Which sources

were used in news reports about immigration and immigrants in the
Copenhagen Post shortly before, during and after the 2011 Danish parlia-
mentary election? The unit of analysis to reply to this question was the
individual news report and feature published between 20 May 2011 and
5 January 2012. As shown in Table 7.1, 51 news reports and 7 features
were selected for analysis.
I focused on news and features because these, as Domke et al. (2003,
p. 612) have pointed out, are within the ‘domain of journalism in which
sourcing patterns most consistently play out’ and compared with edi-
torials or other opinion articles, for instance, standard news reports
in particular represent ‘the space in the mainstream press in which
according to journalists, impartial, objective news coverage occurs’.
To count the different sources used in these reports, following Voakes
et al. (1996, p. 586), a source was determined to be ‘some person, group
or entity (e.g., document, study, institution) identified by attribution or
reference through which information was gathered’. Each time a state-
ment, information or declaration was attributed to an individual, group,
institution or organization, for instance, it was counted as a source state-
ment and the individual, group, institution or organization was counted
as a source and then classified following a bottom-up approach.
Rather than having fixed categories of different kinds of source and
then trying to fit the sources present in the news reports to these cate-
gories, a more inductive approach was adopted. The focus was to look

Table 7.1 Number and genre of all reports analysed for 2011–2012

Genre of report 2011∗ 2012∗∗ Total

News report 51 141 192

Feature 7 15 22
Interview 1 3 4
Editorial 8 11 19
Other opinion article 2 33 35
Total 69 203 271

∗ The reports from 2011 are from the issues published from 20 May to

23 December 2011. Two issues of the newspaper (24–30 June 2011 and 5–11
August 2011) could not be obtained so these aren’t included in the analyses.
∗∗ All 52 issues published in 2012 were analyzed.
112 News Production and Processing

at the way in which the source was presented/introduced in the news

report and this constituted the basis of creating categories to classify
the source. Massey (1998, p. 398) has called these the ‘attribution iden-
tifiers’ used to present the source. For instance, if a politician with an
ethnic-minority background is used as a source but presented simply
as ‘Mr XXX, Conservative MP’, the source category for this individual
will be ‘politician’ since the ‘attribution identifier’ for this source is his
capacity as a politician. For each news report, each individual source was
counted only once even if it was mentioned more than once in a given
report.
Following these procedures, the findings show that 196 sources were
used in these reports about immigration and immigrants between 20
May 2011 and 5 January 2012. Numerically speaking, the Copenhagen
Post relied extensively on the traditional ‘elite’ sources: politicians, gov-
ernment officials and academics. Table 7.2 presents the total number of
sources used per category.
If related sources are put in one cluster, the dominance of these ‘elite’
sources is further made more manifest. Whereas one can easily think
that immigrants will dominate as sources in media produced by and
for immigrants and in stories about immigration and immigrants, the
reconstructed version of Table 7.2 as shown in Table 7.3 still points
towards the dominance of mediated discourses about immigrants and
immigration by political and government elites.
Based on the above therefore, news reports about immigration and
immigrants in the Copenhagen Post do not seem to be too different from
those of the mainstream media with regard to their preference for ‘elite’
sources. Although the 2012 reports were not systematically coded for
source pattern analyses like those of 2011, reading through the 141 news
reports and 15 features, it is clear that the pattern of ‘elite’ dominance
in sourcing was not only in 2011.
For instance, in a report on the levels and cultural implications of the
growth of interethnic marriages in Denmark, the sources cited included
two university professors and a politician (see ‘Record Number of Mar-
riages with Foreigners’, Copenhagen Post, 20–26 June, p. 4). Similarly, in
a report on a government proposal to cut funding for Danish classes
for foreigners, the sources cited included the government itself, two
headteachers of language schools and a politician (see ‘Government Pro-
poses Cutting Back on Danish Classes for Foreigners’, Copenhagen Post,
31 August–6 September 2012, p. 6).
By not featuring immigrants as sources even in these kinds of story,
these reports point to a less differentiated pattern with the findings of
 Teke Ngomba 113

Table 7.2 Sources used in reports about immigration and

immigrants

Rank Source category Number

1. Politician 42
2. Academic 21
3. Non-governmental 21
organizations (NGOs)
and officials of NGOs
4. Immigrants 18
5. Government official 15
6. Law and order officials 13
or institutions
7. Other media reports 10
8. Anonymous collective 10
sources
9. Corporations and 7
officials from
corporations
10. Political parties 6
11. Ordinary individuals 6
12. Government 5
reports/documents
13. Officials of immigrant 5
associations
14. Research results/studies 4
15. Government institutions 4
16. Former government 3
officials
17. Anonymous 3
institutional sources
18. Polls 1
19. Medical staff 1
20. Celebrity 1
Total 196

mainstream media coverage of immigration and immigrants. As pointed

out above, findings on this issue show that, overall, immigrants are
often ignored, overlooked or discarded as sources even in events or issues
that involve them (van Dijk, 2012). This is not to suggest that immi-
grants do not feature as sources in the analyzed news reports. As shown
above, combined, ordinary immigrants as well as officials of immigrant
associations featured 23 times as sources. In what contexts then are
immigrants used as sources in the analyzed reports?
114 News Production and Processing

Table 7.3 Top 7 sources

Rank Source category Number

1. Politician + political parties 42 + 6 = 48

2. Government official + former 15 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 13 = 40
government officials + government
institutions + government reports + law
and order officials or institutions
3. Immigrants + officials of immigrant 18 + 5 = 23
associations
4. Academic 21
5. NGOs and officials of NGOs 21
6. Other media reports 10
7. Anonymous collective sources 10

A categorization of all of the instances in which immigrants feature

as sources in the analyzed news and feature reports of 2011 show that
they appeared in the following contexts: reacting to and or complaining
about particular laws related to immigrants (13 instances); as perpetra-
tors of crime or acts of terror (4 instances); complaining or protesting
against experienced acts of injustice/discrimination (3 instances); react-
ing to a published report about immigrants (1 instance); reacting to
particular developments within an immigrant community (1 instance);
and sharing experience as a successful immigrant entrepreneur (1
instance).
By looking at these immigrant-as-source appearances in the analyzed
reports, it is clear that immigrants are most solicited to react to par-
ticular laws. Actually, 7 of the 13 instances of such appearances take
place in just one report, which focused on the reaction of au pairs to
proposed changes of the au pair laws in Denmark (‘Au Pairs Weigh
in on Controversial Proposal’, Copenhagen Post, 3–9 June 2011, p. 4).
From these immigrant-as-source appearances, we can begin to deter-
mine that reports that alarmingly associate immigrants or immigration
with a series of crises do not take centre stage in the Copenhagen Post.
For instance, unlike the consistent findings from the mainstream media
coverage of immigrants, the Copenhagen Post refrains significantly from
foregrounding, through headlines or leads, the ethnic or immigrant
background of alleged or convicted criminals. How then were immi-
grants and immigration framed in the Copenhagen Post shortly before,
during and after the Danish parliamentary election?
 Teke Ngomba 115

Framing immigrants and immigration in the Copenhagen

Post (May 2011 to 4 January 2013)

One good way to check for ‘saliency enactments’ in print media is to

examine two issues which are central to news salience: headlines and
newspaper front pages. As discursive facets, news headlines basically
attempt to summarize the issue covered in the news story in a way that
can ‘attract the reader’s attention’ while also ‘depicting a mood or set-
ting a tone’ with regard to the story covered (Seo, 2013, p. 3). Apart
from being the first thing that readers tend to read in a news story (Shie,
2011, p. 43), headlines are special parts of a news report which are often
written by news editors. As a result, headlines tend to be regarded as a
‘product of managerial control which may offer insight about ethos and
values of a news organization more broadly’ (van Dijk, 1988, cited in
Andrew, 2013, p. 5).
As concerns front pages, they have ‘historically been the site where
journalistic logics are most clearly expressed’ (Benson et al., 2012, p. 26),
especially when it comes to depicting which stories the newspaper con-
siders to be most important. So by looking at front-page headlines of all
stories fulfilling the selection threshold indicated earlier, one can get a
good grasp of what issues about immigration and immigrants are given
prominence in the Copenhagen Post as well as the discursive ways in
which this is done.
The unit of analysis to address the second research question is there-
fore individual front-page headlines about immigrants and immigration
in Denmark published between 20 May 2011 and 4 January 2013. Over-
all, 53 front-page headlines fulfilled the selection criteria, of which 15
were published between 20 May 2011 and 5 January 2012, and 38 were
published between 6 January 2012 and 4 January 2013. The headlines
can be grouped under the following categories shown in Table 7.4.
Table 7.4 shows that when it comes to how immigration was framed
in the selected reports, overwhelmingly the focus was on immigration
laws with a general tendency of the newspaper to criticize them, high-
light the problems that immigrants face in Denmark, while anchoring
all of these on immigration, especially ‘highly-skilled immigration’, as
something good, beneficial and imperative for Denmark.
Instead of the ‘usual’ frightening front-page stories about how immi-
gration is wrecking welfare societies in the West, we see instead the over-
whelming framing of immigration as good for Denmark, and Danish
immigration policies as ‘inhuman’. Criticism of these ‘inhuman’ policies
116 News Production and Processing

Table 7.4 Categorization of front-page headlines about immigration and

immigrants

No. Overall focus of report Number of Example

headlines

1. Immigration laws 21 ‘New Government, Same

(mostly criticisms) Policy of Separating Families’
2. Problems or challenges 9 ‘EXPLOITED: Romanian
facing immigrants Workers Imported as Cleaners,
Go Without Pay, Face Threats
and Live in Deplorable
Conditions’
3. Crime/terrorism 5 ‘Terror Suspects Guilty of
Planned Jyllands-Posten
Attack’
4. Integration of 5 ‘Ishøj After-School Club Finds
immigrants Success Helping Turkish Youth
Adapt to Their New Life in
Denmark’
5. Benefits of immigration 4 ‘Highly-Educated Immigrants,
to Denmark a High Yield Investment’
6. Protests 3 ‘Mohammed Film Protests
Come to Copenhagen’
7. Others 6 ‘Mamma Pia Steps Down as
Leader of DF’
Total 53

was most often ‘humanized’ narratively, through the chronicling of

immigrants’ travails as they attempted to deal with the Danish Immi-
gration Service. The following story about an eight-year-old immigrant
captures all of the dynamics prevalent in such narratives:

Front Page Headline: ‘ “GET OUT!” Eight-year-old girl faces deporta-

tion to Bangladesh, although no-one there wants her. Over 800 kids
have been rejected by Denmark’
Headline on Main Story: ‘Daddy lives here, but I’m too old to inte-
grate.’
Lead: Families torn apart by immigration rules are hoping for another
chance from the new government. The case of an eight-year-
old girl threatened with deportation has turned the spotlight on
Denmark’s unyielding family reunification rules once again. Despite her
 Teke Ngomba 117

parents’ urgent pleas and letters of support from her teachers, the
Immigration Service decided that the eight-year-old Bangladeshi
girl, Ripa, was incapable of integrating and could not stay with
her family in Denmark. Two weeks ago, police showed up at the
family’s apartment in Vanløse to see her passport and enforce the
deportation ruling . . .
(30 September to 3 October 2011, p. 1, 5, my emphasis)

The excerpt above captures nicely the dominant tendencies of the kind
of journalism practised by the Copenhagen Post when it comes to criti-
cizing the Danish immigration policies through particular cases, such as
that of Ripa. The headlines and writing format in the news section of
the Copenhagen Post tend to be ‘serious’ and less tabloid-like. However,
each time it reports stories like these, the paper adopts a sensational,
tabloid-style approach to present the issue. This in itself is a discursive
strategy to both ‘shock’ and at the same time, possibly, appeal to the
consciences of Danish immigration officials to soften immigration laws,
and what image can be more shocking than constructing institutional
inconsideration and heartlessness towards an eight-year-old girl?
The capitalized sensational order in the headline, ‘GET OUT!’, repre-
sents the insensitive scolding of the bullish state towards the innocent
eight-year-old and to further demonstrate how ‘inhumane’ the state is –
‘despite’ pleas from teachers the state has remained unmoved and is
instead sending police officers to ‘enforce the deportation ruling’.
By attempting to discursively construct this image of police officers
implementing policies that are ‘tearing families apart’ by deporting, in
this case, an unwilling and powerless eight-year-old to an uncertain
future in Bangladesh, the underlying message, it seems, is the high-
lighting of the immigrant’s plight and the solicitation, once more, of
government action. An editorial in the 16–22 December 2011 issue
clearly asked the government to ‘hurry up’ with regard to softening
Danish immigration policies.
This latter point is an indication of the clear pro-immigration advo-
cacy journalism that comes through in the Copenhagen Post’s reports
about immigration and immigrants in Denmark. In several regular
reports, such as ‘Always a Stranger?’ (24–30 August 2012, p. 9), ‘We’re
Here. We’re Danes. Get Used to It’ (7–13 September 2012, p. 8) and
‘What Does It Take to Make Someone Danish?’ (2–8 November 2012,
p. 9), it is clear how critical the paper is towards Danish immigra-
tion policies and how much it champions the cause of more lenient
immigration policies.
118 News Production and Processing

Conclusion

The central objective of this chapter is to analyse the coverage of

immigration and immigrants in the Copenhagen Post, a newspaper
produced by and for immigrants. The findings show that when it comes
to sourcing patterns, the heavy use of ‘elite’ sources, such as govern-
ment officials and politicians, makes the newspaper similar, at least on
this numerical basis, to the mainstream media given what we know
from previous research. Perhaps this can be explained by personnel
and financial constraints of the newspaper and the dominant nature
of its story acquisition: collecting stories from the Danish mainstream
media.
However, as concerns the mediated visibility of immigrants as sources,
it is important to point out that what the case of the Copenhagen Post
seems to suggest is that while it is generally expected and important that
media produced by and for immigrants should really have immigrants
as dominant sources, the non-dominance of actual immigrant sources
does not often translate into the absence of pro-immigrant perspectives
in the newspaper. Beyond immigrants, regular pro-immigrant voices
cited by the newspaper include Frank Jensen, the Mayor of Copenhagen;
Åge Kramp, an immigration lawyer; Johanne-Schmidt Nielsen, MP for
the left-leaning Red-Green Alliance; and officials of the Red Cross or
Danish Refugee Council. So while these persons are not immigrants,
they nonetheless represent pro-immigrant perspectives. This suggests
that caution should be used in the conclusions that can be drawn
by simply looking at the numerical representation of different source
categories.
The chapter also shows that as concerns the framing of immigrants
and immigration, contrary to dominant perspectives in the mainstream
media, immigration and immigrants, especially highly skilled immi-
grants, irrespective of their region of origin, are presented overall as
important and beneficial to Denmark. Furthermore, in a strategic choice
of emphasis, the coverage of immigration, as seen in the front-page
analysis, is advocacy-oriented with regular clarion calls for the Danish
government to ‘soften’ its immigration policies. If the Copenhagen Post
can be faulted for not giving immigrants the dominant platform as news
sources in order for it to be the veritable ‘voice of the international com-
munity’, on this latter note, given its steadfast advocacy with regard to
immigration policies in Denmark, it is indeed ‘the voice of the inter-
national community’ although the extent to which this voice is heard,
understood and respected is open to debate.
 Teke Ngomba 119

Notes
1. According to Statistics Denmark (2013, p. 13), based on their country of
origin, most of the immigrants in Denmark come from the following 15 coun-
tries: Turkey, Poland, Germany, Iraq, Lebanon, Bosnia Herzegovina, Pakistan,
Somalia, Iran, Norway, Yugoslavia, Sweden, Afghanistan, Vietnam and the UK.
2. The height of this often negative prominence in Danish mainstream media
coverage of ethnic minorities, especially Muslims, was the publication in
September 2005 of the now (in)famous Prophet Mohammed cartoons in the
national daily Jyllands Posten, which led, among others, to protests by Muslims
in and beyond Denmark. For detailed discussions of this cartoon affair from
multiple perspectives, see, for instance, the collection of essays in the journal
International Migration (44 (5)) and of Ethnicities (9 (3)).
3. When it first contested the parliamentary elections in 1998, the DPP received
7.4% of the votes cast. This rose to 13.9% in 2007 and slid slightly during
the last parliamentary elections in 2011, when it obtained 12.3% of the votes
cast, making it the third largest political party in Denmark after the Social
Democratic Party and the Danish Liberal Party (Statistics Denmark, 2012,
p. 5). On 8 October 2013, media reports on aggregates of the latest opinion
polls showed that for the second consecutive month the DPP emerged as the
second most popular political party in Denmark, even surpassing the Social
Democrats, the party of the current prime minister. For a report on this, see
http://cphpost.dk/sites/default/files/public/pdf/evening-post-131008.pdf.
4. The Socialist People’s Party left this coalition in January 2014 following major
disagreements within its ranks about the government’s decision to make
US investment bank Goldman Sachs a part-owner of state-owned energy
providers DONG Energy. For a report on this, see http://cphpost.dk/news/
sf-leaves-government-vilhelmsen-steps-down.8476.html.

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8
The South Asian-Canadian Media’s
Resistance to Gender and Cultural
Stereotyping
Anupreet Sandhu Bhamra and Paul Fontaine

Coverage of violence against women by mainstream media has

contributed to the gender and cultural stereotyping of South Asians in
Canada, resulting in racism and cultural discrimination (Jiwani, 2006;
Thobani, 2007). In the mainstream reportage of violence involving
members of the South Asian diaspora, particularly the Punjabi com-
munities in and around Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), one can
see the reification of South Asian cultures, emphasized in attempts to
present members of that cultural community as backward and in need
of outside intervention. In an attempt to push back against such asser-
tions, this chapter argues that the South Asian-Canadian press in BC
serves to delink South Asian cultural practice from associations with
violence. This delinking manifests itself in the South Asian press’ cover-
age of spousal abuse. We argue that the association of violence with
minority groups in mainstream news coverage is in itself an act of
symbolic violence and moves the focus away from broader societal prob-
lems that contribute to domestic violence in Canada. While we will be
using the designation ‘South Asian-Canadian’ throughout the chapter,
it will at times be interspersed with ‘Punjabi-Canadian’, as the history of
migration from the Punjab to BC has led to a large Punjabi-Canadian
diaspora region (Tatla, 1999). Exploring the cultural diversity of the
South Asian-Canadian population is beyond the scope of this chapter
but, by using both terms, we acknowledge the cultural complexity of
BC’s South Asian populations, while at the same time attending to the
ways in which Punjabi-Canadians are connected – either as producers or
as target audiences – to the area’s diasporic news content.

121
122 News Production and Processing

This exploration includes a consideration of the depictions of Punjabi

masculinity in the mainstream press. We argue that such representa-
tions mark the South Asian male body as a site of violence, and that
they have been established in the mainstream press over the long his-
tory of Punjabi settlement in the region. We suggest that there is a
different application of ethnic identifiers to different groups in news rep-
resentations of violence. One need only look to the hyphen, commonly
used to denote cultural identification in mainstream coverage of gender
violence within visible minority communities. Not so common in the
mainstream news is the mention of ‘Scottish-Canadian’ men involved in
cases of family violence. It is within this milieu that a number of South
Asian news outlets operate and maintain audiences and advertisers for
both print and radio at a time when many mainstream news outlets in
Canada suffer from a lack of revenue generation.
This chapter attends to the gap in understanding between how the
South Asian community describes itself when the broader segments of
Canadian society, as represented in the mainstream media, constantly
define that community within a cultural framework, attributing actions
predominantly to cultural backgrounds. This gap will manifest itself in
three case studies which point to efforts on the part of two South Asian
news outlets (Link and Indo-Canadian Voice) to complicate the main-
stream press’ continued application of a cultural framework to the issue
of spousal abuse.
More broadly, this chapter addresses a lack of scholarship focusing on
South Asian media outlets, particularly with regard to representations of
gender violence. We look to scholars who have laid the groundwork for
discussing the negative representations of visible minorities in Canada,
before moving to a discussion of the coverage of the 2006 murders
of Manjit Panghali and Navreet Kaur Waraich, and the violent assault
on Gurjeet Kaur Ghuman. The case studies make evident the different
approaches to the reportage of family violence between the South Asian
outlets and the mainstream coverage of the time. Following the case
studies, we discuss the current state of the South Asian-Canadian media,
focusing on the self-description of the role(s) of the Punjabi press in cov-
ering issues of domestic violence by the editors whom we interviewed.
Also, we include a discussion of the work being done by CKYE-FM –
referred to in print and on air as Red FM. The broadcaster has found suc-
cess within BC’s news market and by appealing to the variety of Punjabi
diasporic experiences and identities.
In broadening our chapter’s focus to include a discussion of per-
ceived audiences and editorial decision-making, the hope is that readers
 Anupreet Sandhu Bhamra and Paul Fontaine 123

can better grasp the ways in which the Punjabi media attempt to
remedy the symbolic violence perpetrated through negative media
discourses. The aim of this chapter is to draw out the complexities
of cultural representation, to make evident the frailty that is inher-
ent in attempts to place diasporic communities firmly within cultural
frameworks.

Coverage of visible minorities in the Canadian press

Scholars have found that the mainstream media take a problematic

approach to stories about gender violence in minority groups. These
stories tend to infer that cultural norms and practices are responsible
for domestic violence in immigrant communities. Deferring to narra-
tives about cultural culpability skews the lives of immigrant women, and
also neglects the broader reality of domestic violence in Canada. Jiwani
(2006) argues that the coverage of violence by visible minorities alterna-
tively serves the purpose of contrasting the ‘so-called primitive’ culture
of the visible minority with the ‘progressive and egalitarian’ West.
In the coverage of domestic violence within South Asian-Canadian
communities, South Asian, and specifically, Punjabi and Sikh mas-
culinity has been portrayed as inherently violent within the main-
stream Canadian press. The mainstream representations of South Asian
masculinity contribute to the discourse of multiculturalism, which
Thobani explains ‘marks non-western cultures as more patriarchal
and backward than the West, while it simultaneously pressures immi-
grant men to conform to significantly strengthened masculinist codes
of behaviour in the name of cultural authenticity’ (Thobani, 2007,
p. 166).
Critiquing the stereotyping of South Asian men in Canada, Walton-
Roberts writes: ‘singular categorizations aid in the creation and circu-
lation of negative stereotypes, and ultimately lend to the construction
of identities based on “taken for granted” and assumed characteristics’
(Walton-Roberts, 1998, p. 319). The trend of depicting South Asian men
as violent presents precisely the kind of singularity that fails to account
for the myriad ways that diasporic cultural identities are negotiated. This
chapter’s project is indebted to the above work, which aims to expose
and destabilize the cultural pigeonholing of visible minority groups, par-
ticularly in the Canadian context, as well as the academic and popular
work documenting the efforts by diasporic journalism outlets to present
a more nuanced set of opinions and stories than those found in the
mainstream media outlets.
124 News Production and Processing

Diasporic spaces of resistance

In her book Eating Chinese: Culture on the Menu in Small Town Canada,
Lily Cho argues that the point of diasporic counterpublics is to ‘artic-
ulate a distinct space of relation despite the horizons marked out by
the dominant culture’ (Cho, 2010, p. 114). She explores how smalltown
Chinese restaurant menus and the space of restaurants represent the
relationships formed between members of the Chinese diaspora and the
patrons at the restaurants.
In a similar fashion, we locate diasporic counterpublics in the address
of the South Asian news outlets, operating within the framework of
Canadian news production while attempting to serve distinct cultural
communities. In the reporting of the tragic violence perpetrated against
three Indo-Canadian women, Link and Indo-Canadian Voice present a
varied look into the issue of domestic abuse in Canada. Their approaches
complicate the view that domestic abuse is a South Asian-Canadian
problem, and instead broaden the issue to include all Canadians.
Along with the analysis of the news coverage of the three cases of
family violence, this chapter includes interviews with the editors at
a number of South Asian media outlets. Both the analysis and the
interviews aim to provide an understanding of how members of South
Asian communities in BC define and deconstruct themselves through
their own media representations. It is important at this point to con-
sider the particularities of Vancouver and its surrounding communities,
notably Surrey, where both Link and Indo-Canadian Voice have their
headquarters, in terms of their cultural make-up. Our understanding
of diaspora certainly doesn’t negate the relationship – emotional, spiri-
tual, economic – to a cultural homeland, but it insists that the processes
that bring about relationships and practices in the countries of settle-
ment are equally important. Walton-Roberts writes about the cultural
dynamics at play in the city: ‘within Surrey, ethnically coded spaces of
commerce and community contribute to the maintenance and develop-
ment of Indo-Canadian identities as well as differentiating those spaces
from the “mainstream” ’ (Walton-Roberts, 1998, p. 316). In and around
Vancouver as well, because of the large populations of South Asians and
the need for voices to communicate community news to a somewhat
circumscribed community, diasporic news outlets in the area have long
provided news and opinion to newly arrived and well-established South
Asian-Canadian communities.
In the reportage of more sensitive subject matter, on issues includ-
ing spousal abuse and so-called ‘honour killings’, the Punjabi-Canadian
 Anupreet Sandhu Bhamra and Paul Fontaine 125

press has become a space from which to counter mainstream represen-

tations. Following this, we believe that the coverage of the violence
experienced by Manjit Panghali, Navreet Kaur Waraich and Gurjeet Kaur
Ghuman provides a rich source from which to explore the construction
of such counternarratives.

The role of culture in the diasporic coverage

of domestic violence

The South Asian diasporic media, unlike the mainstream media, do not
frame the homicide of these women as an effect of the culturalization
of violence. When violence is explained culturally, it tends to show that
specific immigrant groups (‘the Others’) are culturally prone to violence.
Jiwani (2006) writes that for a person who is not conversant with a
minority culture, the representations through news, imagery and adver-
tisements play a significant role in shaping the social constructions of
that minority group.
This is despite the fact that a number of government studies (Statis-
tics Canada, 2006; UNICEF, 2000; United Nation’s Secretary-General’s
Campaign, 2006) have indicated that violence against women is not a
cultural phenomenon. For example, a report prepared by the Coalition
of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women of British Columbia and sub-
mitted to the British Columbia Task Force on Family Violence notes that
no culture condones violence (Jaffer, 1992, cited in Razack, 1998).
This view is further endorsed by the United Nations secretary-general’s
study of violence against women, which categorically states that vio-
lence against women is not confined to a specific culture, region or
country, or to particular groups of women within a society. Unlike
mainstream accounts, the diasporic media news reportage in the three
case studies makes no attempt to explain domestic violence on cultural
grounds or the victims’ religions. The initial news reports covering the
murder of Manjit Panghali, in fact, do not even mention her ethnicity
(Indo-Canadian Voice, 28 October 2006; Link, 28 October 2006).
Similarly, in one of the first reports on the shooting incident
of Gurjeet Kaur Ghuman, Link mentions that Ghuman is an Indo-
Canadian and identifies the case as that of domestic violence, but
throughout the news report does not draw any link between Ghuman’s
cultural background and domestic violence (Link, 28 October 2006,
p. A6). Similarly, one of the earlier news reports detailing the murder of
Navreet Kaur Waraich mentions the ethnicity of the murdered woman
in the first paragraph, and the fact that her husband had been charged
126 News Production and Processing

with her second-degree murder, but it draws no link between culture and
domestic violence (Link, 4 November 2006, p. A3). By reporting these
incidents as acts of violence rather than cases that are indicative of cul-
tural practice, the Punjabi media employ the larger framework of crime
and homicide, as opposed to frameworks of race, culture and gender.
In a guest column, BC’s provincial opposition Member of the Leg-
islative Assembly (MLA) at the time, Harry Lali, who is of South Asian
origin, turns to his own cultural and religious teachings to defend
the culture from allegations condoning violence towards women (Indo-
Canadian Voice, 4 November 2006, p. 7; Link, 4 November 2006, p. A4).
He invokes the teachings of Sikhism, which is the predominant religion
of the South Asian people in the Lower Mainland, to condemn domestic
violence against women. All three women in the case studies belong to
the Sikh faith. He quotes the teachings of the first Sikh guru, Guru Nanak
Dev, which state that ‘violence against women in a heinous crime’ (Indo-
Canadian Voice, 4 November 2006, p. 7; Link, 4 November 2006, p. A4).
Lali resists the dominant frames, employing an understanding of South
Asian culture from a religious perspective, as a defence against the alle-
gations that it is culture that is responsible for domestic violence against
women.
Both Indo-Canadian Voice and Link place a strong emphasis in their
editorials that the South Asian culture does not tolerate violence against
women. In a front-page editorial in Link, the editor calls BC’s attor-
ney general, Wally Oppal, also a South Asian-Canadian, a ‘loud mouth’
and lambastes the claims that South Asian culture was responsible for
domestic violence within the community (Link, 4 November 2006,
p. A1). The editorial, entitled ‘Stop the Nonsense of Blaming Culture and
Get on with Tackling Domestic Violence and Spousal Abuse in the Com-
munity’, responds to the attorney general’s earlier statements, in which
he called the issue of domestic violence in the South Asian community
‘a cancer’ (Link, 4 November 2006, p. A1). The editorial questions the
validity of Oppal’s claims and asks if he has some hard facts to prove
his previous assertion that violence against women has its roots in the
cultural aspects of the Indo-Canadian community (Indo-Canadian Voice,
4 November 2006, p. 1).
The editorial in Link is highly critical of Oppal’s comments that link
South Asian culture with domestic violence, and it directly calls South
Asian community members to take action against such negative stereo-
typing by saying that ‘Oppal has been vocal trying to hit the community
in the gut with his foolish cultural blame – it is he that the commu-
nity should hit back’ (Link, 4 November 2006, p. A10). The editorial
points to frustration of a community that is continually examined as
 Anupreet Sandhu Bhamra and Paul Fontaine 127

being different from the so-called mainstream Canadian community. It

becomes problematic because the South Asian community in view of
Oppal’s comments is being painted as ‘the Other’, who is different, bar-
baric and tied to tradition, all of which reinforce unequal relations of
power (Jiwani, 2006).
The subsequent editorials in Link also ask Oppal to provide evidence
to support his argument that South Asian culture was in some way
responsible for domestic violence in the community (Link, 2 Decem-
ber 2006, p. A10). Subsequently, Oppal, in a letter to the editor of Link,
criticizes its editorials and writes: ‘sadly, preserving the community’s
reputation takes precedence over reporting and preventing violence
because of fear that disclosure might contribute to racialized stigma or
discrimination’ (Link, 9 December 2006, p. A3).
Oppal states further in the letter:

No one is suggesting Indo-Canadian culture is inferior because some

members are violent – as I have said many times, violence knows
no social or cultural boundaries. By speaking out about violence, we
demonstrate that most Indo-Canadians share a deep and abiding con-
cern about the well-being of our families and, in the process, confront
racialized stereotypes about our culture.
(Link, 9 December 2006, p. A3)

Link, in response to Oppal’s letter, writes that Oppal has ‘no solutions
to problems of violence against women in the community but keeps on
pulling out the culture nonsense like a buffoon’ (Link, 9 December 2006,
p. A3). The slant used in this editorial is that of reactive frustration,
which is counterproductive, as both arguments deflect the attention
away from the perpetrators of the violence and situate the whole situa-
tion in a cultural frame – one staying within it (Oppal) and the other (the
diasporic media) trying to extend beyond it. In the process, discussions
around gender violence get left out.
However, some guest columnists do identify that systematic oppres-
sion against women is prevalent across cultures (Link, 4 November 2006,
p. A4). Teresa Townsley, a former sexual assault nurse examiner, in a
letter to Link writes:

It’s imperative that we recognize that spousal abuse affects all mem-
bers of our community, regardless of colour or creed. Its effects are far
reaching and long lasting on our children and future generations.
(Link, 11 November 2006, p. A6)
128 News Production and Processing

Bo Dhahan, brother of one of the victims, Gurjeet Kaur Ghuman, also

rejects violence against women as a cultural problem. In an interview
with Link he says: ‘domestic violence crosses all racial boundaries’, pro-
moting the opinion that domestic violence is not an ethnic issue but a
problem that plagues all societies and communities (Link, 23 December
2006, p. A3).
Both (Townsley’s and Dhahan’s) statements examine the impact of
domestic violence across cultures and urge the need to disassociate vio-
lence against women from cultural explanations. The South Asian media
in BC does a substantive job in identifying key reasons that incite vio-
lence against women through a discourse carried through editorials and
guest columns. Both publications urge the community to take collec-
tive action against domestic violence while at the same time to make
consistent efforts to identify the factors that lead to violence against
women, which are alcohol abuse, social breakdowns and loss of trust
(Link, 4 November 2006, p. A7).

Violence cuts across cultures

The outlets that we examined challenge the mainstream Canadian

media’s construction of the culturalization of violence in the South
Asian community by providing a forum for community members to
write letters, and through its own editorials. In a front-page editorial,
Link makes a direct reference to how the mainstream media’s reportage
of domestic violence in the ‘mainstream’ community escapes cultural
and religious profiling (Link, 4 November 2006, p. A1). It observes:

There were at least half a dozen cases this week, including a man
who cut up his wife in Toronto and another man [a soldier] accused
of butchering his wife in Calgary. And these were White men who
supposedly are not affected by culture. So lets [sic] cut the crap about
culture and find ways to educate women about their rights in Canada
and provide avenues of escape and support for those who are in
violent relations.
(Link, 4 November 2006, p. A1)

In another front-page editorial, Link writes: ‘violence is prevalent in all

communities and even more so in the WHITE [sic] community that is
supposedly not affected by culture’ (Link, 2 December 2006, p. A1). The
editorials attempt to establish that domestic violence against women is
pervasive in all communities and assert that there is a need to address
 Anupreet Sandhu Bhamra and Paul Fontaine 129

violence against women in the larger frameworks of power imbalance

and prevention.
Balwant Sanghera, a Richmond-based former educator, writes in Indo-
Canadian Voice that these tragedies may have created a false impression
that the rate of domestic violence against women is higher in the Indo-
Canadian community, but, on the contrary, the vast majority of Indo-
Canadians have successful marriages (Indo-Canadian Voice, 11 November
2006, p. 16). While Sanghera calls the misrepresentation unfortunate,
provincial opposition MLA Harry Lali calls it ‘legitimate’ to question the
negative stereotyping of the community (Link, 4 November 2006, p. A4).
Lali questions why cases of alleged crimes committed by South Asians
continue to appear in a cultural framework on the front pages of the
newspapers and dominant the mainstream airwaves. He says that the
mainstream media fail to use the cultural framework when an individ-
ual from a European-based ethnic group commits a crime, as it is never
reported as a ‘German’, ‘French’ or ‘Scottish’ male committing a crime.
He writes:

However, the same media has no qualms whatsoever singling out

people of colour, i.e. ‘East Indian’, ‘Indo-Canadian’, ‘Chinese’, or
‘Pakistani’ males for alleged involvement in criminal activity. Peo-
ple are more apt to remember the event when an ethnic description
of the alleged criminal is used in the absence of one. Why the
double-standard then?
(Link, 4 November 2006, p. A4)

Ken Herar, a columnist from Abbotsford (a Vancouver suburb with a

significant Punjabi diasporic population), writes in Link that not every
Punjabi Canadian is a wife beater or a gangster, and stereotyping the
entire community is discriminatory (Link, 11 November 2006, p. A8).
Another reader, Surrey’s Kanwal jit Singh Gill, writes in Link that the
‘white media’ (referring to the Canadian mainstream media) creates
an impression that the ‘Indo Canadian community is very violent and
such incidents are very common’ (Link, 16 December 2006, p. A7). The
excerpts from Herar and Gill demonstrate how the construction of the
culturalization of violence doesn’t find acceptance among community
members.

Identifying the structural realities

Coverage by Link and Indo-Canadian Voice emphasizes the lack of fund-

ing for women’s programmes as a major problem in situations of
130 News Production and Processing

domestic abuse. They identify the need for social services that are
sensitive and considerate of the South Asian culture to help women
in abusive relations, as opposed to finding cultural solutions within
the South Asian community. Some community members, such as
MLA Harry Lali, argue for increased social services programmes to sup-
port battered women. In his guest column for Link, speaking directly
to Oppal, Lali questions why Oppal had not done anything to sup-
port battered women social services’ programmes (Link, 4 November
2006, p. A4). He refers directly to Oppal as the ‘sole Indo-Canadian in
Cabinet’ and asks if he is concerned about domestic violence in the
South Asian community, in which case he ‘ought to take his liberal
cabinet colleagues to task’. Lali explains that BC’s Liberal government
had made massive cuts to women’s centres and women’s shelters, which
provide advice, guidance and protection to women from physically,
mentally and sexually abusive husbands and boyfriends across the
province.
Shashi Assanand, who works with the Vancouver & Lower Mainland
Multicultural Family Support Services Society, suggests that there is a
need to plan a way out for women in abusive homes and to build social
support for them to help them to rebuild their lives and start afresh
(Indo-Canadian Voice, 4 November 2006, p. 3). Another news report in
Link states that in the wake of the recent killings of South Asian women,
there is a need for more social services for the Indo-Canadian commu-
nity in Surrey (Link, 4 November 2006, p. A4). It quotes the head of a
local community social services organization who identifies the need for
bilingual counselling services for women in Surrey – where the majority
of South Asians speak Punjabi. Statistics Canada has also identified this
need, recognizing that although visible minority women do not report
higher levels of spousal violence, ‘they may have special needs related
to the provision of interventions and services that are culturally and
linguistically appropriate’ (Statistics Canada, 2006, p. 43). The cover-
age reflects a recognition by members of the South Asian diaspora that
a lack of resources is a major impediment in getting help for women
in violent situations and they identify the services (bilingual resources)
that should be made available to South Asian women who are facing
violence.
Oppal, however, in subsequent letters to the editor denies that the
funding was ever slashed, and says that the funding for such pro-
grammes has only increased in the past few years, but again he shifts
the focus from the need for resources for women in abusive relations to
cultural explanations. He writes in Link:
 Anupreet Sandhu Bhamra and Paul Fontaine 131

The real problem in combating spousal violence is not funding.

Rather, it has been the community’s inability or unwillingness to
bring the subject out into the open. On that point, the community
as a whole has been in a state of denial on the subject of spousal
violence.
(Link, 11 November 2006, p. A7)

Oppal fails to recognize the role of the state in fighting violence against
women. The United Nations has recognized that ‘the most effective
weapon to fight violence against women is a clear demonstration of
political commitment, such as statements by high-level government
officials, backed by action and the commitment of resources by the
State’ (United Nations, 2006, ‘Fighting Violence Against Women: What
Works’, p. 1).
In addition, the media reportage tries to recognize ways to contain
the problem of domestic violence by identifying the need for prevention
and intervention services. A Surrey resident, Mota Singh Jheeta, stresses
the need to devise methods ‘to control anger, aggressive behaviour and
source of information to deal with the harmful circumstance’ [sic] (letter
to the editor, Indo-Canadian Voice, 11 November 2006, p. 18). A social
worker, Gurpreet Nagra, like Jheeta, lists the resources where people
could get help with anger management, conflict resolution and dif-
fusing hostile situations in order to help to prevent violence against
women (Indo-Canadian Voice, 4 November 2006, p. 10). Jheeta’s and
Nagra’s suggestions of prevention and intervention services fit into the
larger framework of defining violence as a result of anger, as opposed to
the frames of culturalization of violence. Harbans S. Kandola, a South
Asian community activist, identifies services that can help to curb the
escalating violence against women. He says that there is a need for a 24-
hour helpline where a victim can receive a culturally sensitive service in
Punjabi by trained counsellors who are familiar with South Asian family
structures and cultural issues (Indo-Canadian Voice, 18 November 2006,
p. 7).
Even though the diasporic newspapers challenge the relation between
South Asian culture and domestic violence, they do stress the need to
understand the cultural environment of the women in abusive rela-
tions – a need that feminist scholars have noted as well. In her book,
Looking White People in the Eye, Gender, Race and Culture in Courtrooms
and Classrooms, Razack (1998) argues that there is a need to under-
stand the importance of culture in an immigrant woman’s experience
and response to violence. But this need poses a risk of being negatively
132 News Production and Processing

stereotyped as belonging to a culture that is premodern. When women

of colour try to name violence as patriarchal violence in the context of
racism, and histories of colonialism and imperialism, it is understood
only in the cultural context, with the second part of the message being
ignored or dismissed.

Beyond a racist cultural framework

Seven years after the coverage of the three cases of domestic violence,
the editors that we interviewed voiced opinions that corresponded
with the findings of the frame analysis – namely, they all resisted
media representations that conveyed spousal abuse as being solely a
South Asian-Canadian problem. Link’s editor, Paul Dhillon, said that
the optics offered by mainstream news reports lent to a negative stereo-
typing of South Asian men as violent and instances of spousal abuse
in BC’s South Asian-Canadian communities as being disproportionately
high (Dhillon, 2013, personal communication). He argued that the
mainstream media have naturalized spousal violence in South Asian-
Canadian communities. The stereotype of South Asian men as violent
towards their spouses is a simplification, not only because often it
doesn’t accurately reflect reality but also, more importantly, because
it denies difference by fixing cultural groups through representation
(Bhabha, 1994; Cho, 2010). Such fixing provides a barrier for cultural
groups to comfortably interact with members of the communities and
cities in which they live.
Dhillon said that when approaching a case of spousal abuse, his job
as an editor is to consider a number of factors, including the possibil-
ity of drug or alcohol abuse or mental illness – considerations that he
said don’t usually play a role in the mainstream reporting of instances
of domestic abuse involving South Asians. Rattan Mall, the editor at
Indo-Canadian Voice at the time of the 2006 coverage, said that the
responsibility of any journalist is to approach each story with a desire
to gain a deeper understanding of what is going on. But the practice of
placing domestic violence firmly within a cultural framework absolves
the journalist from doing the work that leads to a more informed under-
standing of the issues involved. Mall states that, as was the case in 2006
when covering spousal abuse, ‘I will just look at the issue as to what is
the issue, if it is right, it is right, if it is wrong, it is wrong, there is no
justification for it, whether you are a Hindu, Sikh or a Christian’ (Mall,
2013, personal communication). Red FM radio host and news director
Harjinder Thind differentiated Red FM’s coverage from that of the area’s
 Anupreet Sandhu Bhamra and Paul Fontaine 133

mainstream media, which he believes stereotypes cultural groups. He

advocates an approach that doesn’t negate cultural affiliations but looks
at them as part of a web of interactions involving not only intercultural
relationships but also those that exist between minority groups and the
state.
All of the editors spoke of the importance of attending to the myriad
factors that play into spousal abuse. Dhillon said that once culture is
chosen as the primary filter through which to evaluate a news story, the
diversity within cultural communities falls victim to broad characteri-
zations. The embedded nature of such characterizations in mainstream
Canadian media is a difficult hurdle to overcome because it involves
racism not only at the level of individual interaction but, more impor-
tantly, at the level of institutional racist ideology (Henry and Tator,
2002).

The trauma of gender stereotyping

As well as sharing a negative view of the mainstream media’s depic-

tions of South Asian men, the editors saw such coverage as part of a
lack of acceptance on the part of Canadian society. Thind spoke of the
preconceptions that he believes are perpetrated through negative depic-
tions of South Asian masculinity. He states: ‘mainstream media has been
quoting that South Asian guys are abusers, that these guys are raised
in such a way that they have seen their mothers being abused, grand-
mothers being abused, and domestic violence is normal in their homes’
(Thind, 2013, personal communication). Dhillon believes that the neg-
ative portrayals of South Asians in the mainstream media represent the
exclusion of visible minorities by Canada’s institutions: ‘it is unjusti-
fied, it is wrong, and from a certain colonial perspective: they tend to
not want to see this community as real Canadians’ (Dhillon, 2013, per-
sonal communication). The editors said that in the last 20–25 years the
opinions expressed in mainstream media outlets have been particularly
damaging to the region’s South Asian communities.
Thind describes the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s as a period
in which Vancouver’s two daily newspapers, the Vancouver Sun and The
Province, ‘portrayed Sikhs as killers, women beaters, they painted such
a picture of the whole community that that was a really sad situation
at that time’ (Thind, 2013, personal communication). The South Asian
media at the time consisted of a handful of Punjabi weekly newspapers
and a lack of significant broadcast presence. That has certainly changed.
According to a 2001 report, BC has 33 media outlets catering to the
134 News Production and Processing

210, 295 people of South Asian origin, the majority of which are news-
paper and radio, and predominantly Punjabi language, besides seven
English newspapers and three multilingual radio stations (Ahadi et al.,
2007, p. 17). Scholars have noted the prevalence of South Asian, partic-
ularly Punjabi, media outlets in Canada dating back to the early 1900s.
Ballantyne writes: ‘starting from the beginning of their arrival in North
America in the early twentieth century, these Punjabis began to establish
significant institutions, especially newspapers that forged crucial links
between themselves, the Punjabis at home, and other Punjabi migrants’
(Ballantyne, 2006, p. 76).

Conclusion

The current iterations of South Asian media, including Link, Indo-

Canadian Voice and Red FM, provide spaces to negotiate belonging and
to maintain transnational ties. Our analysis has explored how this nego-
tiation manifests itself in the coverage of domestic violence, which
differs from that found in the region’s mainstream press. The coverage
by Indo-Canadian Voice and Link of the 2006 domestic abuse cases differs
from the mainstream coverage because it resists employing culture to
draw links between actions and individuals.
Further, Thind, Dhillon and Mall all voiced the opinion that South
Asian diasporic media spaces served to inform Canadian societal atti-
tudes towards South Asians, as well as to help South Asians to navigate
life in Canada. Thind states: ‘South Asian media has played many, many
roles, from an advisor, to a counselor, to a broadcaster, to a newscaster,
giving information about law, interpreting about constitution. It is not
like that of a mainstream broadcaster role’ (2013, personal communica-
tion). These multiple roles speak to the capacity of diasporic media to
aid in the processes of migration and settlement.
Future work on the South Asian-Canadian media outlets would ben-
efit from a turn to the audiences for such news outlets, to gauge to
what extent the diasporic news representations affect how members of
that cultural community see themselves. In addition, diasporic journal-
ism should be viewed in concert with other diasporic communicative
venues that may also provide alternative spaces for identity consti-
tution and resistance to racism, including academic and advocacy
spaces.
By informing and providing competition for BC’s mainstream news
outlets, the province’s diasporic media may have an effect on the
 Anupreet Sandhu Bhamra and Paul Fontaine 135

make-up of mainstream newsrooms, as the diversification in terms of

media landscapes could lead to a variance in mainstream newsrooms
(Browning et al., 2003). To borrow from Appadurai, in their coverage
of domestic violence, the outlets ‘stress the dimensionality of culture’,
which allows for the ‘thinking of culture less as a property of individuals
and groups and more as a heuristic device that we can use to talk about
difference’ (Appadurai, 1996, p. 13). By approaching culture in this way,
diasporic journalism provides sites of resistance, which can be utilized
to combat racist representation in the mainstream press.

References
Ahadi, Daniel, Catherine A. Murray and Sherry Yu (2007) Cultural Diversity
and Ethnic Media in BC: A Report to Canadian Heritage Western Regional Office.
Vancouver: SFU.
Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Ballantyne, T. (2006) Between Colonialism and Diaspora: Sikh Cultural Formations in
an Imperial World. Durham: Duke University Press.
Bhabha, H. K. (1994) The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
Browning, R. P., Shafer, H., Rogers, J. and DeFever, R. (2003) News Ghettos,
Threats to Democracy, and Other Myths About Ethnic Media. San Francisco: Public
Research Institute, SF State University.
Cho, L. (2010) Eating Chinese: Culture on the Menu in Small Town Canada. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press.
Dhillon, P. (August 20, 2013) personal communication.
Federal/Provincial/Territorial Ministries Responsible for the Status of Women,
Statistics Canada (2006) Measuring Violence Against Women: Statistical Trends
2006. Ottawa.
Henry, F. and Tator, C. (2002) Discourses of Domination: Racial Bias in the Canadian
English-Language Press. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Jaffer, M. (1992) Is Anyone Listening? Report of the British Columbia Task Force on
Family Violence. Victoria, BC: Minister of Women’s Equality.
Jiwani, Y. (2006) Discourses of Denial: Mediations of Race, Gender, and Violence.
Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press.
Mall, R. (September 3, 2013) personal communication.
Razack, S. H. (1998) Looking White People in the Eye, Gender, Race and Culture in
Courtrooms and Classrooms. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Tatla, D. S. (1999) The Sikh Diaspora: The Search for Statehood. London: UCL.
Indo-Canadian Voice (2006) News coverage. The Voice Group, October 2006–
December 2006.
Link (2006) News coverage. The South Asian Link, October 2006–December 2006.
Thind, H. S. (August 21, 2013) personal communication.
Thobani, S. (2007) Exalted Subjects: Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in
Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
136 News Production and Processing

United Nation’s Secretary-General’s Campaign. (2006) Unite to End Violence

Against Women. United Nations. Retrieved in October 2006 from http://
endviolence.un.org/factsheets.shtml.
UNICEF (June 2000) Domestic Violence Against Women and Girls. United Nations
Children’s Fund, Innocenti Research Centre, Italy.
Walton-Roberts, M. (1998) Three Readings of the Turban: Sikh Identity in Greater
Vancouver. Urban Geography, 19: 311–331.
9
The Impact of the Yom Kippur War
(1973) in the Jewish-Argentine
Diaspora Press
Laura Schenquer and Liliana Mayer

This work analyses the stance taken by the Jewish Argentine press
before, during and after the so-called Yom Kippur War in the Middle
East in October 1973.1 This study focuses on the reception and spread-
ing of the war in Argentina, taking the press as a core idea and the
way in which it presented the information revealing its intentions or
political interests. The diasporic press chosen for this study consists of
three publications in Spanish with a remarkable flow in Jewish settings:
Mundo Israelita, which expressed the opinion of most of the Jewish lead-
ership; Nueva Sión, connected to Socialist Zionist Youth aligned with the
Hashomer Hatzair political group; and Tiempo of the Jewish-Communist
members of the Federation of Jewish Cultural Entities in Argentina
(Idisher Cultur Farband – ICUF). These publications were chosen because
they represent sectors with diverse political opinions in the Argentine
Jewish field.
This chapter addresses the relationships between the diasporas and
their centres, focusing on the way in which the Jewish-Argentine
diaspora press narrated the Yom Kippur War. In particular, this diaspora
is prevented from being considered from an essentialist perspective –
that would suppose to naturalize the identification of local groups with
the State of Israel – and the regular tension and negotiations which these
dialogues involve will be demonstrated. In contrast, this work states
that the identification with the State of Israel – its acknowledgement
as a symbolically valued place – goes through a myriad of obstacles
that sometimes interfere in meeting and expressing such identification.
This chapter aims to recognize those problems as part of the complex
relationships between the centre (Israel) and the Jewish diaspora.

137
138 News Production and Processing

It also aims to contribute significantly to the literature written so far

which tends to prioritize the role that Israel adopted as the driving force
or core of local Jewish life.2 Without despising its role and its place in
the Zionist as well as non-Zionist group representations, this work con-
siders that such a role adopted by Israel did not always imply that the
diaspora defends Israel’s interests to the letter. Some groups in partic-
ular answered its interests and prioritized the care of its relationships
with local actors, which meant that they did not always fulfil the role
that Israel expected them to assume. In particular, it was due to Israel’s
controversial policy on the conquest of vast stretches of Arab territory
in 1967 that some of these groups declared themselves in favour, while
others were against it, according to their political-ideological stance.

The press: Expression of everyday sectoral interests

The Jewish-Argentine diasporic press of the 1970s, which shows debates

held in institutional settings as well as news about national and inter-
national politics, is an interesting tool to imagine the sensitivity or the
emotions that must have been experienced in the Jewish-Porteño street
at that time. Nevertheless, the press is not a neutral carrier which trans-
mits information about reality but rather a generator of press clippings
that are created in compliance with the political interests of the group
that it represents and with the interests of the media itself, which do
not always coincide with those of the groups.3 Thus articles published
in each of the newspapers analyzed in this chapter are used to observe
the political positioning and expression of a particular sector within the
Jewish field. Additionally it is important to consider that not every news-
paper is homogeneous – different writers participate in it, expressing
opinions about the same topic which could be in line with the editorial
or not. These divergences or different viewpoints should not be nulli-
fied but instead analyzed as conceptions in conflict coexisting within
the same media and whose approach enriches the analysis proposed.
Considering the characteristics of this diasporic press, the analysis of
the three publications mentioned in the introduction is proposed. First,
Mundo Israelita was founded in 1923 with the aim of reaching youngsters
who could not read in Idish. In 1961 this newspaper was bought by local
representatives of the Mapai Labor Party (later renamed Avoda), which
governed the State of Israel since its foundation in 1948. Although the
editorial staff always maintained that the newspaper was not a publi-
cation of that party, most of its writers were party members. In turn,
it was Mapai-Avoda that kept the majority in the Asociación Mutual
 Laura Schenquer and Liliana Mayer 139

Israelita Argentina (AMIA) and Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas

Argentinas (DAIA) boards of directors, the main institutions in charge
of organizing all Jewish institutions in the country, majority reflected
in Mundo Israelita, which held an agreeable position towards this party
leadership.4
Second, in 1948, Nueva Sión was created shortly before Israel’s declara-
tion of independence. Linked to left-wing Zionists, this publication was
the voice of the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement, which was aligned
with the Israeli political party Mapam, from an opposing Zionist posi-
tion, criticizing the government of the Mapai-Avoda party in the State
of Israel and those who conducted the institutional life from AMIA and
DAIA. However, in 1969 the paper had to recognize that its party
(Mapam) created a coalition with Mapai-Avoda to win the Israeli par-
liamentary elections, whose success kept it in power until 1977. Despite
such a coalition, Nueva Sión continued with its critical line and it ques-
tioned in particular Israel’s occupation of Arab territories after the Six
Day War. In addition, it considered that Mundo Israelita was the voice
of ‘quietist’ and ‘anexionist’ leaders aligned with Israeli politics, and, in
turn, it differed from Jewish-Communists of Tiempo whom it branded as
compliant with the ‘Kremlin’s anti-Israeli’ politics.5
Finally, by the end of the 1960s the magazine Tiempo of the Federa-
tion of Jewish Cultural Institutions in Argentina (Idisher Kultur Farband
(ICUF)) came out, joining those who were vindicating the Communist-
Jewish identity merger. The ICUF – or ‘progressives’ as they called
themselves – supported the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 as a
possible shelter for the survivors of the Third Reich while it continued
vindicating the development of the Jewish life in Argentina. It also par-
ticipated in AMIA and DAIA until 1952, when a series of divergences
with the Zionist sectors provoked the disaffiliation of the group.6 Since
then, and mainly in the period to be analyzed, progressives and Zionists
have confronted each other, particularly about questions that distin-
guished the capitalist block from the communist one within the Cold
War frame. Undoubtedly the Israeli-Arab conflict in the Middle East, as
explained below, was one of the main problems.7

Months prior to the Yom Kippur War

Any analysis of the war in the Middle East between 6 and 24 October
1973 is closely connected to at least two elements which had a signifi-
cant influence on it. On the one hand, there is the acknowledgement of
this Israeli-Arab conflict as part of a series of conflicts in different regions
140 News Production and Processing

of the world which took place during the Cold War. They were focal-
ized conflicts undoubtedly supported by the US and the Soviet Union,
but they avoided their direct confrontation which could have meant a
global war with nuclear weapons. On the other hand, the rise of vio-
lence and previous wars in the region, especially the Six Day War in
1967,8 were the cause of this conflict.
Since the crisis of the Suez Canal in 1956, the alliance between Egypt
and the Arab countries with the Soviet Union was reinforced while Israel
identified with the US. With the Soviet Union rearming, Nasser’s Egypt
(president between 1956 and 1970) increased its threatening actions
against Israel, and the latter answered in its ‘legitimate defense’, as
Lozowick9 points out. In June 1967, and with the support of the US,
Israel started what was later known as the Six Day War, obtaining a cer-
tain triumph that would provide it with territories that used to belong
to Syria (the Golan Heights), Jordan (Cisjordan and East Jerusalem) and
Egypt (Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip). Thereafter, Israel stopped
being recognized as a country bothered by its Arab neighbours and
instead began to be acknowledged for its power in the region.
Since then the territories that Israel conquered from its Arab neigh-
bours became the subject of controversy which not only dominated
both Israeli and Arab politics but also caused serious animosity and
debate throughout the Jewish diaspora worldwide. A matter of concern
was what course of action Israel should take with regard to those occu-
pied territories: give them back, annex them, use them to negotiate
peace or to obtain petroleum from the Arab countries? In the face of
a lack of resolution of this aspect, and Israel’s permanence in them, the
Palestinian National Charter organization made a statement in 1968 in
which Israel was declared an imperialist country that acted through the
international Zionist movement, which was racist, fundamentalist and
colonialist.10 Along similar lines, but on a more serious note owing to
being an international organism, in 1975 the United Nations General
Assembly approved a resolution stating that Zionism ‘is a form of racism’
that should be eliminated.11
In Argentina the media analyzed there put forward different points
of view. Mundo Israelita, the Jewish leadership press, showed its undis-
puted alignment with the Israeli government with respect to the areas
left under Israel’s control as ‘administered territories’12 since 1967. More
than once it used phrases such as ‘nowadays the administered areas have
a government more autonomous than ever’,13 which demonstrated a
purported improvement regarding the former situation so as to justify
Israel’s course of action.
 Laura Schenquer and Liliana Mayer 141

In contrast, Nueva Sión and Tiempo referred to ‘occupied territories’.

The distinction between the names used seems to be significant because
each not only demonstrates an organization and a sense of reality but
also suggests a dispute to impose this particular perception as univer-
sal, truthful and unique. In this way the notion of ‘administering’ as
opposed to ‘occupying’ implied the idea of a government with bureau-
cratic and established characteristics which distanced itself from the
usurpation and violence. In turn, the notion of ‘administering’ involved
a temporarily more undefined situation than if the term ‘annexed ter-
ritories’ had been employed, which would lead to a more definite or
permanent idea of appropriation.
Different from Mundo Israelita, according to the left Zionist press,
Nueva Sión, the existence of those ‘occupied territories’ referred to a
dilemma urged its own existence or ethnic-political identity. On the one
hand, young members of the left-wing Zionist group identified them-
selves with Zionism and its main goal: the creation of the State of Israel.
On the other hand, they defined themselves as part of those move-
ments against colonialist countries, seeking their self-determination, as
in the case of the Palestinians. Thus in June 1973 they stressed that
‘Zionism would not occur at the expense of other people’s suffering.
Palestinian people exist.’14 This convincing message led to the cere-
mony for the 25th anniversary of the State of Israel organized by central
Jewish institutions at Luna Park, the most important indoor stadium in
Buenos Aires. Facing the future president of Israel, Itzjak Navón, and
the Jewish-Argentine leading group, the leader of the Argentine Jewish
Youth Council (CJJA), Fernando Romarovski, reiterated the proclama-
tion previously made in Nueva Sión: ‘we recognize the rights of the
Palestines’ self-determination as people’,15 and his words alarmed the
group leaders, who considered that the act had been distorted.16
Conversely, progressive leaders (the Communist-Jewish who expressed
themselves in Tiempo) pointed out that the stance taken by the youth
identifying with Nueva Sión was ‘useful’. This term was extremely sym-
bolic, expressing Tiempo’s aim to profit from the opportunity to create in
Argentina a national front to contain Zionist as well as non-Zionist sec-
tors which stood for the Palestine national liberation after the retrieval
of Israeli troops from the territories.17
In June 1973, six years after the outbreak of the Six Day War, the
ICUF became active in the start-up of this front. It declared that month:
‘Protest and Struggle for Peace in the Middle East and for the Arab-Israeli
fraternity.’ It also sent a petition to the Argentine National Congress
asking legislators to pronounce themselves in favour of United Nations
142 News Production and Processing

Security Council Resolution 242, which demanded Israeli withdrawal

from the occupied territories.18
The ICUF’s political proposal was rejected by the members of Nueva
Sión, who by remaining silent showed their indifference towards the
offer by those who shortly before had been considered as follows:
‘No matter how revolutionary their terminology is, ICUF members have
not demonstrated yet why the Jewish Liberation Movement is reac-
tionary.’19 In this way, Nueva Sión showed that coincidence regarding the
Palestine acknowledgement and their territorial rights was not enough
for the front, in which Tiempo pretended to involve them, to prosper.
In the face of the dilemma posed, which implied tension between its
Zionist ascription (giving support to Israel) and the ascription to the
left-wing that redeemed the national liberation rights of the oppressed
people, Nueva Sión put forward two main arguments. On the one hand it
pointed out Anwar el-Sadat’s responsibility (the Egyptian president and
Nasser’s successor), who at the moment of preparing for war, looking
for the Soviet Union’s support, and threatening war, prompted Israel to
increase the army resources that, according to Nueva Sión,20 had become
more powerful than the Middle East situation required. On the other
hand, it emphasized the Israeli government’s responsibility that instead
of slowing down the arms race after winning the 1967 war it followed a
line which led from a self-defence policy to a more aggressive one with
the practice of ‘new injustices’.21
In particular, this questioning of the Israeli politics demonstrates an
important aspect of the relationship between Israel and members of
the Jewish-Argentina diaspora. As mentioned at the beginning of this
chapter, the supposed essentialists in such a relationship who note that
Israel works as the ‘lighthouse’ or heart of Jewish life in the diaspora
conceal situations (like those in which Nueva Sión questions Israel) warn-
ing that Nueva Sión privileged other values or loyalties which are not
necessarily those that Israel represents. The phrase published by Nueva
Sión – ‘The Israeli leaderships should understand that the Jewish from
the diaspora cannot always have the same political stance as Israel’22 –
allows one to imagine the drama of the situation: the questioning and
distance from this ‘mother country’ political group and, in turn, the
approach or understanding with those whom Israel regarded as enemies,
such as the Palestine political party Al-Fatah, whom Nueva Sión several
times had recognized the objectives that organization it fought for.23
Unlike Nueva Sión, which explained that the permanency in those
territories prevented Israel from reaching an agreement with its Arab
neighbours, Mundo Israelita defended such permanency. Its editorials
 Laura Schenquer and Liliana Mayer 143

used to build the Eastern Front (formed by Jordan, Syria and Iraq) sup-
ported by Sadat (Egypt), who fostered pan-Arab unity, such as those
countries who favoured war to eliminate Israel, while Israel was striv-
ing for peace. Mundo Israelita often suggested that some Arab countries
in the region like Tunisia were responsible for the failure in the dia-
logue between Egypt and Israel, while Israel promoted it according to
its humanist or pacifist tradition.24 However, this manichean construc-
tion was hard to sustain when events like that in August 1973 occurred,
when Israel ‘knocked down’ or ‘made a Lebanese plane descend’.25
Likewise, the representation of the region in terms of bellicose
countries confronted by a pacifist nation referred to a ‘pessimistic’
atmosphere which the press strengthened. Such an idea, rather than
expressing concern for the development of a situation that could
jeopardize Israel’s existence, alluded to the perception of a warming
atmosphere in which hostility increased. In this sense, before Henry
Kissinger (US international affairs minister) and Kurt Waldeheim’s
(United Nations general secretary) visits concluded, Mundo Israelita
reported that such ‘pessimism’ damaged their missions and dispelled
any hope of a peaceful resolution to the problems of the region.26
Among the graphic press studied, Tiempo was the only one to believe
in the possibility of an Arab-Israeli conflict resolution by means of inter-
national cooperation. Thus it closely followed the Bologna Conference
in Italy held in May 1973, after which it declared that the meeting and
understanding among ‘the pacifist forces that supported bologna’s anti-
anexionist call’27 have occurred. Only five months later, the October
War, also known as the Yom Kippur War, started.

Local reception of the Yom Kippur War: During and after

In October 1973, and under the headings ‘War in the Middle East!’ and
‘Repel Aggression until Final Victory’, the press spread the news about
the outbreak of the conflict in the Middle East. Without any other
technology, radio was the medium to ‘follow the events hoping for
encouraging news that were broadcasted in a distressfully low pace’.28
Mundo Israelita and Nueva Sión, unlike Tiempo, were published when it
was still uncertain who the winning and the defeated countries would
be.29 Despite this fact, neither of them was in doubt about Israel’s mili-
tary defensive ability in the face of its attackers, Egypt and Syria. Clearly,
unlike the Six Day War of 1967, an Israeli victory was expected.
The positive prediction of the outcome of conflict did not slow
down the actions performed by different actors in the Jewish field
144 News Production and Processing

in Argentina. Bringing calmness to the Jewish-Argentine population

and, at the same time, mobilizing it in defence of Israel were the two
strategies developed by Mundo Israelita. While searching for an appease-
ment effect when insisting on the fact that the war had not affected
Israel’s daily life and had allowed it to keep its ‘normalcy’,30 it aimed to
encourage protest participation in Argentina, which until then had been
‘tepid’, according to the press.31 It was conceivably to revert to this situ-
ation that the press started to persist in stating proclamations that tried
to awaken an interethnic patriotic solidarity among Jewish-Argentines.
On the one hand Mundo Israelita reported on the sacrifice and ‘hero-
ism’ of those struggling between ‘life and death’ in the defence of the
State of Israel,32 and on the other hand it used the idea of blitzkrieg
(unexpected war) to intensify local animosity towards Arab countries,
which were blamed for the war and its beginning that coincided with
the Yom Kippur War: ‘And the onset occurred on the bearable edge
of that fasting. Such action of outbreaking a war on Yom Kippur does
not have a historical paragon; not even in the Vietnam War since the
North Vietnamese respected Christmas Day which is not the day of their
religious belief.’33
Rather than mobilizing by repudiation to the Arab countries, Nueva
Sión focused its attention on the international context with the purpose
of obtaining arguments to take control of the local streets and support
mainly of the Argentinian left-wing political organization. With no time
to publish information in the October edition,34 there was just an edito-
rial showing that ‘the leaders’ blindness’ was the cause of the war which
‘was playing into the hands of the Imperialist interests’. In that way the
US and the Soviet Union’s critical role was stressed.
That was the account proposed by Nueva Sión about what was happen-
ing in the Levant and which was used in the mixed feelings against left-
wing groups. The vast majority of these groups, among which was the
ICUF, considered that it was a ‘fair war’35 against US and Israeli imperial-
ism and colonialism. From the Peronist Montoneros to Nahuel Moreno’s
Trotskyist group, statements in favour of the destruction of the ‘Zionist
State’36 were issued. Nueva Sión tried to demonstrate that this was a
‘simplistic’ interpretation which hid the real ‘inter-imperialistic con-
frontation’ – that is, between both powers that exploited the national
frictions between Palestinians and Israelis.37 However, the Socialist-
Zionist argument did not convince the left-wing party, as will later be
explained in the case of the Jewish-Communist group.
Despite the fact that Nueva Sión moved away from those who claimed
that it was a ‘fair war’, a drift regarding the ‘occupied territories’ could be
 Laura Schenquer and Liliana Mayer 145

noticed. Even though the presence of Israel in those territories (before

October 1973) was just considered to be a decision that moved peace
away, its occupation was later viewed as strategic, even before the cease-
fire. In a translated editorial from the Israeli newspaper Al Hamishmar,
it was stated that without the Golan Heights (taken from Syria) and
the Sinai (which used to belong to Egypt), the armies of those coun-
tries would have seeped through the centre of Israel itself, upon which
‘major effort would not be necessary to imagine Israel’s physiognomy at
present if Egypt’s frontiers were those of 1967’.38 The war disrupted the
feelings that Socialist-Zionists had about the ‘occupied territories’, and
the possibility of conceiving them as ‘security frontiers’ arose. Thus, still
contemplating that peace would have been reached with the return of
those territories, Nueva Sión put forward an argument that favoured its
annexation, which evidenced its drift regarding the occupied territories,
which opened a new scenario since October 1973.
Contrary to Nueva Sión, according to the Jewish-Communist group
that expressed itself through Tiempo, it was not time to reflect regarding
the struggle against the Israeli presence in the occupied territories. While
vindicating the existence of the State of Israel,39 the ICUF pointed out
that the war was just the product of that usurpation. The attacking Arab
armies had acted ‘to recover the territories that belonged to them’40 and
that made Israel the only party responsible for the war, as stated by
Tiempo.41 It was from this viewpoint that the group created a bond with
the Argentine Communist Party, among other local political sectors, and
defended the development of joint actions, such as public events and
published requests.42
In addition, Tiempo questioned Nueva Sión’s approach regarding the
confrontation of ‘two Imperialisms’ in the Middle East. According to
the Jewish-Communists, it was a ‘fallacy’ that favoured the US power
and harmed the Soviets, since it hid the fact that the US defended its
interests in the region (mainly petrol) while the Soviet Union – just as it
had defended the Jewish people in 1948 – supported those who fought
for their national liberation in 1973. Likewise, Tiempo denounced the
fact that those Zionist sectors used that ‘fallacious’ interpretation to win
the support of the Argentine government.43
Tiempo referred to the meeting that had been held on 16 October
1973 between the president, Juan Domingo Perón, and Iaacov Tsur, for-
mer Israeli ambassador in Argentina, accompanied by the ambassador
of that time, Eliezer Dorón, in which the condition in the Middle East
was dealt with. Only four days before, Perón had begun his third term
of office after 18 years of proscription and exile. That was a decisive
146 News Production and Processing

moment because the Argentine government had not yet declared its
position regarding the conflict among the Arab countries and Israel.
According to Mundo Israelita, Israeli diplomats communicated the
message sent by the first minister, Golda Meir, who highlighted ‘Israel’s
wish of establishing permanent peace, requesting the Argentine gov-
ernment to support those measures’.44 The Argentine government’s
perspective was uncertain, even more so considering that in terms of
international politics it used to adopt eclectic decisions in compliance
with its interests which it explained as part of the Third Position equidis-
tant from both the occidental power and the oriental one.45 As soon
as the ceasefire was declared, Perón held a meeting with DAIA leaders,
whom he informed that Argentina ‘will keep a neutral position in the
Arab-Israeli conflict’ and stressed that he expected the Jewish to avoid
‘moving the consequences of the conflict to the country’.46 Thus he
stated to those actors who wanted Argentina to demonstrate support to
Israel his preference for not committing the country to any force – that
is to say, country. For both Mundo Israelita and Nueva Sión, unlike Tiempo,
such a statement should have been preferable before any condemnation
of Israeli politics of permanency in territories that had belonged to the
Arabs since 1967.
What was the outcome and consequence of what happened in Yom
Kippur? The continuity of the same Israeli territorial boundaries was
not necessarily considered to be a defeat by the Arab countries. Accord-
ing to the researcher Fouad Ajami,47 although Egypt lost the war, other
victories could be highlighted, such as a sense of ‘victory’ when revert-
ing its image of a weakened country as it had been installed after the
defeat in 1967. Was that the interpretation proposed by the media of
the Jewish field? And what traces did the war in the Jewish-Argentina
diaspora leave? Mundo Israelita, Nueva Sión and Tiempo informed their
readers that Israel had once again demonstrated its military unbeatable
character facing Arab countries. But while the first two papers noted
that the casualties and other tragic aftermath were the results of the
Arab reckless intention of making Israel disappear, Tiempo highlighted
that they were the consequence of Israel’s pride, which had disregarded
the resolution to the conflict offered by the United Nations.
Locally, the war effects or outcomes can be recognized in the three
case studies differently. While Mundo Israelita mainly emphasized that
the war showed the Jewish-Argentine diaspora’s solidarity and intereth-
nic union willing to support Israel,48 Nueva Sión opted to stress that the
end of the conflict meant the beginning of a new era in the diaspora.
 Laura Schenquer and Liliana Mayer 147

Since then, according to this paper, the Socialist powers had to work
to show the Arab world how in Israel there were those who wanted
peace in exchange for the return of the territories.49 Tiempo also believed
that a new era had started, but this involved joining forces in order
to achieve Meier-Dayan’s ‘annexionist’ government’s resignation and to
strengthen mutual appreciation among Arabs and Israelis. In this way,
those who expressed themselves through Tiempo decided to work from
Argentina.50 Therefore, after the war, the Jewish-Argentine diaspora sec-
tors that were identified in these case studies positioned themselves at
opposite ends when giving their proposal for conflict resolution in the
Middle East.

Conclusion

In this work, the impact of the Yom Kippur War was examined by
analysing three newspapers of the Jewish-Argentine diaspora. Thus it
was possible to notice striking differences among the political sectors
identified with these media, which despite vindicating the right of exis-
tence of the State of Israel, not all of them lineally accepted the political
decisions adopted by the Israeli government. It was especially under the
specific circumstances of the 1973 War that Nueva Sión – unlike Tiempo –
justified the presence of Israel in the ‘occupied’ territories, which meant
a drift in favour of the position that Mundo Israelita defended even before
the war. Nevertheless, as previously noted, Nueva Sión – in the same way
as Tiempo – never stopped recognizing that any Arab-Israeli agreement
should only be reached with the return of the territories, whose point at
issue Mundo Israelita disagreed. These fluctuations in Nueva Sión should
be understood as the effects of war as opposed to the most constant
and invariable reasoning which Mundo Israelita – in favour of the Israeli
politics – and Tiempo – in total opposition to it – used to follow.
Similarly, this chapter showed that in the three diasporic press, a tone
of trust prevailed with respect to the fact that the outcome of war would
be favourable to Israel, even in Mundo Israelita and Nueva Sión’s editori-
als before the armistice and ceasefire. This distinctive feature makes the
1973 event different from the Six Day War. In 1967, the question at issue
was that Israel ran the risk of disappearing.
It is worth highlighting that in the three newspapers, priority and
care for the relationships with local actors were demonstrated even
when that meant disdaining Israel’s interests. This was clearly the strat-
egy followed by Tiempo exhibited in a series of activities developed
148 News Production and Processing

with support of the Communist Party. In addition, despite differences,

that was Nueva Sión’s purpose. The acknowledgement of the strategic
possession of the occupied territories did not make this media ignore
the interests of the Arab countries and Palestinian freedom rights.
Thus, the militancy of the Zionist-Socialist group within Nueva Sión
gained importance to convince the Argentine left-wing groups that not
all Zionism was ‘annexionist’, but they actually struggled for politi-
cal understanding with the Arabs and Latin-Americans in favour of
Socialism.
Meanwhile, Mundo Israelita exhibited a continuous alignment with
Israel’s interests and so it questioned those who declared against it. How-
ever, like the other media, Mundo Israelita favoured its local interests
over its bond with the ‘mother country’. It mostly focused on the com-
plaints against the left-wing groups and avoided addressing the Peronist
groups – identified with the Argentine government – as critic to Israel as
the former ones. Moreover, the editorial Las Bases – ran by the former
Peronist Minister Lopez Rega (who organized anti-Semitic paramilitary
armed groups) – was distinguished for its ‘impartial attitude’ towards
the war,51 which demonstrated that, beyond what was published, the
dialogue with the local governmental power was the only thing that
mattered.

Notes
1. The Yom Kippur War took place between 6 and 24 October 1973, when Israel
was simultaneously attacked by Egypt and Syria. Its onset coincided with
Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), in which the Jewish are used to fasting
following their traditions. (Hourani, A. (1991) La historia de los árabes. Buenos
Aires: Vergara, p. 499).
2. These questioning to the Jewish studies is suggested in R. Rein’s work ((2011)
¿Judíos-argentinos o argentinos-judíos? Identidad, Etnicidad y diáspora. Buenos
Aires: Edit. Lumiere, 27–48).
3. Schindel, E. (2003) Desaparición y Sociedad. Una lectura de la prensa grá-
fica argentina (1978–1998). Tesis de Doctorado, Departamento de Ciencias
Políticas y Sociales, Universidad Libre de Berlín.
4. See Gurwitz, B. (2012) From the New World to the Third World: Generation,
Politics, and the Making of Argentine Jewish Ethnicity (1955–1983). PhD
thesis. Berkeley: University of California.
5. See Toker, E. and Weinstein, A. E. (1999) Trayectoria de una idea. Nueva Sión:
50 años de periodismo judeo-argentino con compromiso. Buenos Aires: Edic.
Fundación Mordejai Anilevich.
6. In 1952 the Prague and Bucarest trials showed the strong aversion of Jews
to Stalinism. Under these circumstances the DAIA summoned the affiliated
institutions to repudiate the Soviet Union, request which was questioned
 Laura Schenquer and Liliana Mayer 149

and repudiated only by the ICUF. Svarch, A. (2005) El comunista sobre el

tejado. Historia de la militancia comunista en la calle judía (Buenos Aires,
1920–1950). Tesis de Maestría, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
7. See Kahan, E. (2009) Tiempo al Tiempo. La revista mensual del ICUF entre
la primavera camporista y la irrupción militar (1973–1976). Paper in XV
Congress of Jewish Studies. Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
8. Wars among Arab countries and Israel started with the foundation of the
latter in 1948. Since then there has been constant hostility, and the issue
of Palestine refugees has arisen. In 1956, Israel, in alliance with the UK and
France, attacked Egypt, whose president was Gamal Abdel Nasser. This con-
flict was followed by the Six Day War in 1967, and later the aforementioned
Yom Kippur War of 1973.
9. Lozowick, Y. (2003) Right to Exist: A Moral Defense of Israel’s Wars. New York:
Anchor Books, p. 125.
10. Resolutions of the Palestine National Council (1968) Retrieved on 4 August
2013 from http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/plocov.asp.
11. Antisionismo es racismo, Mundo Israelita, 15/11/75, p. 4.
12. Ante la proximidad comicial puede quedar planteado un debate nacional en
torno al futuro de los territorios, Mundo Israelita, 4/08/73, p. 3.
13. Inquieta el creciente clima de tensión que se viene operando en Medio
Oriente, Mundo Israelita, 18/08/73, pp. 1, 12.
14. Nuevos Puntos de Partida, Nueva Sión, 3 June 1973, p. 4.
15. Exaltóse el espíritu solidario con Israel en la Conmemoración de su 25o
Aniversario, Mundo Israelita, 1 September 1973, p. 5.
16. ‘The aim of the event was distorted and far from being an expression of
solidarity with Israel, it turned into a true humiliation to the group’ (AMIA:
un debate inesperado y un informe sobre asistencia social, Mundo Israelita,
8/09/73, p. 5).
17. ‘The new approach of Nueva Sión is extremely useful because it critically
values Israel’s reality’ (El ‘socialismo israelí’ visto por sionistas-socialistas,
Tiempo, June 1973, p. 8).
18. Resoluciones del Consejo Central del Icuf, Tiempo, May 1973, pp. 18–19.
19. La ‘Ievsektzia’ pierde el tiempo, Nueva Sión, 4 April 1973, p. 5.
20. According to Nueva Sión, the Soviet support of Egypt decreased in 1973. Thus
the State of Israel had an army more powerful than needed to confront Egypt
(Nunca nuestra situación fue tan buena . . . ni tampoco tan mala, Nueva Sión,
9 May 1973, p. 11).
21. The Israeli Army ‘poisons crops by means of fumigations, confiscates
hundreds of hectares to pacific farmers, and expels Bedouins from their
lands . . . it turns peace into a messianic aspiration’ (Trasfondo, Nueva Sión,
9 May 1973, p. 5).
22. Declaraciones del Dr. Nahum Goldmann en Asamblea del judaísmo progre-
sista en Paris, Nueva Sión, 9 May 1973, p. 3
23. At least that recognition existed before 1973 when Nueva Sión published Al-
Fataj, ‘whose principal objective was Palestinian freedom, loses that feature
of popular organization and representative of the Palestine society’ (Fajaj
contra los países árabes, Nueva Sión, 4 April 1973, p. 5).
24. ‘In the face of the Tunisian leader’s response (in which it accused Israel of
repeating a Nazi policy over the population of the administered territories)
150 News Production and Processing

in Israel, there are no symptoms of total hopelessness. The Jews are educated
in an eager need for peace’ (Vivir alertados, Mundo Israelita, 14 July 1973,
p. 1).
25. Significativas controversias suscita el acto consumado contra un avión
libanes, Mundo Israelita, 18 August 1973, p. 3; También se votó contra la
DAIA, Tiempo, March 1973, pp. 1–2.
26. Clima pesimista en torno a la gira del secretario de la UN por la región
mesoriental, Mundo Israelita, 25 August 1973, pp. 1, 12.
27. Cara y ceca de la colectividad, Tiempo, June 1973, pp. 1, 2.
28. La judeidad argentina exteriorizó masivamente su repudio a la artera agre-
sión contra Israel, Mundo Israelita, 13 October 1973, p. 5.
29. While Tiempo was published 17 days after the war (October 1973), Mundo
Israelita and Nueva Sión were issued on 13 and 8 October, respectively.
30. Escuelas, teatros, cines, bares, turismo. Funcionan con increíble normalidad,
Mundo Israelita, 13 October 1973, p. 12.
31. Reto Irrenunciable, Mundo Israelita, 13 October 1973, p. 3.
32. Maraña de turbios intereses confabulados en un solo propósito: la destruc-
ción de Israel, Mundo Israelita, 13 October 1973, pp. 6–7.
33. Maraña de turbios intereses confabulados . . . , Mundo Israelita, op. cit.
34. The October edition was issued two days after the war had started, and the
next one (June 1973) was published when the war had already finished.
35. Among others, El Descamisado de Montoneros (by then the greatest political
arrmed group in Argentina) used the term ‘fair war’ (A los compañeros de ‘El
Descamisado’, Nueva Sión, 3 December 1973, p. 2).
36. Later it was known that the statement by Montoneros was apocryphal. The
group was in favour of the Arab dispute, but criticized the tone of the article
that they were lumbered with (La guerra en Buenos Aires, Mundo Israelita,
20 October 1973, p. 8). And about the statements of Nahuel Moreno’s group,
see La guerra en Buenos Aires, Mundo Israelita, 10 November 1973, p. 8.
37. Nueva Sión y su conducta, Nueva Sion, 3 December 1973, p. 7.
38. Primeras reflexiones luego del cese del fuego, Nueva Sión, 3 November 1973,
p. 2.
39. As is emphasized, ‘Israel needs, under these circumstances, all our solidarity.
But not the one demanded by the requests from the Zionist leaders aiming
at strengthening the status of the Meir-Dayan government’ (Devolver los
territorios . . . , Tiempo, ibid.).
40. Devolver los territorios para que haya paz, Tiempo, October 1973, pp. 1–2, 21.
41. For having ignored the United Nations peace proposal expressed in Reso-
lution 242 of November 1967 (Posición Soviética, Tiempo, October 1973,
p. 8).
42. Ante el cese de fuego en Medio Oriente, Tiempo, December 1973, p. 4.
43. ¿Dos Imperialismos en el Medio Oriente?, Tiempo, November 1973, pp. 1–2.
44. Cordial entrevista con Perón, Mundo Israelita, 20 October 1973, p. 5.
45. ¿Dos imperialismos en Medio Oriente?, Tiempo, November 1973, pp. 1–2.
46. El presidente de la nación recibió a una delegación de la DAIA, Informativo
DAIA, October 1973, pp. 1–2. See also Schenquer, L. (2013) Actitudes sociales
en Dictadura. Estudios sobre las dirigencias de DAIA y de las instituciones
religiosas liberales durante el último régimen militar (1976–1983). Tesis de
Doctorado, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, University of Buenos Aires.
 Laura Schenquer and Liliana Mayer 151

47. Ájami, F. (1995) Los árabes en el mundo moderno. México: Fondo de Cultura
Económica, p. 193.
48. La Guerra en Buenos Aires, Mundo Israelita, 10 November 1973, p. 8.
49. Israel y el Tercer Mundo, Nueva Sión, 3 December 1973, p. 2.
50. Devolver los territorios . . . , Tiempo, ibid., October 1973, pp. 1–2, 21.
51. La guerra en . . . , Mundo Israelita, ibíd., 20 October 1973, p. 8.
10
The Counter Journalism of Roma
Minority Broadcasts in Bulgaria
Svetlana D. Hristova

This introduction synthesizes sociological research that traces the

dynamics of the media image of the Roma people as constructed
by ethnic minority broadcasts. The study discusses the dynamic,
socially constructed representation of the Roma produced by com-
munity broadcasts versus the traditional representation of them in
the mainstream media. The research methods involved are content
analysis of media archives, which have been studied throughout the
period 1996–2007, and focus groups conducted with Roma journal-
ists and researchers. Two types of broadcast have been monitored for
the purposes of the study: (i) community radio broadcasts or tele-
vision shows that are strongly focused on Roma issues and created
by journalists of Roma origin; and (ii) intercultural programmes of
an educational kind, which are produced by either ethnically mixed
or entirely non-Roma editorial teams for the purpose of promoting
interethnic tolerance. This second type of programme is also referred
to here as ‘culturally oriented’, ‘interethnic’, ‘educational’ or ‘ethnicity
oriented’.
The objective of this study is to address the question of whether
community-oriented polemical broadcasts have contributed to altering
and renewing the public stereotype-laden representation of the Roma in
Bulgaria. A few quite rigid representations of ‘gypsies’ thrive in everyday
spaces, and the image generally held by society involves violence, crime
and illiteracy as characteristics of this minority; ‘Gypsies’ have been
viewed as a privileged object of affirmative policies and as a problem-
atic group in both social and economic terms, yet as being continuously
defended under international human rights conventions. In line with
all of this, this text describes the role of specific mass-media channels
in creating a new vision of the ethnic group, a vision that is thoroughly

152
 Svetlana D. Hristova 153

distinct from the heterostereotypes that generally assume the group’s

social failure. The modernized portrayal of the Roma, expressed by the
community media under study, has been based on the good practices
and role models coming from the ethnic group.
The significance of the study stems from the following occurrences.
First, with the launching of community and intercultural programmes,
the journalists involved in them have eagerly defended the Roma,
underscoring that they differ from the popular stereotypes regarding the
group. With the development of these programmes, an assertive repre-
sentation of Roma identity was established and the hybrid identity of
the minority journalist appeared as a topic of sociological research. Sec-
ond, community and interethnic broadcasts do not target the Roma
community exclusively: their target audience is mainstream society as
the potential recipient of intercultural education. This means that there
is a need for additional empowerment, trust and popularization of com-
munity and ethnicity-oriented broadcasts in order for these to create
their own ways of mediating information and changing perceptions
regarding the Roma.
The rule of thumb is that community broadcasts reflect the will of
the community and are produced by group resources. The Bulgarian
media space has allowed their existence only as external productions
funded by international donors. As for intercultural programmes, they
are focused on various ethnic groups with the aim of promoting toler-
ance, diversity and intercultural education. Typically they are produced
by a multiethnic editorial team. The funding of the culture-oriented pro-
grammes is miscellaneous but primarily comes from public resources or
from non-governmental fundraising.

Some theoretical frameworks

This section provides an insight into identity and intergroup relations

between the dominant and minority ethnic groups, with an emphasis
on strategies for promoting a positive minority image.
The Roma are the third-largest ethnic group in Bulgaria. They have
been regarded by the non-Roma as a social and economic threat to
society at large, due to the high levels of poverty and illiteracy within
the group. These two factors have led to the formation of a culture
of dependence on social allowances among this minority. The society
at large has associated Roma communities with traits such as crimi-
nal behaviour, unemployment and early marriage. Although the Roma
comprise different subgroups, divided mostly on the basis of religion
154 News Production and Processing

or livelihood occupation, the non-Roma people tend to see them as a

single ethnic entity.
Ethnic identity is a group identity – it plays a significant role in an
individual’s self-perception and their recognition with respect to a refer-
ence group. Structurally viewed, ethnicity is a combination of personal
identity and them elements of a group. Thus ethnic identity is ratio-
nalized membership of an ethnic group (Barth, F. 1996, pp. 75–83).
Different researchers have added specific shades of interpretation to
the term ‘ethnic group’. In Cohen’s view, the ethnic group includes
people who share the same models of normative behaviour. Barth’s def-
inition adds that the ethnic minority includes people who biologically
self-perpetuate; they share common cultural values; and they build a
common zone of communication and interaction.
Undoubtedly, human perceptions of reality are socially constructed.
The ethnic-identity approach enables the making of comparisons
between different groups. To compare one ethnic group with another
involves a ‘subjective frame of reference’. This means that members
of the in-group deliberately augment the differences between the we
and them groups by focusing mostly on those dimensions that would
enhance the positive image of the we group. The objective of this
social comparison between groups is self-promotion of the group. This
is achieved by exaggerating intergroup differences and underestimat-
ing intergroup similarities (Hogg and Abrams, 1998, pp. 21–27, 199).
Many studies indicate that subordinated communities accept that mem-
bers of the dominant group are superior in competence, ability, status,
power and resources. However, minority groups see themselves as better
performers in social activities.
Group cohesiveness in social activities generates an undoubted effect
on collective behaviours by stimulating group productivity (e.g. produc-
ing community media programmes), increasing observance of common
norms, facilitating communication between group members, reduc-
ing hostility inside the group and channelling it towards out-groups,
enhancing a group’s sense of security and so on.
To recapitulate, within a milieu in which the cultural values of one
dominant ethnic group are prevalent, minority out-groups apply a vari-
ety of creative strategies for social survival. These resourceful plans aim
to endorse the positive image of the subordinate groups in their own
eyes and in the eyes of the external groups. An appropriate tool for this
is the media.
A core feature of the representation of an ethnic community is its
publicity. The media forge images, whereas the audience has the right
 Svetlana D. Hristova 155

and power to interpret the latter, and within this interaction the media
and the audience equally become social inventors. It can be assumed
that the community media image could compete with the mainstream
portrayals only provided that the former is as visible as the latter – if the
community media image has reached the proper-sized audience; and
if it is perceived, evaluated and exchanged by a group of responsive
spectators.
The representation of the Roma minority in mainstream media is
internalized by the journalists and communicated to the audience,
which reacts to the message. It is important to note that the Roma
people comprise a variety of communities and subgroups, internally dif-
ferentiable by profession, religion and language. Also, the Roma identity
fluctuates as a function of the particular social and ethnic environment
that these people live in. Despite this, non-Roma people perceive the
Roma as a single, indivisible whole. That is why this research presents
the attitudes of the majority towards this ‘whole’, without regard for
subgroup divisions. (We should bear in mind that the Roma identity is a
non-Roma construction.) Hence the Roma media broadcasts have been
observed as a case of counterjournalism in opposition to the ‘ethnicized’
construct of the Roma presented in mainstream media.

Group representation

In 2007 and 2010, a series of focus groups were held with researchers
and journalists on the topic of the features of the Roma proliferated
by the media. Three groups of negative characteristics were differen-
tiated. The first involved the Roma’s deficit of proper social manners
and their unwillingness to observe commonly shared social rules. The
second group of media representations was related to ‘social unaware-
ness’ and illiteracy. The third group of negative characteristics perceived
by the mass media, and construed by the respondents, could be classi-
fied as ‘hygiene-related’: the Roma were regarded as ‘people of poor or
no hygienic habits’, ‘people of ill-favoured appearance and inarticulate
speech’.
Focusing on ‘Roma identity’ as a construction of the non-Roma world,
it should be made clear that interethnic stereotypes have been narrated
either on the basis of everyday experiences or as perceptions drawn from
the media, or from both sources. Some of the participants in the jour-
nalists’ focus group admitted that there was no big difference between
public perceptions of the Roma stemming from everyday face-to-face
communication and their depiction in the media.
156 News Production and Processing

Community media broadcasts: A defensive vs. an

assertive image

Speaking about the Roma image constructed particularly by the

ethnicity-oriented broadcasts, the research findings show that there is a
dividing line between ‘the defensive’ representation (which combats the
stereotyping and negative labelling of the ethnic community) and the
‘boosted’ (assertive, rationalized) image. The milestones predetermining
the change of image were the ratification of the Framework Programme
for Integration of Roma in Bulgarian Society (2000) and the start of the
Decade of Roma Inclusion (2005). The appearance of community leaders
and the establishment of human rights NGOs stimulated the Roma to
declare that they were an inseparable part of the mainstream culture; ‘to
be Roma’ became a pattern of ethnic pride and self- assertion, as well as a
trans-European resource for fundraising and networking. As an adjunct
to this, the community broadcasts contributed to the public visibility of
the Roma stance.
Although the worldwide practice is for community broadcasts to
speak the language of a particular ethnic, cultural, religious or local
community, similar media outputs in Bulgaria are presented to the audi-
ence in the official language of the country. The reason for this is that
the mission of community and interethnic broadcasts is claimed to
be to advocate different cultures as worthy of recognition. Such pro-
grammes could not be packaged in a minority tongue, which would only
reach Romany-speaking groups, whereas the messages need to reach
the majority population. Hence the effect of the minority broadcasts in
Bulgaria comes from the fact that journalists speak with the voices of the
community, though in a widely comprehensible language. ‘Subaltern
counterpublics’ is the name that Fraser (1992, pp. 109–142) gave to com-
munity media, while ‘alternative sphericules’ is the term that Husband
and Downing (2005, p. 57) chose.
Counterjournalism has made substantial endeavours to recount Roma
history and handicrafts, explaining the roots of the nomadic lifestyle,
of Roma arts and their gift for music, and so on, in the light of the
stereotypes, but in a new, positive manner. In the ‘defensive’ period
of these community broadcasts, the aim was to raise the self-esteem
of this marginalized group. This period coincided with the time when
a number of Roma leaders appeared on the social scene and initiated
discussions with the responsible institutions regarding issues of Roma
integration. Among the positive illustrations of the ‘defensive’ phase
were those of Roma women playing an enhanced public role. Other
 Svetlana D. Hristova 157

powerful portrayals were those of professionals – for instance, com-

munity advocates, poets, lawyers, NGO activists, students, musicians,
football players and medical doctors.
The next phase in the development of Roma representations in com-
munity programmes could be described as ‘asserting Roma identity’.
The depiction of the Roma construed within this ‘assertive’ phase has
been young educated Roma, upwardly mobile and ambitious about
their careers. Within this period the programmes that advocate eth-
nic tolerance have purposefully sought to present personalities that
could serve as role models for their communities. Typically the Roma
role models popularized by the community and interethnic shows have
been of artists, prospective students, lawyers, musicians, journalists
or non-governmental activists. In the ‘assertive’ phase, the commu-
nity programmes portrayed a perceptibly larger share of personalities
of higher status at local, regional and national level, and the most
widespread type of Roma was that of the energetic community leader.
These two phases of the development of Roma representations in
community broadcasts are not actually clearcut periods, but they have
been defined for the purposes of this study. In fact, the ‘defensive’ phase
contained ‘assertive’ elements, and the ‘assertive’ period inevitably
had some ‘defensive’ components. The hybridization of the media-
manufactured image has involved both the presenting of Roma ‘success
stories’ and the rejection of negative stereotypes regarding this minority,
as well as a search to present, beyond the clichés, the background his-
tory of the community. The process of tracing the historical roots of the
Roma has also involved the narration of legends and myths about the
Roma, and this helps us to see how clichés may have been engendered
from such myths.

Qualitative data analysis

In 2005 the agency Alpha Research conducted a survey with a rep-

resentative sample of 1006 Roma respondents. The findings indicated
that Roma media outlets were utilized as a source of information by
no more than 3% of the respondents. The outlets in question were
viewed as additional sources of information to the mainstream media.
Only 5% of the survey respondents considered Roma community broad-
casts as sources of reliable information, compared with 67% who said
that they mainly trusted national television. Among the factors behind
the low level of trust in community outlets is the limited visibility of
these specific programmes in Bulgarian broadcasting. Another is the
158 News Production and Processing

insufficient number of Roma journalists in the national media: by 2007,

the reporters, radio or television anchors and columnists of Roma origin
represented no more than 0.5% of the human resources of public media
outlets. Some Roma interns in Bulgarian media have had their tempo-
rary occupation in editorial offices supported by international donors,
but apart from this the media managers have apparently not felt it to
be their duty to ethnically diversify their teams. As a result, most of
the Roma journalistic internships have ended without the conclusion
of a full-time contract. The Bulgarian legislative framework does not
formally create obstacles to recruiting minority journalists, nor does
the law obstruct the existence of ethnic broadcasts or media. At the
same time, however, the law does not provide incentives for the ethnic
diversification of media staff.
The Roma media communicator represents an intriguing synthesis of
a personality and a social role. Roma journalists have a ‘hyphenated’
identity: they are Bulgarian citizens of Roma ethnicity; journalists, but at
the same time writers, artists or photographers; local and international
‘nomads’, cosmopolitans and so on. In the process of socialization,
the members of this minority face the expectation of having to adapt
both to the normative order of their own communities and to the
rules of the broader society in order to be respected by the wider social
environment. One coping strategy applied by members of subordi-
nated groups is the ‘disclosure etiquette’ or the voluntary confession
of the ‘spoiled identity’ (being Roma) that involves a clear idea of
the consequences (Goffman, 1963; pp. 113). Often, individuals com-
ing from stigmatized communities admit that they have had to make
extra efforts in order to achieve the evaluation that individuals from
the dominant group would receive for the same performances (Miller
and Major, 2000, pp. 243–272). Having come from a lower-status group,
minority professionals seek acknowledgment through their educational
degrees, work achievements, institutional knowledge and general facil-
ity in the dominant culture. The Roma journalists have various family
backgrounds – some come from upper working-class families; others
have a low-skilled parental background. Despite the social status of
their original families, the Roma journalists noted that their parents
tried hard to educate them (Hristova, 2011, pp. 309–310). Usually such
individuals successfully develop intercultural skills as another coping
strategy directed towards solving problems and/or setting higher per-
sonal targets (Jarymowicz, 1998, pp. 44–52). In this particular case, in
spite of how well Roma journalists have adapted to the dominant cul-
ture, they have the tacit obligation to serve their communities; and
 Svetlana D. Hristova 159

if they refuse to do so, the communities could implement certain

sanctions.
The Roma self-starters received a good impetus for future careers in
television or radio programmes through a number of training courses
for journalists and cameramen, provided by academic and NGOs in
the period 1996–2007. The courses created a network of Roma jour-
nalists, which was the positive outcome of the endeavour. However,
some experts indicated that a two- to six-month course module was
insufficient for obtaining journalistic skills.
The abovementioned focus groups conducted with researchers and
journalists offered some insights into the effect of ethnically mixed
teams with regard to spreading the message of tolerance. On the issue of
professional development, Svetlana Vassileva, a Roma journalist, stated
that the educational level and professional background of separate
Roma trainees differed strongly: some Roma internees had only a high-
school diploma, while others were university graduates. In addition, the
trainees had attained various stages of professional growth: some of the
Roma journalists had continued working for dailies/radio under spe-
cialized intercultural programmes. Tsveta Nikolova, a journalist from
Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), stated that ‘professionalism requires
years to be cultivated. It is a matter of personal attitude and self-respect
of the media management to help the beginners in their endeavours to
grow and “steal the craftsmanship from the master” ’. Svetlana Vassileva
expressed her approval of the BBC practice of staff diversification where
a legal 10% quota for minority journalists was introduced, equal to the
percentage of ethnic minorities in UK society. ‘If the media manage-
ment failed to hire a good number of skilled minority journalists to fill
in the quota, then the BBC would seek for talented individuals who
would undergo educational qualification for the purposes of the public
channels. This has to be applied in Bulgaria too’, she proposed. In this
connection, Elena Kortel (BNR anchor) remarked that it was a chal-
lenge to find and recruit well-trained minority journalists. In line with
this debate, the rest of the respondents acknowledged that investing
in people with an alternative viewpoint would be a rational approach
for diversification of the human resources of a media organization. The
requirements for previous journalistic experience and educational cer-
tificates are essential for undertaking a career in journalism; but offering
a work contract to the Roma interns in the media was viewed by the
respondents as a much more beneficial means of encouragement.
International practice has shown that producers of community broad-
casts encounter difficulties in relation to the host media outlet. First
160 News Production and Processing

it often happens that the media administration has inadequate expe-

rience in managing ethnically diverse teams. Second, the journalistic
team of the community broadcast is strongly dependent on financial
donors for the reasons mentioned above: most ethnic-minority produc-
tions are funded by foreign foundations for limited periods of time. After
the expiration of the funding stage, most of these broadcasts are dis-
continued. Similar circumstances tend to impede the careers of Roma
anchors and reporters.
The next question addressed in the focus group concerned the impact
of Roma broadcasts upon the wider audience. ‘Thanks to the broad-
casts related to Roma, we learned that minority people have similar
problems as the rest of the citizens,’ the participants pointed out. Most
of the journalists-respondents believed that the significance of Roma
programmes lies in promoting Roma culture and identity. Kremena
Budinova considered that community broadcasts have a definite, unam-
biguous effect of raising the self-confidence of the group: ‘Do you know
what it is for a Roma with a personal standpoint to be invited to a TV
studio? His or her self-esteem would definitely increase.’ A journalist
from the daily newspaper Dnevnik emphasized that there was a per-
ceptible dissimilarity between the respective impacts of the monitored
productions upon a Bulgarian and a Roma audience. The effect upon
the Roma audience was positive, productive and many-sided, whereas
for Bulgarians the topic of developing community awareness would be
less important. Valeri Lekov (a Roma reporter, BNR) added that the effec-
tiveness of the community broadcasts was bilateral and depended on the
ethnicity of the listeners/spectators. ‘An eventual attempt to persuade
the majority audience about Roma pride would not involve motivation
and passion, as it would if it were addressed only to a Roma audience,
where the effect of these broadcasts is totally the reverse,’ he added.
The journalists talked about a social-psychological phenomenon: every
ethnic community (the in-group) is in search of proof of its positive
representation both in the eyes of its own members and in the eyes of
the public at large. By default, the in-group members would not be con-
cerned about the good image of the out-groups. The instinct and drive
to acquire affirmative distinction in the eyes of the out-group stimu-
late the demand to find dimensions that are strongly in favour of the
in-group, often to the detriment of the out-group. These differentiat-
ing aspects enhance both the collective and the personal self-esteem
of the in-group members (Hogg and Abrams, 1998, pp. 93–115). Peo-
ple coming from subordinated communities apply survival strategies to
cope with social stigma, such as seeking empathy from one another,
 Svetlana D. Hristova 161

confirming common beliefs and attitudes, sharing language and emo-

tional understanding, and so on. In compliance with this, the image of
the Roma in the particular broadcasts has been based on recognizable
positive strategies: turning to the eternal community values; seeking
social support through an influential audience; promoting successful
in-group representatives; voicing community welfare plans; competing
with the out-group by exaggerating group differences and underesti-
mating intergroup similarities, and so on (Hogg and Abrams, 1998,
pp. 21–27, 119).
The focus group discussion also touched on the question of the basis
of the general situation of these broadcasts in Bulgaria. All of the respon-
dents agreed that the lack of popularity of minority broadcasts stemmed
from the unprofessional manner in which they were managed. In addi-
tion, the respondents pointed out the shortage of well-trained and
experienced Roma journalists in media in general. The unclear situa-
tion of community programmes is a result of the lack of regular funding
options. The researchers were not aware of any marketing research hav-
ing been conducted in the sphere of advertising in community media
products. The respondents also emphasized that a significant cause of
the difficult interaction between the ethnic community and the media
was the fact that the variety of subgroups within the Roma population
had been neglected.
The researchers saw the following factors as major obstacles to the
professionalization of the Roma community media in Bulgaria: the lack
of proper communication between the team of the ethnic-minority pro-
grammes and the host media; the insufficient number of educated Roma
journalists; and the fluctuating funding of the broadcasts.
The journalists generally disputed some of the abovementioned the-
ses, stressing that there were actually a few well-trained Roma pro-
fessionals working in television or radio. ‘However, recruiting Roma
anchors in mainstream media might be perceived as something exotic
rather than being seen as media policy,’ said Mariana Fingarova (Radio
Plovdiv). In contrast with the scholars, the media practitioners were
more optimistic about the eventual establishment of a feasible model of
Roma media in Bulgaria. They stressed that the real target audience of
community and intercultural programmes should be the wider society,
because it represented an aggregate of potential learners of intercultural
values. In this sense, speaking the official language of the country was
an advantage for the community programmes. The financial insecurity
stemmed from the fact that in Bulgaria one could say that there are a few
individual community broadcasts rather than Roma media channels.
162 News Production and Processing

The lack of state subsidies for Roma broadcasts was seen as constituting
a core impediment for their expansion, professionalization and sustain-
ability, the journalists agreed. Most of the practitioners indicated that
the alternative, community point of view was necessary, but this was
said to be a latent public need.
All respondents believed that a possible recipe for ensuring the
sustainability of Roma broadcasts might be the establishment of eth-
nically mixed teams. An editorial board, including both Roma and
non-Roma reporters and anchors, would produce a more balanced
approach towards the media representation of the minority. Another
advantage of having mixed teams was that the majority of the audi-
ence would be more interested in a broadcast dedicated to ethnic
issues when it involved a non-Roma newsperson as well. Good prac-
tices show that Roma journalists somehow adapt more easily in
multiethnic editorial spaces, particularly when the media product
refers to interpreting cultures of more than one ethnic group. The
necessity for mutual intercultural learning was expressed by Mariana
Fingarova:

Notwithstanding how well-acquainted I am with the Roma lifestyle

and mentality, I have always feared that while I was anchoring my
radio show, Roma addressees would sense my non-Roma way of
thinking . . . Minority issues should be voiced by minority journalists,
whether they are produced as an argument or as an opinion.
(Bakalova, 2004, pp. 116–118)

Perspectives of Roma journalists

The multiethnic composition of the media staff would provide an

opportunity for the Roma journalists to cultivate competences by learn-
ing from their experienced fellow workers. A researcher in a focus group
said: ‘if a Roma journalist communicates only within the frame of his or
her ethnic community, where similar attitudes and visions are shared,
it is very probable that this journalist would send messages, targeting
only the in-group; such messages would be unintelligible for the out-
groups’. Although defenders of media ‘speaking from the community’,
Svetlana Vassileva and Kremena Budinova raised awareness of the con-
cept of ‘intellectual ghettoization’ in cases where minority broadcasts
reach only the in-group (Riggins, 1992, pp. 276–287). In contrast, Valeri
Lekov believed that the role of an ethnic professional was priceless just
because they illuminated aspects of group representation which had so
 Svetlana D. Hristova 163

far been hidden from the majority of the public. Although impartiality
is a must for every journalist according to the code of conduct, Roma
anchors chose to balance between professional standards and loyalty to
community values. This ambivalent professional formula seems to mark
their careers strongly.
However, theorists speculate that membership in low-status social
groups may involve managing social expectations. Individuals com-
ing from a subordinate and highly recognizable group are in a state
of reflective expectancy (Crocker and Quinn, 2000, pp. 160–173). This
means that individuals from stigmatized groups permanently feel the
need to manage their social performance within the dominant soci-
ety, and try to look ‘normal’ and have a predictable demeanour.
A related phenomenon is the expectation, imposed by the domi-
nant environment, that members of an ‘inferior’ background should
always overtly demonstrate a community-defending stance. For exam-
ple, Roma journalists are expected to speak only about Roma themes
in a positive manner, even when they would like to discuss other
topics.
Therefore the idea of speaking for the ethnic community in the voice
of the Roma themselves provoked a dispute as to whether minority
journalists were not sparing the public the negative features of their
in-group, crystallizing the latter in bright colours. The non-Roma edi-
tors from BNR shared the fact that Roma anchors often sugar-coated the
community image. In response to this, Budinova denied having been
courteous to her own ethnic community, saying that she did not cover
‘tearful Roma scenes of people complaining about their destiny. Any-
where in Bulgaria, when I go into a Roma neighbourhood, I accuse those
people of lack of education and being incapable of supporting their fam-
ilies, because they cannot compete on the labour market.’ Integrity of
feelings and intellect is essential for the development of community
journalism. The fact that the Roma identity might run counter to the
professional identity of a media practitioner in terms of neutrality is
understandable. At the same time, it is logical that both identities should
interact. As Husband puts it, ‘at a minimal level there is a normative
acceptance of the complexity and hybridity of all identities, professional
and otherwise . . . Consequently, for many minority media profession-
als working within minority media, their ethnic identity becomes a
routinely salient facet of their professional practice’ (Husband, 2005,
pp. 461–480).
By default a Roma journalist would prefer to cover Roma topics in
order to provoke sympathy and attachment. One’s ethnic identity often
164 News Production and Processing

becomes a prominent feature of one’s practice. The concept of ‘emo-

tional labour’ tries to explain this state of mind: minority journalists
tend to choose topics that they are emotionally attached to (Husband,
2005, pp. 461–480). In the light of ‘emotional labour’ the minority
media professional could be portrayed as biased, promoting commu-
nity practices and sensitive about their coverage. However, the contrary
view also exists: might not Roma media workers become tired of perma-
nently being ‘assigned’ to cover mainly their own community? What
if, to some extent, the ‘Roma’ theme becomes a burden for those Roma
journalists who have broader social expectations? What happens if a
Roma journalist would like to get involved in different topics in order
to stimulate their polemic imagination? And in line with the previous
assumption, would the ethnic community sanction the professionals for
ceasing their involvement with Roma topics? These are just some of the
questions that arise.
The minority journalist is characterized by a mixture of internal-
ized community values, mainstream values and professional skills. The
in-group insists on seeing the ‘Roma’ perspective in all of the works
of the community intellectuals. Evidently these intellectuals are situ-
ated at the borderline between two social worlds. They do not hide
their Roma roots, though they do not necessarily stand by the rules
of their patriarchal ethnic environment. Having left the confines of the
intrinsic community and stepped into the mainstream world, minor-
ity journalists feel that they are ‘neither fish nor fowl, foreign even
to myself’ (Tosen Ramar, a Roma journalist). The ethnic group might
cease to recognize the minority journalists as ‘Roma’ because of their
acculturation into the dominant society, which has produced in them a
new, hybrid identity. This hybrid identity combines sympathy for their
community and the will to opt for an independent mode of conduct.
Yet the minority journalist is expected to both respond to contempo-
rary standards of social interaction and contribute to sustaining the
system of shared values within the ethnic community. Statements of
Roma intellectuals such as the one about feeling ‘foreign to myself’ indi-
cate that the minority representative continues to be situated within
the boundaries of this hybrid identity and keeps on questioning its
legitimacy.
Neither the in-group nor the out-group would obstruct or censure
such people’s aspiration to social mobility; it is more probable that both
communities would give an impetus to this kind of individual. However,
the native community provides constant feedback to those who have
left the mental boundaries of the group. In this respect, Tosen Ramar
said:
 Svetlana D. Hristova 165

[Roma] people become quite critical towards the skilful individuals

. . . This is legitimate, to some extent, because there are very few capa-
ble Roma people who actually take a great responsibility on their
shoulders because they are required to show all the Romany aspects
in a piece of work . . . The Roma are more critical towards community
intellectuals than the professional critics . . . OK, but I am a person!
As a journalist and as a creator I am able to express only a per-
sonal viewpoint seen through my own philosophy. For instance, if
I professed Buddhism, I would reflect the Roma lifestyle through
the lens of Buddhism . . . The [Roma] authors should be criticized in
their quality of creators and personalities, not because of their Roma
affiliation.
(Hristova, 2011, pp. 324–325)

The abovementioned professional quests point to the reason why eth-

nically mixed teams are the solution for achieving a good minority
programme that might have a social impact – such teams combine var-
ious viewpoints and missions, and thus they set greater requirements
for the practice of journalism. Recruiting a minority journalist in main-
stream media outlets would result in a new communication experience
and would question the further circulation of clichés (Husband and
Downing, 2005, pp. 178). The outcome of this effort would be a more
insightful coverage of community topics and a more precise approach
to delicate issues. A probable further stage of the progress of community
journalism could be the emergence of a feasible model of combining
community response, the topicality of the day and a moderate focus on
the target community.

Conclusion

This analysis of community programmes and a broader range of

intercultural programmes dealing with ethnic diversity in Bulgaria has
outlined a chronological alteration in the media image of the Roma
ethnic group – from a ‘defensive’ (with respect to the stereotypes pro-
liferated by the mainstream media) towards an ‘assertive Roma identity’
representation.
The study assesses the level of responsibility of Roma counterjour-
nalism in improving the representation of the marginalized group. The
research clarifies the role of the ethnically mixed teams in promoting
the mission of those programmes, which is to promote tolerance and
empathy towards ‘the other’ ethnicity. Minority journalists have been
assigned a difficult role – to address the expectations both of society at
166 News Production and Processing

large and of the community in the process of generating an unbiased

ethnic discourse that complies with the professional code of journalism.
The research indicates and discusses the major obstacles that Roma
journalists and their editorial teams have encountered in their attempts
to establish community media as a reliable source of information. These
impediments are largely related to the aspect of the professionalization
of human resources in media in general. Certain constraints have been
formulated in respect of the unhappy situation of Roma community
broadcasts in Bulgaria. There is a continuous doubt that such broadcasts
might win a loyal audience and achieve financial and technological sus-
tainability. There are a number of reasons for this doubt: the absence of
stable governmental incentives; unbalanced relationships with the host
media; a shortage of trained and experienced journalists of Roma ori-
gin; unsustainable funding for the regional community broadcasts; and
so on. These constraints are largely due to the lack of popularization of
discussion programmes devoted to community issues.

Appendix

Monitored radio and television broadcasts

Alternativa (Alternative) – radio AURA, Blagoevgrad, BNR – Radio Stara Zagora.

Zashto ne (Why Not) – Radio EXPRESS.
Merikle (Beans) – Radio 7 Dni
Most na doverieto (Bridge of Trust), S ednakav ritam (In the Same Rhythm) and
Ritamat na predgradiyata (The Rhythm of the Suburbs) on the BNR – Radio
Plovdiv and Radio Ritmo, Plovdiv.
Integral – Radio Bimako, Sliven.
Studio Roma – Radio Astra and Radio Mizia, Pleven.
Etnopalitra (Ethnic Palette) – TV Evrokom.
TV ROMA – Vidin.
Romany Lumia (The World of the Roma) – TV 7 DNI, Bulgarian National Televi-
sion (BNT). Yet, the show appears as a rubric within the ‘Small Stories’ project
of the BNT.
Zaedno (Together) – BNT.
Poznati i nepoznati (Known and Unknown) on the BNR – Hristo Botev Pro-
gramme, still existing.
Peroto e po–silno ot sabiata (The Pen Is Stronger Than the Sword) – Radio
Melodia, Silistra.

References
Bakalova, M. (2004) The Role of Roma Electronic Media for Integration of Roma in
Society. Sofia: Institut “Otvoreno obshtestvo”, 116–118.
 Svetlana D. Hristova 167

Barth, F. (1996) Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. In J. Hutchinson and A. D. Smith

(eds.) Ethnicity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 75–83.
Crocker, J. and Quinn, D. M. (2000) Social Stigma and the Self: Meanings, Situ-
ations, and Self-Esteem. In T. Heatherton, R. Kleck, M. Hebl and J. Hull (eds.)
The Social Psychology of Stigma. New York, NY: Guilford Press, 153–183.
Fraser, N. (1992) Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique
of Actually Existing Democracy. In C. Calhoun (ed.) Habermas and the Public
Sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 109–142.
Goffman, E. (1963) Information Control and Personal Identity. In E. Goffman
(ed.) Stigma, Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. London: Penguin,
57–150.
Hogg, M. and Abrams, D. (1998) Social Identification. A Social Psychology of
Intergroup Relations and Group Processes. London: Routledge, 21–27: 93–115, 199.
Hristova, S. D. (2011) Profile 5: Success for Roma Journalists. In N. Tilkidjiev,
V. Milenkova, T. Nedelcheva, S. D. Hristova, K. Petkova and N. Mileva (eds.)
Successful Roma. Sofia: Iztok-Zapad, 307–326.
Husband, C. (2005) Minority Ethnic Media as Communities of Practice: Profes-
sionalism and Identity Politics in Interaction. Journal of Ethnic and Migration
Studies, 31 (3): 461–480.
Husband, C. and Downing, J. (2005) Representing ‘Race’ – Racism, Ethnicities and
Media. London: Sage.
Jarymowicz, M. (1998) Self–We–Others Schemata and Social Identifications.
In S. Worchel, F. Moralez, D. Paez and J. C. Deschamps (eds.) Social Identity.
International Perspectives. London: Sage, 44–52.
Miller, C. T. and Major, B. (2000) Coping with Stigma and Prejudice. In T.
Heatherton, R. Kleck, M. Hebl and J. Hull (eds.) The Social Psychology of Stigma.
New York, NY: Guilford Press, 243–272.
Riggins, S. H. (1992) The Promise and the Limits of Ethnic Minority Media.
In S. H. Riggins (ed.) Ethnic Minority Media. USA: Sage, 276–287.
Part III
Reception and Consumption
11
Dispatches from the Dispersed:
Comparatively Analysing
Internet-Based Diasporic
Journalism within Zimbabwean
and Iranian Contexts
Donya Alinejad and Bruce Mutsvairo

Digital technologies are increasingly becoming part of the regular

practice of a range of political actors. New media communications
have helped politicians, activists and their organizations to dissemi-
nate political messages to their audiences and constituencies. Clarke’s
(2010) study of the political uses and implications of social media in
Canada supports this claim. While acknowledging social media’s poten-
tial, some, such as Bimber (2001), are sceptical about their ability to
politically mobilize citizens. Still others, such as Shulman (2005), even
go as far as suggesting that digital activism is largely characterized by
the ‘feel good factor’ for the activists rather than its notable political
involvement. Digital activism, a term that Joyce (2010) argues is itself
contested, has been dominating the communication studies discourse
thanks to palpable connections with political activism aided by new
media’s ubiquity. Concurrently, the spread of Internet communications
across geopolitical borders has brought the issue of diaspora participa-
tion in ‘homeland’ political affairs into sharp relief. New technologies
facilitate the expression of long-distance involvement in political devel-
opments in new ways (see Bernal, 2006; Chan, 2005). One of these
forms of involvement is through web-based diasporic journalism – a
phenomenon that has received relatively little scholarly attention.
This chapter presents a comparative case study of Zimbabwean and
Iranian diaspora web usage from London and Los Angeles, respectively.
These two geographically and culturally distinct contexts form the basis

171
172 Reception and Consumption

of our investigation into participatory journalism by diaspora-based

actors. This draws on extensive on-/offline ethnographic accounts in
each of the two cases, focusing on key diaspora journalists and their
work. Zimbabwe and Iran are nations where tight state control of media
has been dominant. Therefore news and information shared via the
Internet, and on social media platforms in particular, are filling the gaps
left by a lack of independent journalism. Diasporic members appear to
be in a unique position in relation to the state and its controls on jour-
nalism and technology, and therefore they play an interesting potential
role with regard to democratization and democratic participation in
these two repressive states. Hence the implications of this research have
much to reveal about the potentialities and limitations at the intersec-
tion between migration, technology, journalism and democratization
processes.
Democracy and media are inseparable, as has been documented by
several scholars (see Bhattacharyya and Hodler, 2012; Dutta, 2011;
Fog, 2004; Wahl-Jorgenson and Hanitzsch, 2009). Contemporary media
research has moved to focus more on the democratic potentiality of
participatory journalism (Carlson, 2007; Deuze et al., 2007; De Zuniga,
2009; Kaufhold et al., 2010). The emergence of new media platforms
is thus expectedly rejuvenating longstanding debate about the role of
media in democracy. Moreover, empirical research has credited social
media and participatory journalism, for example, with helping to free
up democratic space in several countries, including China (Reese and
Dai, 2009), the US (Kushin and Yamamoyo, 2010) and Burma (Pidduck,
2012). However, only a handful of studies have documented the demo-
cratic potentiality of content that is wholly produced and shared among
untrained media professionals in diasporic communities affiliated with
sub-Saharan Africa. And studies on the Middle East tend to focus on
Arab Spring countries, such as Egypt and Libya (Choudhary et al., 2012;
Gaworecki, 2011; Hall, 2012). This investigation uses a comparative case
study analysis of Zimbabwe and Iran to investigate the significance of
diasporic Internet media.
We critically apply a uses-and-gratifications approach that draws on
early, yet still influential, theorizations of the significant role of audi-
ences’ motives and drives in mass-media consumption (Kats et al., n.d.)
in order to understand diasporic Internet use in the two cases in ques-
tion. We treat this as a theoretical framework that also includes ‘active
audience’ theories that treat media as ‘text’ that is actively interpreted
by audiences. Indeed, an upsurge in research on the theoretical utility
of a uses-and-gratifications model has accompanied the rise of Internet
 Donya Alinejad and Bruce Mutsvairo 173

media in efforts to adapt this older model to the developing tech-

nologies (Ruggiero, 2000). The increasingly blurred boundary between
the producers and consumers of Internet content means that active
usage must be recognized. By focusing on uses and the needs that
they satisfy, we argue that the active uptake of the Internet towards
democratic participation by users is motivated as much by technolog-
ical access and capabilities as by the social and political circumstances
that users find themselves in, and the needs that arise as consequences
thereof.
Based on qualitative case studies of major diasporic web publications
focused on Iran and Zimbabwe, we argue that these websites afford
unique possibilities for diasporic storytelling. This study elaborates on
how web publishing takes on particular significance in the context of
diaspora engagement with ‘homeland’ contexts.

Background: Zimbabwe

The deep distrust and demoralizing disapproval among Africans of the

West’s entrenched media coverage of the continent has already been
exposed by several scholars (Fair, 1992; Maynard, 1974). Ebo took a step
further to openly suggest that Africa is depicted in the Western media
as ‘a crocodile-infested dark continent where jungle life has perpetually
eluded civilization’ (Ebo, 1992, p. 15). Evidence of systematic framing
on the part of the British press’ coverage of Zimbabwe has also been
uncovered by Willems (2005). For his part, Mazango has discovered that
the international press has had what he calls ‘a field day when it comes
to reporting Zimbabwe’, while a large section of South African newspa-
pers’ coverage of Zimbabwe ‘represents interests of capital and of White
middle class readers’ (Mazango, 2005, p. 44). Western media outlets
somehow find themselves criticized for unfairly covering a continent
that is historically associated with droughts, disease and despair. For
centuries, mass-media organizations in the West have enjoyed exclusive
access to reporting on Africa and the Middle East with both continents
needlessly becoming buffer zones for relatively inexperienced journalists
who wish to launch a career in the field. Major US and UK newspapers,
including the Guardian and Christian Science Monitor, have for years con-
ventionally engaged young journalists reporting from African hotspots,
for example. Globally, Africa has thus customarily been reported from a
Western perspective and frequently by people without prior cultural or
social knowhow of the continent’s norms and values, novice or expe-
rienced. Most importantly, previous scientific research has uncovered
174 Reception and Consumption

Western media bias in the coverage of Africa (see Chavis, 1998; Hawak,
1992; Machira, 2002).
The deep-seated unavailability of African-produced news in the West
is one factor that cannot be ignored in this analysis because it has greatly
contributed to the generalized view that Africa is unfairly represented in
the Western press. It is not by coincidence that African newspapers were
among the last to grace the World Wide Web. While French colonialists
were the first to establish a newspaper in Africa, dating back to 1773 in
Mauritius, South Africa’s Mail and Guardian only became the continent’s
first newspaper online in 1994. The deep-rooted dominance of Western
newspapers in the coverage of Africa has also meant that news reported
by Africans has not been taken seriously, both at home and abroad. Gen-
erally, African newspapers have failed to establish a good reputation as
genuine news providers. Much of this has, in the part of French Africa as
suggested by Frère (2011), been triggered by a lack of resources to train
journalists. A lopsided public sphere that is normally dominated by the
coverage of corruption and coups has not helped the situation either. For
their part, leading Western news agencies, including the Associated Press
and Reuters, have for many years employed African-born and African-
based journalists and stringers to write and report stories, but these are
then often edited in London and Washington to fit their standards and
expectations. Despite their largely dependable dedication to balanced
reporting, these agencies often cover Africa from a Western angle.
But things are intermittently changing. With several newspapers
forced to close shop, Zimbabwean journalists living in the diaspora
have taken to the Internet to openly critique government policies. A
few online newspapers, including New Zimbabwe and Zim Daily, have
emerged on the Internet offering what could arguably be considered
alternatives to offerings from the state-funded media outlets.
Yet the urgent desire for speedy information, which is an imperative
characteristic of news in the digital age, is also triggering an uncon-
scionable amount of misinformation. While Wikipedia, for example, was
among the first to correctly report the death of Zimbabwean soccer
legend Adam Ndlovu in December 2012, a few days earlier the freely
available online encyclopaedia had erroneously reported the death of
the country’s now late vice president, John Nkomo. Thus while the
citizens’ power of participation profoundly profits from participatory
journalism’s agility and pace, thanks to the Zimbabwean citizenry par-
ticipation from countries as far away as the UK, New Zealand, the US and
Australia, one has also to accept criticism from those who argue that
untrained citizens cannot be trusted harbingers of reliable and accurate
 Donya Alinejad and Bruce Mutsvairo 175

reporting (see Lenhart and Fox, 2006; Power, 2006; Reese et al., 2007).
Content analysis by Lacy et al. (2010) confirmed researchers’ doubts that
blogs can be seen as long-term alternatives to daily newspaper content.
However, for Zimbabweans long-starved of news alternatives to state-
sponsored material, the availability of Internet sites is proving to be a
godsend in spite of the problems that come along with it, including, as
noted, ethical concerns associated with the accuracy of the content.

Background: Iran

The role of Iranian bloggers has received a great deal of scholarly and
journalistic attention since its beginnings in the early 2000s and the
rise of ‘blogistan’. Scholarly work on the Internet has typically focused
on the potential of bloggers in waging social, cultural and political dis-
sent, for challenging Iran’s Islamic regime, and providing the tools for
‘cyber-dissidence’ with democratizing inclinations (see Batouli, 2004,
2011; Rahimi, 2003). It has also been argued that blogging and Internet
technologies have unique potential for free expression of users in this
repressive context, especially for marginalized groups, such as women
and youth (Amir-Ebrahimi, 2004). The socially transformative effects of
blogging for those in Iran and the diaspora have been discussed in terms
of the blurring of boundaries between public and private spaces (Amir-
Ebrahimi, 2004; Alexanian, 2011; Graham and Khosravi, 1997) and the
constitution of emergent speech genres (Doostdar, 2004). Recent study
of post-2009 elections in Iran reiterated the role of the Internet as cre-
ating ‘cyberspaces of protest’ with the rise of social media, as well as
highlighting the role of surveillance, propaganda and other elements of
‘authoritarian rule’ (Rahimi, 2011).
Nevertheless, the adoption of blogging tools by members of the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps1 and conservative bloggers, and
Iran’s plans for launching the ‘halal Internet’,2 suggest that rather
than only censorship, surveillance and harming of dissident Internet
users, the overall Iranian policy on Internet control seems to reflect
the Islamic Republic’s wider pragmatic and adaptive stance on societal
controls – that is, the enforcement of Islamic morality that is evident
in Iranian public policy rather than a static or doctrinaire response to
Internet technologies. Yet despite television broadcasts remaining the
most important source of information for Iranians (according to an
Annenberg School of Media report from 2011 to 2012),3 rights advo-
cacy around Internet controls in Iran often overshadows attention for
controls on satellite television. And despite print journalism being a
176 Reception and Consumption

key public space in recent elections because of the lack of a system

of independent political parties (Khiabany and Sreberny, 2010), inter-
national policy oriented towards the Internet’s democratic potential
tends to decontextualize it from the historical role of print journalism
in Iranian democracy. The attention focused on the Internet’s unique
potentials in Iranian society may be attributed to specific targeting
of bloggers both formally through legislation and indirectly due to
their political activities,4 together with the fact that the penetration
rate of the Internet in Iran is significantly higher than in neighbour-
ing countries in the region (second only to Israel).5 However, some of
the international attention paid to the Internet may also have to do
with dominant narratives about the assumed democratizing powers of
Internet communications technologies.
In the Iranian diaspora, Persian language blogs are the most closely
linked to discussion spaces sustained via blogs inside Iran (Kelly and
Etling, 2008). And the mobility of many bloggers between Iran and
various Western European and North American countries shows the
geographic spread of Persian language blogs, as several high-profile
Iranian political bloggers in Iran have recently become part of the large
Iranian diaspora (Sreberny and Khiabany, 2010). There is a relative lack
of involvement in formal Iranian politics, which is thought to have
divisive and exclusive effects that are reflected in diaspora website net-
works (van den Bos, 2006). Instead, a personal politics built around
discussing often-eschewed or taboo topics concerning sexuality, for
instance, and partaking in confessional writing has been documented
in the Iranian diaspora (Alexanian, 2011). The repressive political cir-
cumstances within the Islamic Republic give politicized meanings to,
and motivate, confessional and personal writing and writing by women
(Khiabany and Sreberny, 2007). A smaller number of websites and blogs
by diaspora actors are in English. Despite their relatively small number,
such sites have the particular potential to help diaspora actors to play a
significant transnational role, as the case of the English-language news
site, Tehran Bureau (TB), presented later in this chapter, illustrates.

Zimbabwe: Narratives from the Internet

New Zimbabwe has for several years been led by Mduduzi Mathuthu,
a former journalist with the Daily News newspaper, which is consid-
ered to be the country’s first independent daily. He has since returned
to Zimbabwe, where he has taken an editorship position with a state
media outlet. New Zimbabwe under Mathuthu’s leadership broke taboos
 Donya Alinejad and Bruce Mutsvairo 177

by offering readers an electronic podium to discuss issues – not only

political but on thorny subjects, such as tribalism, a topic that very
few would openly discuss in Zimbabwe. The publication has thrown
the issue into the public domain, allowing hate messages and responses
to thrive. In so doing, the online newspaper for right or wrong reasons
is offering a new alternative discourse, challenging the status quo by
allowing topics that cannot be discussed face to face in conservative
Zimbabwe to dominate news forum deliberations.
Thus the uses-and-gratifications model is central to articulating posi-
tions and perspectives of Zimbabwean net activists. The theory, it can
be argued, best illustrates new media’s potential in terms of media–
audience dynamics in relation to Zimbabwe and Iran. Contrary to the
widely acknowledged viewpoint that mass media have enormous influ-
ence on the real-time personal choices made by supposedly passive
audiences, the theory suggests rather that the audiences are knowledge-
able and resourceful enough to choose a medium that meets their social
or psychological needs. Audiences are thus not passive. They seek the
media that best fit their desires. One key observation that would sup-
port the theory is the fact that in most cases the people who provide
comments to online news posted on New Zimbabwe are stunningly the
same. Readers, including Jukwa, Mai Jukwa, ELMAA_SABUDO, Landilani
and Paidamoyo, are native to the site, continuously providing comments
on stories and inescapably taking political stances. It is quite clear that
these readers feel at home when they visit the site based on the amount
of comments that they post there. Surely there are several other sites
from where they can critique Zimbabwean news (and they probably visit
those too), but it seems as if they use New Zimbabwe as their base.
Readers use the site as a political public sphere. Jukwa and Mai
Jukwa, for instance, are notoriously pro-Mugabe, while views from
Somerset Masikati and Chatunga are nominally slanted towards Morgan
Tsvangirai, a longtime Mugabe critic. A story entitled ‘Mugabe,
Tsvangirai the Same: Madhuku’ on 21 March 2013 attracted 71 com-
ments, with Somerset Masikati getting over 30 ‘likes’ for suggesting that
Madhuku was not qualified to call Tsvangirai a dictator since he had
refused to relinquish power as head of the National Constitutional
Assembly. New Zimbabwe’s prominence can once again be seen through
the number of readers who post comments to stories. Politically slanted
items attract much of the readership, as shown by the large number of
reader’s comments. On average, political stories, especially those con-
cerned with elections or human rights, prompt as many as 90 citizen
comments on average. The story entitled ‘Defiant Mtetwa Says Won’t
178 Reception and Consumption

Be Cowed’ on 25 March 2013 got the attention of 85 readers, who posted

critical comments focusing on the human rights lawyer’s rebellious posi-
tion against the state. Matsororo said: ‘Mtetwa is right cowards will die a
thousand deaths. You have to fight for what you believe in. GO, go, go
you are the Man’ had the largest number of likes – 23. Opinion is cer-
tainly divided on this issue. Nkoko365, commenting on the same story,
had six likes and six dislikes for a comment, which included: ‘I am so
incensed at somebody trying to play law-breaker, accused, complainant,
judge, jury and messiah. Over my dead body. a price will be paid . . . a
big one too for that.’ While the story was originally from the Associated
Press, the US news agency, it is attracting unprecedented interest from
readers, who comment and critique on reported issues. This, in turn, is
redefining journalism, which traditionally does not offer a platform for
feedback from the audience.
It can therefore be argued that several contributors to New Zimbabwe
feel safe to contribute since they can do so anonymously. It would
otherwise be unthinkable for several Zimbabweans to openly criticize
President Mugabe. Yet, on this site, several of the contributors openly
attack Mugabe. Contributors, who are likely to be Zimbabweans, criti-
cized him roundly, with some calling for his resignation, even though,
notably, there are plenty of contributors who support Mugabe. Thus
Zimbabweans feel comfortable about mocking and criticizing their pres-
ident digitally. In spite of this ‘digital progress’, we should question
whether such actions are practically emancipatory. Do they aid democ-
racy in Zimbabwe and if so in what form? The 90-year-old Mugabe
remains at the helm and shows no signs of retiring.

Iran’s first ‘virtual bureau’

TB plays a unique part in the changing Iranian diaspora media land-

scape, having carved a distinct role for English-language journalism
about Iran. Using the Internet to set up a ‘virtual bureau’, TB’s founder
and editor in chief, Golnoush Niknejad, has gained much attention,
including that of other journalistic institutions and the site’s broad,
international readership. Early on, TB had its stories picked up by vari-
ous publications, such as The Nation, and by the BBC, it was quoted by
numerous established papers, and it was later hosted by Frontline PBS
and then the UK’s Guardian newspaper. According to Golnoush, the site
averaged 200,000 hits a month in 2011.
The site combines elements of conventional journalism with features
that have only much more recently become accepted in journalism as
 Donya Alinejad and Bruce Mutsvairo 179

a result of the rise of the Internet in publishing. The following is how

Golnoush described the role of the Internet in the style of journalism
that TB does, especially what it did early on when funding was tight:

[The] Internet has changed the rules of the game. Things you weren’t
allowed to do as a journalist before you can do now because of it.
Personal storytelling has been a trend anyway. But now we see how
it has intersected with the whole blog thing . . . It helps humanize the
story. If we had the resources to do more objective reporting we would
do more of that, but we can’t, we don’t have money right now. But
we do have our personal stories. And I like a lot of what we have. It’s
very honest.

Despite this personal style, Golnoush emphasized that from early on –

when the site was first technically started as a blog – a lot of journal-
ism went into TB, rather than it being about blog entries or essays.
Stressing the importance of journalistic form and referring to the inter-
national audiences that TB attracts and convinces, Golnoush said that
the site represented the first time that Iranians were ‘speaking and
doing our journalism in a language that other people understand and
trust’. English-language websites have provided an alternative to Los
Angeles-based exile satellite television broadcasting that is in the Persian
language and often oriented towards the ideological idioms of prerev-
olutionary Iran. I will not go into this significant diaspora television
genre here, but for a comprehensive study of these television channels
before Internet’s significant rise see Naficy’s work (1993). This addition
of online Iranian spaces first happened most notably with the success of
the site, Iranian.com.
It is interesting that Golnoush and the founder of Iranian.com,
Janahsha Javid, expressed the same goal when starting out: creating
an Iranian version of the New Yorker. On the role of Iranian.com, Mark
LeVine (2012) remarks that the diaspora site created a ‘bridge’ between
those of the same generation inside and outside Iran through the use of
the Internet.
Nevertheless, while gaining a great deal of popularity among Iranians
and becoming something of a hub for many in the diaspora, Iranian.com
did not achieve much of a crossover into mainstream media recogni-
tion. It remains oriented towards opinion, discussion and literary and
taboo-breaking content among the diaspora. The divergent standpoints
represented produce a cacophony of perspectives, with little central
editorial oversight. In contrast, TB’s editorial vision has been focused
180 Reception and Consumption

on journalistic production with particular goals rather than being an

open platform. It seemed to build a bridge further. In 2009 TB played
a key role in conveying and translating the tumult around the 2009
presidential election for English-language audiences. Around this time,
high-profile cases of returning Iranian diaspora journalists from North
America who had been held in Iran on charges of espionage6 showed
both the vulnerability and the importance of skilled diaspora corre-
spondents. TB combined correspondents with an orientation towards
broader US and international publics, as Golnoush expressed the spe-
cific desire to influence US policy debate about Iran. This diasporic
web journalism sought to shape conversations about Iran by using its
transnational positioning.
TB’s success hinged on it addressing certain needs at a crucial time –
namely, the need for Iranian immigrants to be heard in the US, and
for Iran to be covered with journalistic integrity, intimacy and depth.
TB was meant to address the problem that, according to Golnoush,
the established English-language US news media ‘didn’t care about’
the significant diaspora population of Iranians in their city (or coun-
try). Another motive was that dominant US narratives about Iran, the
Islamic Republic and Iran’s religious leadership tend to be extremely
negative in a context where media representations of Iranians, Middle
Easterners and Muslims in both news and entertainment have formed
stereotypes of danger and terrorism that exert ‘traumatising’ effects on
the lives of diaspora Iranians (Keshishian, 2000).7 After experiences
with working for mainstream press publications, Golnoush realized
that there was little or no space for nuanced and humanizing stories
about Iran and Iranians. TB used the Internet and the professional
expertise/training/vision and transnational cultural backgrounds of key
diaspora actors such as Golnoush to straddle both the US media and
foreign policy world, and the Iranian political context.

Comparative analysis

In both cases there seems to be considerable interrelation between the

ballot, the barricade and the blog. In other words, the political sphere
generated by the use of the Internet is inextricably embedded within
the environment for civil society actors, activists and organizers, as well
as the systems of parliamentary representation and leadership in place.
Rather than instigating or fuelling a new or separate process of democ-
ratization, digital journalism works in conjunction with developments
in civil society and social movements as well as electoral politics as they
 Donya Alinejad and Bruce Mutsvairo 181

help to create pockets of resistance to everyday social, political and legal

repression.
Commonplace narratives about the democratizing role of the Inter-
net under repressive regimes circulate in both of these cases. However,
such dominant narratives do not seem to capture the intricacies of the
particular situations in these countries, and they ignore the issues that
play out in diaspora countries of settlement. The Internet becomes an
important means for news to reach from these countries to their respec-
tive diaspora populations, and storytelling is an important motivation;
telling one’s own story as a counternarrative to mainstream media rep-
resentations of Zimbabwe/Africa and Iran/Middle East is a driving force
behind media producers’ actions.
The different audiences and purposes of the sites discussed in each
case serve to show that diaspora digital news production is multifari-
ous, without one single agenda or goal. In part, these sites offer spaces
for authors and editors to express views and share information that
would be more difficult to disseminate from inside the countries that
they have migrated from. In this way they contribute to open dis-
cussion and public participation through digital means in modes that
include and target audiences inside Zimbabwe and Iran. They facilitate
diaspora audiences’ connection to events inside their countries of ori-
gin in a regular, consistent and up-to-date way. Hence they serve as
self-styled centralized nodes or authorities that, despite their possible
political leanings, seek to present an inclusive picture of events with-
out the intent to promote a single viewpoint or ideological position.
Their heterogeneity is a feature of their participatory, interactive and
aggregative styles.
In addition to this, these diaspora media producers are faced with new
issues in the country of settlement that relate to their particular situa-
tion there. Therefore the coverage that these sites offer also becomes
geared towards the domestic issues in London and the US, respectively,
that impact upon their diaspora populations – issues such as immi-
gration regulation and Western foreign policy. This also signals how
the diaspora population becomes increasingly engaged in the political
systems where they have settled.
One striking difference between the two cases is language. The
language barrier between Farsi- and English-language audiences exac-
erbates the distance between the news contexts inside and outside
Iran, thus enhancing the role of those living transnational lives in-
between diaspora and ‘home’. The more prevalent use of English
in the Zimbabwean context and its diaspora means more fluid
182 Reception and Consumption

communications and access to key sites and blogs inside Zimbabwe by

broader audiences outside the country. Another difference is the migra-
tional generation of those starting up the sites. The case of Iranian
immigrants in the US spans decades and generations, and shows signs
of change in journalistic style from satellite and radio, to earlier sites,
such as Iranian.com, to the most recent example of TB. It is likely that
if and when the Zimbabwean community in London – and the UK
more broadly – grows in size, influence and coordination, the styles and
content of web news will also change.
A uses-and-gratifications model that highlights audience needs and
motives goes a long way in explaining how the Internet is taken
up in these diaspora contexts towards ends of self-representation and
collective participation. The particular circumstances of each case are
reflected in the specific uses that Internet publishing is put to. How-
ever, this framework omits the propensities that these websites bring,
which attract this use while also shaping it – for instance, through affor-
dances of transnational connections, low-cost publishing and multiple-
user/interactive commenting.

Conclusion

This chapter shows the potential of the Internet for diaspora journal-
ists as contributors to civil society of their ‘home’ countries as well as
their respective degrees of entrenchment in ‘host’ societies. It suggests
that the power of the Internet as a driving force for democracy tends to
be exaggerated in both scholarship and media coverage. The qualities
of websites emerge depending on how they are put to use in idiosyn-
cratic projects that adhere to the needs and motives of diaspora actors
in the respective contexts. And the socially, culturally and politically
specific circumstances of the cases analyzed shape these uses oriented
towards democratic change within countries of ‘origin’. This dynamic is
explained well by a uses-and-gratifications approach. Nonetheless, the
model is less adept at encompassing how users are drawn to and influ-
enced by certain affordances of using websites such as those mentioned
for diasporic journalistic engagement.

Notes
1. The spectacular launch of a reported 10,000 blogs by the Islamic Revo-
lutionary Guard Corps emerged in the aftermath of the 2009 uprising in
Iran.
 Donya Alinejad and Bruce Mutsvairo 183

2. Iran’s ‘Halal Internet’ (or nationally delimited Iranian intranet) was

announced at various points during Ahmadinejad’s administration (2005–
2013).
3. The Iran Media Program’s 2011–2012 report on media consumption in Iran by
the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania,
http://www.global.asc.upenn.edu/fileLibrary/PDFs/FindingaWay.pdf.
4. For an elaborate and relatively recent account of the controls on Internet
media in Iran by government authorities, see the report ‘Ctrl+Alt+Delete:
Iran’s response to the Internet’, released after the elections in 2009 by the
Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.
5. The regional prevalence of Internet usage in Iran is often associated with the
youth population; the majority of Iran’s population is below the age of 35.
Iran was also the first Muslim country in the Middle East to provide access
to the Internet. Babak Rahimi, ‘The Politics of the Internet in Iran’, in Media,
Culture, and Society in Iran: Living with Globalization and the Islamic State, 37–38
(Mehdi Semati, ed., 2008).
6. Roxana Saberi, an Iranian American journalist, has been a contributor to
National Public Radio, the BBC and other outlets, and was arrested before
the 2009 elections and imprisoned for a duration of approximately five
months on charges of espionage (released in the run-up to the elections)
before going on hunger strike and garnering a great deal of international
support and pressure on the Iranian government. Maziar Bahari, an Iranian
American reporter for Newsweek, was also detained after the elections dur-
ing his visit to Iran in 2009. He was held in solitary confinement, tortured,
interrogated and forced to give a false confession before being released
after approximately four months. He was also held on (multiple) charges of
espionage.
7. In recent years, issues of racialization and discrimination against Iranians
have received increasing attention in scholarship across disciplines (see Farnia,
2011; Mostofi, 2009; Tehranian, 2008).

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12
Contested Place and Truth-Work:
Investigating News Reception and
Diasporic Sense of Place among
British Jews
Eyal Lavi

This chapter is constructed around two lines of argument. One is that

engagement with the truth-status of news, a collection of practices that
I call ‘truth-work’, is an act of diasporic place-making and orientation
to place. The second is that better attention should be paid to the his-
torical and geographical specificities of diasporic groups, both between
and within diasporas. I bring these lines of argument together by show-
ing that truth-work arises and is shaped by the particular characteristics
of the group studied here – Jews in the UK. Based on in-depth double
interviews and a media diary exercise with 30 British- and Israeli-born
secular adults residing in London, this chapter takes a phenomenolog-
ical approach in which media are considered part of everyday physical
and symbolic environments. They are therefore integral to the experi-
ence of place and are resources for making sense of spatial positioning.
Although not new in media studies, this approach is still outside the
mainstream of media research. One of the challenges that it presents
is balancing empirical specificity against the abstract and universalist
tendencies of philosophy (Couldry and Markham, 2008; Moores, 2006).
I therefore discuss some of the specific features of the group studied and
how these bring about and shape truth-work. The main section describes
some of the practices of truth-work itself.

Media and place-making

The idea that media are involved in spatial positioning requires

elaboration – after all, many have argued that media transcend place

187
188 Reception and Consumption

or destroy the uniqueness of place (Augé, 1995; McLuhan, 1987;

Meyrowitz, 1985) or that they are invisible (Deuz, 2011). My argument
that media are involved in the construction of place draws on phe-
nomenologies of media and place that have been influenced by Merleau-
Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. He argues that the self is always
already implicated with spaces and other bodies: ‘we are through and
through compounded of relationships to the world’ (Merleau-Ponty,
2002, p. xiv). Through experiments, he shows that these relationships
are rooted in perception, a phenomenon that can be reduced to neither
mental processes nor instinct. Perception is not a property of the body
but its mode of being in the world, so it cannot be separated from its
corporeality – the body is one’s ‘point of view on the world’ (Merleau-
Ponty, 2002, p. 81), a perspective that is intentional, relational and
always incorporating reflexive and unreflexive, cognitive and precog-
nitive elements. Perception occurs between the subject and the world,
and is therefore inflected by prior experience. The world is meaningful
because the perceiving subject makes it so, and this applies even to the
fundamental perception of space: ‘there can be a direction only for a
subject who takes it’ (Merleau-Ponty, 2002, p. 288). This applies beyond
sense perception: for example, the social world does not reside outside
consciousness but is a constitutive precondition of a consciousness that
recognizes others as embodied agents. Habit is a fundamental grounding
of agency: it does not act on the subject but constitutes its being-in-the-
world as a perceiving self: ‘[habits] root us in the world, providing the
necessary background of meaning and preference which makes choice
possible . . . any meaningful conception of human choice must presup-
pose the habitual schemas which function to make our word meaningful
to us and afford a grasp on upon it’ (Crossley, 2001, pp. 134, 136).1
These ideas have been taken up by humanist geographers. Unlike cog-
nitive approaches, which analyzed the experience of place in terms of
mental processing and ‘cognitive maps’ (Lynch, 1960; Neisser, 1976),
they sought to account for the physical environment as part of our
knowledge of the world prior to reflective thought, a result of being
‘thrown’ into the world (Heidegger, 1962). Here, practical knowledge
through habit is central to place-making: space becomes place through
meaningful human action, especially routines that transform natural
and man-made spaces into places (Tuan, 1977, p. 79). Seamon (1979,
1980) describes this process of place-making as the acquisition of habit-
ual movements in relation to the built environment and to other
people. Through the repeated, collaborative performances of individual
instances of body routines (Seamon, 1979), a sense of place emerges.
 Eyal Lavi 189

These ‘body ballets’ commingle to create ‘place ballet’ – ‘an interac-

tion of time-space routines and body routines rooted in space, which
becomes an important place of interpersonal and communal exchanges,
actions, and meanings’ (Seamon, 2006). Routine is also crucial for trans-
forming domestic spaces into homes, even if this is an ambivalent
feature of everyday life (Highmore, 2004; Jacobson, 2009).
Phenomenologists and humanist geographers have generally been
suspicious of mass media: Heidegger is at best ambivalent about the
effect of radio on our sense of place (Heidegger, 1971) and Relph aligns
mediation with ‘inauthentic’ place (Relph, 1976, p. 64). So although
media are embedded into everyday routines, they are often absent from
studies that seek to understand the role of these routines in place-
making (Moores, 2006). In contrast, media scholars have been open
to the possibility that mass media complicate, rather than erode, the
experience of place. Scannell (1996) famously argued that broadcasting
‘doubles’ space, but instead of ‘doubling’, which relies on a distinc-
tion between bodily inhabited space and mediated space, media can
be understood to ‘pluralise’ space (Moores, 2004) or multiply spatial
connections (Couldry and McCarthy, 2004, p. 30).
This requires adopting ‘a more differentiated view of the varieties
and tensions at work’ within media phenomenologies (Couldry and
Markham, 2008, p. 5). So, for example, Robins and Aksoy abandon
social categories such as ‘imagined communities’, which they consider
to be totalizing, in favour of ‘experience’ and ‘mental space’ (Aksoy
and Robins, 2003b; Robins, 2001; Robins and Aksoy, 2001, 2006). They
reveal an ambivalence in the experience of diasporic media – namely,
that consuming television from Turkey involves dynamics of distance
and proximity, familiarity and estrangement. In contrast with Scannell’s
claims, television from Turkey does not simply double space for immi-
grants by connecting them to Turkey, but rather it becomes a part
of what it means to be immigrants in the UK. Similarly, Moores and
Metykova (2009, 2010) show that because media technologies consti-
tute part of the everyday material environment, they cannot be said to
have inherent effects on the construction of place – it is possible to feel
both inside and outside with media.
From this perspective, then, media are intimately involved in shap-
ing the everyday experience of place, forming part of the ‘mass without
gaps’ that constitutes the perceptible world (Merleau-Ponty, 1964, p. 15).
But is it possible to identify specific mechanisms through which media
do this? I suggest that news participates in the construction of place not
merely as a shared synchronized activity (Anderson, 1991; Bausinger,
190 Reception and Consumption

1984; Scannell, 1996; Silverstone, 1994) but also – and perhaps more
significantly in an era of on-demand media – as a habitual working-out
of spatial positioning. First, however, we need to ‘socialise’ phenomenol-
ogy (Moores, 2006) by considering the particular circumstances in
which this truth-work occurs.

Jews in the UK

The Jewish diaspora is often considered paradigmatic, but this can be

an oversimplification. There is something tautological about defining
diaspora in terms of ‘homeland orientation’ (Brubaker, 2005) and then
‘reading back’ this relationship to distant place from people’s media
practices. This is particularly problematic with Jews, whose identities
have always been about more than ‘homeland’, a trend that may be
resurgent (Aviv and Shneer, 2005). In the context of contemporary
diaspora, this problem assumes the form of ‘methodological nation-
alism’ (Beck, 2002; Chernilo, 2007): once ‘homeland’ is equated with
the nation-state, diasporic subjects are seen as primarily national sub-
jects. Thus the relationship between Jews and Israel is viewed through
the prism of Zionism, but to equate the nation-state of Israel with the
religious idea of Zion is anachronistic and adopts the Zionist claim
that Jewish life can only flourish in Israel, a claim that British Jewry
generally rejected (Endelman, 2002). Further, reducing Jews to their
relationship to Israel (and reducing media to sustaining this relation-
ship) ignores the plurality of positions within diaspora. For many Jews,
the relationship to Israel is based not on territory but on peoplehood,
with attachments more complicated than commonly assumed (Habib,
2004, p. 265). Viewing diasporic Jews through the lens of homeland also
underplays the dynamism and contingency of this relationship. It was
not until 1967 that Israel became central to a secular British-Jewish
identity (Endelman, 2002, p. 238), and even later it can be argued that
‘Israelism’, rather than Zionism, better describes Jews’ attitudes to Israel
(Shindler, 2007, pp. 232–233). Recent years have seen increased ambiva-
lence and fragmentation of opinion (Endelman, 2002; Kahn-Harris and
Gidley, 2010), and the Jewish establishment is now likely to be attacked
from within for its unconditional support for Israel (Beinart, 2010).
Partly in response, Israeli and Jewish institutions foster a British-Jewish
identity that relies less on religion or ideology and more on direct expe-
rience of Israel – 95% of British Jews visited Israel (Graham and Boyd,
2010). But there is more at stake in news from Israel than identity. Per-
ceived and real threats to Israel’s security cause anxiety over relatives in
 Eyal Lavi 191

Israel, and events there directly affect a sense of personal safety, with
reason: antisemitic incidents in the UK correlate with events there (CST,
2010). Discourses of security also dominate communal Jewish politics in
the UK, with the result that Israel both unites and divides (Graham and
Boyd, 2010). News from Israel is therefore consumed in the context of
‘ethnic tourism’ (Mittelberg, 2007) and a varied, dynamic and contested
relationship to ‘homeland’.
Another distinguishing feature of British Jews is their integration into
mainstream UK life. For a century, Jewish life was dominated by a
policy of assimilation that accelerated processes of secularization and
suburbanization. British Jews have above-average rates of education,
home ownership and employment (ONS, 2006), and this is reflected in
their media consumption: unlike other ethnic minorities, who watch
less public service broadcasting (Ofcom, 2007), interviewees reported
consuming BBC outlets more than any other broadcaster (confirm-
ing Ofcom’s finding that demographics, more than ethnicity, shape
ethnic minorities’ media use). They resemble other ethnic minorities
in having higher than average rates of media literacy (Ofcom, 2008).
This, along with the small size of this group – 260,000 in the lat-
est census – helps to explain the lack of specifically diasporic media.
With the exception of the weekly Jewish Chronicle, British Jews rely
heavily on mainstream British news for information about Israel, fur-
ther complicating their relationship to ‘homeland’. They are something
of an edge case of diaspora: a relatively small and affluent minor-
ity, Jews are well integrated into UK society and their media habits
resemble those of the general population. These particular histories and
demographics give rise to truth-work and shape it. Israel is central to
Jewish life in the UK, but it also raises strong opinions and emotions.
It is a country that is often heavily criticized in the UK media, in
which respondents nevertheless ‘dwell’ (Moores and Metykova, 2009,
2010).
These tensions are compounded by a clash between contradictory
motivations: to remain informed about Israel and, at the same time, to
critically distance themselves from this information. Well-educated and
accustomed to assessing information critically, participants consume
information from multiple outlets using various technologies. Inte-
grated into UK society, they are exposed to ‘outsider’ accounts of Israel,
and many experienced media institutions and professionals directly.
Aside from ‘simple’ habitual consumption, they have a sense of moral
obligation to be an ‘informed citizen’, but their self-worth is linked to
simultaneously critically distancing themselves from news. Truth-work
192 Reception and Consumption

is a product of these opposing forces. Before I discuss this further, I want

to expand on these two contradictory motivations.
Cultural capital can be described as ‘informational capital, to give the
notion its full generality’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992, p. 119). Infor-
mation is central to social positioning beyond the specific field in which
positioning takes place (ibid.). Middle-class media consumers possess
high levels of cultural (informational) capital, and, accordingly, having
knowledge of current affairs is a mark of distinction. A strong theme in
participants’ talk was self-improvement through acquiring knowledge
and participating in the public sphere as responsible citizens. This moral
dimension of news consumption was apparent when respondents were
asked to reflect on their media diaries: despite demonstrating extensive
knowledge of current affairs and making sophisticated analyses, a com-
mon response was that they had not taken interest in a wide enough
range of topics. Staying informed, then, is seen as a social and per-
sonal ‘duty’, even if people are ambivalent about the utility of such
information (Hagen, 1997).
At the same time, participants emphasized their agency and critical
distance. Commonly, this took the form of media mistrust, which was
not limited to the reporting of Israel.2 Interviewees employed a range
of strategies to deal with this indeterminacy of knowledge – strategies
that involved wresting power back from media but also working within
the limits of their dependency on media. I call this range of strategies
‘truth-work’, and I see it as an active, if constrained, process that takes
place within and between individuals in relation to mediated knowl-
edge of place. Negotiating truthfulness is a form of spatial positioning: it
involves investing and repairing trust, and due to the nature of trust this
work must rely on, and employ, non-mediated elements. Philosophi-
cally, this argument draws on Heidegger’s idea that truth always involves
concealment and untruth, and that it is an infinite task: truth demands
from man that ‘apart from operating within the realm of the true and
the false, he also relates himself to the fact that he is related to such
a realm, that “there is” such a realm and that his dependence on such
“there is” . . . says something about his own Being’ (Visker, 1999, p. 80).
More concretely, truth-work can be understood through the relationship
between truth, trust and distance.

Practices of truth-work

Truth and trust are implicated, as the etymology shows (Skeat, 1911).
Like trust, truth underpins social interaction: the concept of truth
 Eyal Lavi 193

is universal (Williams, 2002, p. 61), and without a commitment to

truthfulness, all communication is noise (Silverstone, 2007, p. 159).
Also, like trust, there is an inherent ambivalence in truth, namely that
the more committed we are to truthfulness, the more we suspect the
notion of truth itself (Williams, 2002, p. 1). Williams interrogates this
paradox by identifying accuracy and sincerity as the two virtues of
truthfulness. While the concept of truth itself is geographically and
temporally constant, practices of accuracy and sincerity are culturally
and historically specific. Sincerity is strongly tied to trustworthiness,
but truth involves not only conditions of trust but also the ‘inves-
tigative investment’ undertaken in those conditions (Williams, 2002,
p. 124). Williams emphasizes the contingent nature of investigative
investment: the ‘appropriate ways of acquiring beliefs will depend on
the subject matter’ (ibid, p. 133), and external obstacles for finding out
the truth often ally with internal obstacles, such as desires and beliefs
(ibid, p. 134). Truth emerges out of the unequal power relations that
are inherent in trust, but unlike Foucault’s power/knowledge nexus,
where truth is wholly constrained by power (Foucault and Gordon,
1980, p. 131), truth here is a necessary project of the self which also
involves agency and identity (Carolan and Bell, 2003). Truth emerges
out of habitual practices that include constructing and narrating one’s
life story (Holstein and Gubrium, 2000; Ricoeur, 1984), and these
practices involve investigating and trusting news reports and media
institutions.
Trust is also a way of managing distance (Silverstone, 2007, p. 123).
Distance between person and place is lived, as well as physical: like all
other spatial relations, distance ‘exists only for a subject who synthe-
sizes it and embraces it in thought’ (Merleau-Ponty, 2002, p. 297).3 Trust
is central to lived distance: emerging in conditions of absence in space, it
involves confidence in the reliability of person or system, making ‘trust
relations . . . basic to the extended time-space distanciation associated
with modernity’ (Giddens, 1990, p. 87). Trust is the mechanism through
which social relations are stretched in space and managed in the every-
day, but trust relations are inherently ambivalent (Giddens, 1990, p. 89;
Silverstone, 2007, p. 124). One of the consequences of this ambivalence
is that while trust is a form of proximity, mistrust does not equate to dis-
tance. In the case of abstract systems such as the media, which involve
a ‘generalised set of relations to the social and physical environment’,
the opposite of trust is not mistrust but anxiety (Giddens, 1990, p. 100).
On this basis we can expect media mistrust to lead not to a distancing
from Israel or withdrawal from news, but to disorientation and ‘repair’
194 Reception and Consumption

work. If distance is understood ‘in terms of the situation of the object

in relation to our power of grasping it’ (Merleau-Ponty, 2002, p. 305),
truth-work is a way of grasping place, and therefore of negotiating dis-
tance. This set of relations between truth, trust and distance underlies
truth-work as reported by participants.
Truth-work practices reported by respondents included textual, inter-
textual and extratextual activities. Underpinning truth-work is an
awareness among respondents of the constructedness of news. Com-
parisons between media representations of the world and first-hand
knowledge are frequent and they often leave a lasting impression.
Here is Joan (all names were changed), a semiretired administrator in
her 60s:

Years and years and years ago when we first had satellite for the first
time we picked up Algerian TV and they had blond news readers.
I mean, come on!!! This is Algeria! Look at you! Don’t look like a
Swede, which is what they looked like.

Joan told this as an example of media’s failure to reflect the (national)

place where they originate, but it is also a story of a place that had
been inaccessible to her, entered her life through media and confounded
her expectations of that place. Put differently, her habitual expectations
were not met, which required work to incorporate this new knowledge.
Work in this case led to classifying this information as untrue, which
was further evidence of media’s untrustworthiness.
While truth-work in this case employed general knowledge of the
world, other respondents drew on their knowledge of media organiza-
tions and news production. Jonathan, a retired amateur photographer,
employed his knowledge of image editing:

I’m very much aware that for example in Israel, with the vari-
ous intifada attacks and so on, the same shot was often filmed
and repeated as if it’s a new event . . . The media can do what they
like . . . You cannot believe anything you see now. I can put my head
on your shoulders and you wouldn’t know the difference.

Familiarity with the aesthetic conventions of news was another strategy,

coupled with an understanding of the commercial pressures that shape
these conventions:
 Eyal Lavi 195

I believe there is a grain of truth, but they want to sell papers so

they have to exaggerate. They blow everything that happens out of
proportion.
(Baruch, Israeli male, 40s)

Several respondents had encounters with media professionals or they

participated in events that were reported in the media. Such encoun-
ters were always given as an example for the unreliability of news (see
also Georgiou, 2006; Madianou, 2005; Philo, 1990). In contrast with
Giddens’s model, these ‘facework’ encounters with journalists – the rep-
resentatives of the abstract system of media – did not simply embed
systems through reliability and expertise (Giddens, 1990, p. 85). Instead,
they generate mistrust and are therefore associated with disembedding
and insecurity.
However, respondents are also dependent on this abstract system.
They negotiate this conflicted dependency by employing a range of tex-
tual strategies. One is making a distinction between fact – which they
feel that they can trust – and non-fact, which includes opinion, analysis,
emotions and moral judgement:

I always said that the only news actually I believe is Teletext because
that is written in a way that doesn’t express an opinion. It says, ‘a
cloud went across the sky’ where some programmes or journalists
would say ‘a cloud went across the sky, we think it was grey’ and then
they’ll get someone else to come on and say ‘no, no, no, it definitely
wasn’t, it was more a blueish-purple tinge’ when it really doesn’t mat-
ter, it was just a cloud went across the sky. And also when everything
must be argumentative, everything must have the two opinions, you
can’t just have a fact.
(Joan)
Because I see how they present us and the Palestinians I don’t believe
the media when it comes to good and bad . . . I try not to take in
the story, only the information. The media likes to have goodies and
baddies like it does with the Palestinians.
(Barak, Israeli male, early 20s)
I don’t have a problem with having to rely on media. I’m not looking
for the gossip. I’m after pure information.
(Baruch)
196 Reception and Consumption

Telling fact from non-fact involves reading between the lines and against
the grain of reports, and it is an important strategy for identifying bias,
a major part of respondents’ engagement with news. Almost all respon-
dents said that UK media had an anti-Israel bias and they supported
this with examples. The point here is not whether these perceptions are
accurate (available evidence suggests that they are not: BBC, 2009; Philo
and Berry, 2004) but how they are involved in participants’ sense of
place. Exchanging information about the ‘homeland’ is an element of
diasporic identity – it is a ‘transnational common language’ for commu-
nicating with other members of the diaspora, ‘in a way, just like football’
(Georgiou, 2006, p. 145). But when the means of gaining this knowledge
are not trusted, they become in themselves part of diasporic exchange.
Discourses of this kind are easy to dismiss as confirmation bias
(Iyengar and Hahn, 2009; Knobloch-Westerwick and Kleinman, 2012),
but the picture is more complex. Rather than selective exposure to
media, typical of confirmation bias, truth-work involves an intensifica-
tion of media consumption.
Several respondents said that they sought other sources to see how
‘the other side’ reports events or to ‘balance’ what they perceived
to be anti-Israeli reports. Jonathan equated this information-gathering
exercise with shopping:

I will look up something up and see, and then there will be various
things on Google and I might look several of those up, see what the
view is, and that can be true of anything. Even if it’s something that
I’m thinking of buying I would look up on the internet and see what
the different bidding are. I will look at several and I think that’s the
only way I can get a sort of balance.

If information, at least partially, is a commodity, then it is also a mat-

ter of making the right choices, and these choices involve trust, most
notably in brands (Lury, 2004). By investing trust in sources of informa-
tion or withdrawing it, respondents bring places closer not only through
consuming information about them but also by choosing the sources
of this information. When they watch Al Jazeera, the archetypical anti-
Israeli channel, they do so because they perceive it to be sincere and
therefore at least partly truthful (Williams, 2002). They trust the ‘brand’
to deliver the ‘goods’, even if they do not rate the quality (truthfulness)
of the ‘product’.
Participants’ most trusted medium is other people. Most were keen
to emphasize that they had access to non-media sources of information
 Eyal Lavi 197

and this type of information was highly prized. Respondents speak to

other people, not only as a way of ascertaining facts but in order to get
an ‘insider’s’ perspective. This information is valued and interviewees
call upon professional achievements, social ties and personal narra-
tives in summoning up these personally known ‘experts’. Often, those
people were talked about as providing ‘depth’: there is a sense that
news is a ‘thin’ type of knowledge that requires ‘thickening’ with first-
hand accounts from acquaintances or ‘filling in’ of details that are
normally absent in news. There was pride associated with this type of
knowledge, indicating the superior moral and psychological rewards
that personal trust relationships hold over abstract ones (Giddens,
1991, p. 185). Here, too, high levels of cultural capital shape partici-
pants’ truth-work, but rather than a cosmopolitan weakening of place
attachment, cultural capital in this case intensifies connection to place:
it embeds people in place through trust in mediated and personal
relationships.
Trust is central to truth-work, but trusting is not the same as believ-
ing. For example, a dominant feature of participants’ talk was that
all news channels and institutions are spatially anchored. No news
source, however global or transnational, was seen to transcend place.
All media were perceived as local, and all information was related by
respondents to the place where it originated (so Sky was seen as British,
CNN ‘represented’ the US and so on). In most cases, respondents asso-
ciated channels and sources with nation-states, but spatial anchoring
occurred on all scales: Al Jazeera was seen as the channel of Mid-
dle Eastern Arabs, and local papers were seen to be speaking for their
locality. This is important because news was expected to be shaped by
the geographical location of the organizations that produced it. When
respondents expect news to conform to place, even at the expense of
accuracy, they trust not the content of media but its enabling struc-
tures, or ‘rules’. News consumption can be understood as play, in which
the claims of media are judged not in terms of facts but of rules,
where ‘the knowingness that audiences bring to their media consump-
tion is a crucial part of the trust that is generated in their relationship
to what they see and hear’ (Silverstone, 2007, p. 126). Respondents
expected news organizations to follow the ‘rule’ of representing their
locality, settling for the virtue of sincerity (Williams, 2002) when accu-
racy seemed unobtainable.4 Truth-work, then, involves assessing and
judging multiple news sources, using them relationally as devices for
orientation in the ‘confluence of narratives’ that make diaspora space
(Brah, 1996).
198 Reception and Consumption

Conclusion

In this chapter I argue that engagement with the truth-status of news

from and about ‘homeland’ forms an important part of the diasporic
experience and place-making, but that this activity should be under-
stood experientially. The illusive object of truth-work – respondents’
‘truth’ – is a negotiated construction: on the one hand, there is the need
to arrive at ‘the facts’; on the other, these facts need to be incorporated
into a coherent personal narrative. The concept of ‘truth-work’ captures
two aspects of people’s consumption of information from and about
Israel: one is the range of practices employed in order to establish the
‘truth’ of mediated representation of the country; the other is the signif-
icance of this work to respondents’ sense of themselves and their place
in the world. This work is habitual, but it often entails the reassessment
of established habits of thought and modifications to habitual ways of
perceiving the world. Similarly, this work relies on personal and shared
narratives, as well as on relationships of trust, but it can also transform
them. Through truth-work, the place of Israel in people’s everyday life
is constantly negotiated.
Here I focus on the spatial aspect of this negotiation, as a project of
the self as it strives to make sense of its place in the world. My concern
was not whether and how diasporic subjects construct the truthfulness
of reports (who they believe and why), but the consequences for spatial
positioning and experience of place of their attempts to deal with the
indeterminacy of mediated ‘fact’ and their suspicion of news’ claim on
the truth. Truth-work involves intensification of ‘truth-acquiring tech-
niques’ (Williams, 2002), such as contrasting mediated information to
previous knowledge; employing familiarity with media organizations,
techniques and aesthetics; telling fact from non-fact; identifying bias;
comparing multiple media sources and making choices between them;
and seeking knowledge from other people. Because all knowledge is, in
a sense, local knowledge (Geertz, 1973, 2000), and because trust rela-
tions involve dynamics of distance and proximity, these techniques are
orientational.

Notes
1. Bourdieu’s concept of the habitus owes to Merleau-Ponty’s understanding
of habit as embodied, practical knowledge that develops out of constant
interaction with the world (Bourdieu, 1997, p. 218 n. 47).
2. Media mistrust is a well-recognized and complex phenomenon (Capella, 2002;
Moy et al., 2005; O’Neill, 2002; Putnam, 2001, 2007). Here I limit myself to
 Eyal Lavi 199

mistrust as a quality of the experience of media that is not necessarily negative

and to its implications for spatial positioning.
3. ‘Thought’ should be understood broadly as the perceiving body’s capacity to
make judgements about the world.
4. This playfulness is qualified. When it comes to news, a certain level of trust
of a literal kind appears to be a precondition for more ‘playful’ dynamics of
trusting.

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13
Diaspora Media Consumption:
UKZambians Magazine
Brian Chama

The Zambian community in the UK is the biggest immigrant group

among all Zambians living abroad and comprises mainly educated and
affluent immigrants (UKZambians, 2013, p. 1). Generally there are more
Zambians in the UK than all of the Zambians living abroad who are
degree educated, hold a professional job or run their own business
(UKZambians, 2013). The community maintains its connection with its
roots through national and cultural celebrations and is often informed
through UKZambians.
UKZambians magazine is an online and print publication registered
in the UK that provides content largely for Zambians living in the UK
on the lifestyles of Zambians. It is registered as a media limited com-
pany and located at Melbourne Centre in Leicester. Its content includes
videos, music, photos, online shops, obituaries, columns, statements
and business advertisements. It is largely sustained by sales and adver-
tising and its online format attracts more than 4,000 visits per day
(UKZambian, 2013).
Established and launched in August 2007, the glossy magazine
emerged with a quarterly print of 10,000 copies accompanied by online
portable document format distribution to 50,000 readers (UKZambians,
2013). Its readership is made up of 45% men and 55% women ranging
from 16 to 65 years old (UKZambians, 2013, p. 3). It is distributed to
readers mainly through social venues and subscriptions. Other copies
are specifically sent to the Zambian president’s office, senior govern-
ment officials, African high commissioners and ambassadors, libraries,
colleges, universities and departments of African studies. Its online for-
mat (at ukzambians.co.uk) attracts global visitors of over 10 million a
month through direct traffic, search engines and its weekly e-newsletter

203
204 Reception and Consumption

(UKZambians, 2013). It is within this context that this study looks at

the publication through in-depth interviews with purposively selected
readers in the UK to critically evaluate its content, its level of accessi-
bility and its readers’ preferences. It analyses whether the publication
is strategically positioned as an alternative medium that meets the
immigrant community’s needs.

African diaspora and media consumption

African immigrant communities globally often enjoy their connection

with their roots through their own media (Ogunyemi, 2012). Generally,
in most scholarly debates of international journalism, the media of the
African immigrants is often largely ignored (Swaraj, 2003; Tettey and
Puplampu, 2005), despite the continent’s continual loss of its citizens
(Kyambalesa, 2012). For example, Smith (2011) argues that South Africa,
Zimbabwe, Somalia, Nigeria and Ghana have experienced major exodus
in recent years due to political and economic reasons. In addition, in
the UK alone, Nigerians are the largest African immigrant community
and are largely served by their own media (African Voice, 2009).
Similarly, even though Zambians constitute a small community of
immigrants in the UK compared with other African communities, they
too enjoy a sense of connection with their own media. In fact, in
2011 their president, Michael Sata, used their media to regularly entice
them to return home and help to develop their country (Kyambalesa,
2012). Before that, their former president, Rupiah Banda, even formed
a Diaspora Desk at the State House to encourage them to return home
and to invest in their own country (Sinyangwe, 2012).

Media of the African diaspora and the social-political

underpinnings
The social-economic and political conflicts that Africa has suffered since
colonialism and structural adjustment programmes not only impacted
negatively on the development of Africa but also forced many pro-
fessionals, business elites, students and refugees to emigrate to escape
crisis, famine and infrastructural decay (Ogunyemi, 2013). For example,
Kyambalesa (2012) argues that there are many push factors existing in
Africa that are triggering the exodus, citing poor conditions of service,
human rights abuses, nepotism and favouritism, deliberate disregard for
local talent, scarcity of jobs, limited access to education, poor health-
care services, and a high level of crime and partisan civil police (Tettey
 Brian Chama 205

and Puplampu, 2005). Similarly, the pull factors from the point of view
of emigrants’ host countries have led to immigrants settling down in
foreign countries, leading to innovations among immigrant commu-
nities to invest in their own media that provide for their needs as
immigrants (Tettey and Puplampu, 2005).
For example, in Canada, African immigrants are largely served
by African Immigrant Magazine, Planet Africa Magazine & Television,
Africulture Magazine and Television, Africentric Magazine and Link-Africa
Radio as media of expression regarding education, information and
entertainment hardly covered by the mainstream media. Similarly,
in the UK, many Africans are served by the Trumpet Media Group,
which was established in 1995 as a voice of immigrant Africans (The
Trumpet, 2013). For example, The Trumpet newspaper provides informa-
tion oriented towards the readers from Nigeria, Gambia, Ghana, Sierra
Leone, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Somalia and South Africa (Trumpet Media
Group, 2013). Similarly, Bright Entertainment Television, The Africa Chan-
nel, Klear TV, Voice of Africa Radio, African Voice and Somalia Voice all
cater for African immigrants (Ogunyemi, 2013).
In fact, the media of the African immigrants in the UK are often
used as a medium of expression regarding challenges and successes
(Ogunyemi, 2012) and they create a sense of belonging among the
African communities as people of one nation (Benedict, 1991). For
example, African Voice considers itself to be the number one African
newspaper that provides news, features, gospel, sports, and other social
and cultural information. Furthermore, it is a vital source for Africans in
the UK that provides information that puts together their daily activities
within the African communities (African Voice, 2009).

Reception and consumption of media

Media for African immigrants continue to attract scholarly debate
about their contribution to overall nation-building (Kyambalesa, 2012;
Ogunyemi, 2012). Furthermore, little academic attention is given to the
question of how they should be understood and evaluated by their audi-
ence (Swaraj, 2003). Moreover, in many studies of reception analysis of
media content, the focus is often on the social production of meaning,
and on examining what readers see in the media and on the mean-
ings which they produce each time they interpret the media contents
(Ang, 1985). Other studies on content reception by readers look at the
206 Reception and Consumption

production and circulation of meaning in society and the complex sig-

nifying process of the negotiation between texts and readers situated
within specific social contexts (Schroder et al., 2003).
Furthermore, in discussing content reception and consumption, Ang
(1990) argues that numerous debates are taking place in the academic
field as to whether readers are passive or rather active participants in the
consumption of media products (Thompson, 2002). For example, Jensen
(1986) claims that the dynamics of the relationship between the con-
tent and the readers can be summarized as having a relation to ‘effects,
uses, gratifications and reception analysis which often stretch into the
ethnographic research area’. Similarly, O’Sullivan et al. (1994) claim that
what differentiates these reception approaches is the balance of power
and the influence attributed to the media in terms of content produc-
tion and to the audience as receivers of that media content. In addition,
Strelitz (2000) notes that another way of differentiating these competing
approaches is to distinguish between scholars who stress the deter-
mining power of the media and those who highlight the interpretive
freedom of the readers.
Historically, the regularly cited tradition of media effects is that of
the ‘hypodermic’ model of media influence. From this perspective, the
media are seen to have the power to ‘inject’ ideologies into their readers
and influence their behaviour (Jensen, 1986). On the other hand, there
are claims that this model tends to simplistically describe communica-
tion as the process of transmitting a message from sender to receiver in a
very general way (Strelitz, 2000). For example, Bennett (1982) notes that
this complex stimulus–response approach tends to imagine the media
as a sort of narcotic substance and the relationship between the media
and readers as one whereby the readers just tend to accept the attitudes,
opinions and beliefs that are expressed by the various media networks
without any question.
Moreover, Strelitz (2000) claims that the media do not have such
direct effects on the audiences whom they serve but rather have a
reasonably weak influence in shaping individual beliefs, opinions and
attitudes in many communities (Fiske, 1987). Furthermore, the effects
model of the media on the audience is inadequate and does not account
for their diverse beliefs, opinions, ideals and attitudes (O’Sullivan et al.,
1994). In fact, the model does not accurately reflect the complex nature
of society and all intermediary social structures between the media
and their audiences (Fiske, 1987; Strelitz, 2000; O’Sullivan et al., 1994).
Therefore, by focusing on the effects of the media on the audience, the
model largely ignores the social dynamics among the audience, making
 Brian Chama 207

the theory sociologically misleading (Brooke and Jerymn, 2003; Strelitz,

2000).

Methodology

In studying the audience reception and consumption of UKZambians,

purposively selected Zambians who had lived in the UK for more
than 20 years from Leeds, Manchester, Lincoln, Portsmouth, Liverpool,
Kent, Cardiff and London were interviewed. The interviews involved
face-to-face informal discussions at the independence celebration in
Uxbridge in 2012 for Zambians. Furthermore, email messages during
the six months from April 2012 to October 2013 were exchanged.
The reason for the choice of method was to have a range of infor-
mation and, besides, it was cheaper to communicate using email
than via face-to-face interviews. The only limitation was that many
of the respondents were not eager to share sufficient information
about their experiences, and face-to-face interviews proved difficult in
terms of arranging time. There were no ethical difficulties that were
experienced throughout the study and all respondents agreed to be
identified.
Among the respondents, one man was from Leeds, two women were
from Manchester, one man was from Lincoln, one woman was from
Portsmouth, one woman was from Liverpool, two men were from Kent,
two men were from Cardiff, and three men and three women were from
London. All respondents were asked (i) whether the publication content
engaged with the readers effectively; (ii) how often the readers accessed
the magazine; (iii) whether the content met its set objectives; and (iv)
whether it was consistent with readers’ preferences.

Data analysis

The interviewees provided a variety of responses regarding how they

engaged with the magazine and its content. As already indicated,
all chose to be identified by their real names. From an ethical
point of view, identification this does not pose any danger to their
lives because the study was for academic purposes only. The inter-
views generated a lot of information. However, the data analysis
exercise only identified key themes in the data and that emerged
repeatedly throughout discussions with various respondents – namely,
engagement, orientation, connectivity, content appeal and alternative
voice.
208 Reception and Consumption

Engagement

Generally, all respondents acknowledged that when reading the mag-

azine, they often concentrated on current affairs relating to Zambians
within the UK and in Zambia. In studying audience reception,
Cunningham (2001) argues that it is vital to pay closer attention to
the social dynamics that affect the audience in their choice of what
they prefer to read and what they often see as irrelevant. In fact, the
respondents noted that when reading the magazine, they were par-
ticularly interested in viewing photos of events ‘back home’ as these
brought back memories. For example, Matthews Sakala from Lincoln
saw the publication as very important and pointed out that it was
able to engage with the community on issues that affected their well-
being. He gave the examples of learning about the new Zambian
passport application process, the new ambassador to the UK and the
annual independence celebrations venues – all through the magazine.
He felt that it was able to engage with its audience very well and was
relevant.
In contrast, Jonathan Tembo from Kent pointed out that the publi-
cation was not able to engage fully with the communities because of
the quality of news, which was very poor. Similarly, Kelvin Muyembe
from London saw it as unable to engage effectively because of its
poor news quality. He further noted that in previous years the mag-
azine was a major source of information and announcements for the
Zambian community, which was no longer the case. Bridget Chibwe
from London felt that to be more relevant it needed to engage with
news that was making the headlines in Zambia. Similarly, Maurine
Zimba from London felt that the publication needed to provide infor-
mation that was able to resonate with readers’ experiences effectively.
She suggested that it needed to be aware of competitors such as Crossfire
Radio Station for Zambians in the UK, which was engaging its audiences
reasonably well.
Looking at broader scholarly debates, Strelitz (2002) notes that, gen-
erally, audiences through reception analysis view the media texts as
a set of culturally and generically coded discourses. He explains that
the audiences are agents of meaning production and formulate their
own meanings of the text (Jensen, 1988). Furthermore, Strelitz (2002)
argues that the consumption of meanings takes place within particular
sociopolitical contexts and participants’ lived realities influence their
negotiation of media messages.
 Brian Chama 209

Orientation

The respondents felt that the publication needed to change its

orientation to consider real-life issues that Zambians were encountering
in the UK, such as homesickness, financial pressures and relationships.
For example, Macmillan Chanda from Leeds noted that the idea of
showing pictures of Zambians drinking and having fun came across as
if Zambians were only having fun, which was not the case. He felt that
the magazine needed to look more often at success stories of Zambians
to encourage them to work hard then go ‘back home’ to contribute to
the development of their country.
On the other hand, Oscar Mbewe from Cardiff felt that there was a
need for the publication to reorient itself and provide information of
reasonable value in terms of what was happening within the Zambian
community in the UK. In addition, Arnold Sichilima from London
noted that the magazine came across as a political newsletter of the
ruling government in Zambia because it was uncritical of government
operations ‘back home’.
In gaining an insight into media reception and consumption from
the cultural perspective, Moores (1993) argues that the reception of
content is related to audience diversity and linked to the sociological
view, which also assumes that the audience are economically, culturally
and socially constituted and should be studied within various specific
contexts and situations. Similarly, Lull (1990) provides another socio-
logical approach to audience reception, arguing that the way in which
media texts are interpreted and understood by the audience is in rela-
tion to their everyday lives, and in relation to events and socialcultural
practices.
In this regard, Liebes and Katz (1993) argue that the cultural anal-
ysis of reception is rooted within social and cultural interactions.
In addition, the reception and consumption of media texts is related
to audience lifestyle in which content produces meaning to iden-
tify with their everyday activities. For example, in their study of
the audiences of Dallas, the authors found that during and after
the programme, audiences often discussed what they saw and came
to collective understanding about how they perceived, interpreted
and even evaluated the programme in relation to their cultural and
personal experiences. It is these conversations that help audiences
to select and interpret the texts and incorporate them into their
lives.
210 Reception and Consumption

For example, Kelvin Muyembe from London argued that there was a
need to adapt to the changing sociocultural landscape in the reorienta-
tion of the publication, and especially that even non-native Zambians
with various interests in the country were also able to follow events
using the magazine as a point of reference. He further explained that it
needed to accommodate varieties of audiences who were keen to know
what was transpiring within the communities of Zambians in the UK.

Connectivity

Many respondents noted that they were more interested in events that
allowed them to connect with other Zambians who were living in the
UK. They felt that the magazine was able to put together small events
and current affairs that affected their daily lives, such as announcements
of deaths, weddings, new restaurants, pubs and musicians who were in
the country from Zambia.
For example, Mwansa Kasamba from Manchester pointed out that she
was aware of the publication and read it regularly because it allowed her
to be connected with other Zambians in the UK. In addition, she noted
that she read it almost every day online and she was pleased that with-
out it she would not have been able to connect with so many Zambians
since moving to the UK as a social worker. She also argued that it pro-
vided readers with varieties of information on individuals who were
doing well in their areas of life as Zambians in the UK.
Similarly, Godfrey Syakulanda from Kent argued that he was not a
keen follower of the publication but noted that it provided relevant
information that connected many Zambians with business activities,
such as shipping commodities ‘back home’ at lower and affordable
prices, and about places to eat local food stuffs and to meet Zambians.
He further pointed out that it was through the magazine that he came
to know about the Zambian-owned Jolly Fisherman Pub in East London.
Chintu Kabaso from Manchester noted that she was not a regular
reader of the publication but was aware of its existence after visit-
ing the Zambian High Commission in London. She pointed out that
she often visited the online publication, especially the lifestyle section,
which provided information about issues that affected Zambians in the
diaspora. She felt that the publication needed to connect effectively
with its audience because it often came across as elitist. She advised the
owners to develop a variety of publications that would connect many
Zambians and their activities, such as those for adverts, for directories
and for news.
 Brian Chama 211

In this regard, Jensen (1988) notes that reception is a relatively open

activity of making sense out of the text and looking at how the audi-
ences reformulate or oppose what is arguably the dominant meaning of
the media text. He notes that audiences draw on their own categories
of experience and establish links between content arguments and every-
day issues from political and cultural affairs which are rather unexpected
and move beyond the imminent in the text. Furthermore, he notes that
this does not mean that the reader’s social position mechanically pro-
duces meanings, and, even if it does, not in a way that would parallel the
functionalist way in which texts are understood to work in the effects
tradition. Rather, it means that the context of media production and
reception sets the limit and boundaries of interpretation (Hall, 1980).

Content appeal

All of the respondents saw the magazine as a reliable source of infor-

mation in its news content. They further acknowledged consuming
its content regularly even though felt that more needed to be done
to improve the news quality. They noted that the content needed to
change because often news came across as if everything was fine for
Zambians in the UK while in Zambia things were in a mess. Further-
more, respondents felt that the magazine needed to change its approach
to news content because it tended to present the same individuals
regularly – those who were far removed from real-life issues that affected
readers’ daily lives.
For example, Macmillan Chanda from Leeds said that he read the
magazine frequently but acknowledged that its news content was bor-
ing and uninspiring. He pointed out that its news lacked depth and
there were too many adverts. He further explained that the publica-
tion was able to attract readers to some extent but its news content was
characterized by uncritical coverage of events both in Zambia and in
the UK.
Similarly, Chintu Kabaso from Manchester noted that the news con-
tent needed to be attractive to readers in order to command broader
readership. In contrast, Francesca Phiri from Portsmouth revealed that
she treasured the publication and was an ardent and annual sub-
scriber. She noted that the content provided information of reasonable
quality and was able to inspire Zambian communities through its
well-selected news, which was easily accessible in print and online for-
mat. She explained that the news was also strategically positioned and
interesting.
212 Reception and Consumption

Jonathan Tembo from Kent pointed out that the only articles that
he enjoyed reading were on ‘Zambia Down Memory Lane with Austin
Kaluba’ as they brought good memories back of the time that he spent in
Zambia in the late 1970s and early 1980s. On the other hand, he noted
that the publication was able to provide news content that was relevant
to readers. Joseph Chishiba and Oscar Mbewe from Cardiff noted that
they rarely read the publication because its news content didn’t meet
their interests and argued that it was characterized by mainly political
events in Zambia, while in referring to the UK it tended to quote the
same people regularly.
Drawing insights from such discussions, Ang (1990) argues that recep-
tion analysis involves audience interpretation of media texts and the
process emphasizes the negotiation of meaning between texts and read-
ers who are situated within specific social and cultural contexts. For
example, the meaning of the UKZambians content was interpreted
within its cultural and social underpinnings by its readers. Moreover,
Schroder et al. (2003) argue that the key assumption in reception is
that meaning-making is a complex process and texts are never merely
transferred from the media to their readers (O’Sullivan et al., 1994). Fur-
thermore, Hall (1980) explains that meaning is generated as a result of
a negotiation between the texts and discourses of the socially located
readers (Ang, 1990).
In this regard, Teddy Kasonso from London pointed out that he used
to read the publication but had stopped because it was always character-
ized by people who were doing well, which sent the wrong message to
the people ‘back home’. He felt that it needed also to show how some
people were struggling. He suggested that the magazine also needed to
develop an advertising supplement. He felt that this was vital for audi-
ences who were interested in buying properties in Zambia. He noted that
it needed to take advantage of its positioning as a more credible source
of secure information than others.
According to Hall et al. (1980), producers of media texts tend to
encode the meaning of the texts for the audiences to make sense of.
In addition, the audience upon receiving the texts decode the meaning
based on a range of their cultural contexts and experiences. In other
words, the varieties of audience do not interpret messages as merely
sent but base their meaning on their everyday life, and once the media
text is received it passes through various stages of interpretation. For
example, Bridget Chibwe from London argued that she became aware
of the magazine through Facebook. She pointed out that its news con-
tent was poor and there was need for improvement in terms of its
 Brian Chama 213

quality and depth. She also felt that some articles were too long and
were often poorly written. Similarly, Arnold Sichilima from London
noted that the publication needed to provide information of reason-
able quality. He pointed out that there were many online media about
the Zambian diaspora and that readers were able to compare news con-
tent in terms of quality and relevance. In fact, the study by Hall et al.
(1980) on audiences’ encoding and decoding of media text in relation
to effects, uses and gratification perspective provides interesting per-
spectives. The authors argue that texts can produce a transformation
of the audiences once they accept them and this involves linking texts
with lived experiences during the consumption process (Hall, 1980, pp.
128–131).

Alternative voice

Generally, all respondents felt that the publication was a very good
alternative voice to mainstream media, which always reported negative
news about Africa. For example, Macmillan Chanda from Leeds noted
that it presented interesting news about Zambia and Zambians who are
largely ignored by mainstream media in the UK. Furthermore, Mwansa
Kasamba from Manchester noted that it was easy to access in print
and online formats and it was strategically positioned as an alternative
medium. She felt that this was because the newspapers, radio stations
and television networks in the UK rarely covered issues about Africa
in good faith. According to Karim (2003), the media of the diaspora
attract their audiences largely because of their alternative contribution
of information, which answers their needs and quenches their thirst for
information from countries of their origin, which are largely ignored by
major broadcasters.
Similarly, Catherine Mwananshiku from Liverpool felt that even
though the publication was as much for entertainment as an
information-oriented voice, it was able to inform the Zambian com-
munity in the UK with relevant alternative information. However, she
noted that there was too much advertising in the print format, which
made it less attractive to some readers. Brooke and Jerymn (2003)
argue that, in the reception process, readers’ interpretations of the
content vary depending on the symbols that they draw from the con-
tent in relation to their social and economic position, as well as their
gender.
Ang (1996) notes that there is a certain level of critical analysis that
can be drawn from the content encoded into the text. He further claims
214 Reception and Consumption

that the meaning gained from the content by the readers cannot be
decided outside the social network in which the content is inserted
but in relation to contextual settings. It is within this context that
he argues that the way in which the audience talk, use, encounter,
enjoy, interpret and think about the content is often contextually bound
and in relation to their daily lives (Ang, 1996, p. 70). Chansa Chalwe
from London felt that the magazine was doing well as an alterna-
tive medium and that there was no need to make any changes. She
pointed out that it was a reliable alternative source of information
and was more objective than other upcoming media of the Zambian
diaspora, which were full of misleading information due to political
affiliations.
Along a similar line of argument, Liebes and Katz (1993) note that
audiences often tend to be aware of the media content and text dur-
ing the reception process, so producers need to be aware of this reality
and how such texts are to be interpreted, the impact on the lives of the
audiences and their perception of realities. Similarly, the argument by
Ang (1996) that audiences’ reception and consumption of media text
depends on cultural and social factors relates well to arguments made
by Jonathan Tembo and Godfrey Syakulanda from Kent that they reg-
ularly identified with issues that unfolded ‘back home’ as presented by
the publication each time they read it, and this attracted them to it.
They also confirmed being aware of the publication and its contribu-
tion to the immigrant Zambian communities in the UK as an alternative
medium that often provided reliable information.
All of the respondents were able to articulate relatively well their
interaction with the publication, offering different viewpoints regarding
their reception and consumption of its content. However, it was striking
from their insights that they all noted that the magazine needed to be
strategically positioned as an alternative medium and that its news con-
tent needed to be carefully selected to meet the needs of the audience.
For example, Hall et al. (1980) point out that there are different positions
often taken by audiences during the decoding of texts, and he cites the
dominant-hegemonic position in which audiences decode according to
their preferred meaning and identify alongside the meaning offered in
the text. Furthermore, the authors note that in the negotiating process,
the audiences establish or oppose the preferred meaning. In addition,
Hall et al. point out that in the oppositional reading, audiences can rec-
ognize the preferred reading but can also ‘read between the lines’ of the
content in relation to the events and decode with an alternative mindset
as a point of reference.
 Brian Chama 215

Conclusion

In conclusion, the study discusses how audiences consume the media

content and derive meanings based on their daily experiences. Although
the publication under discussion was a major medium of the diaspora
for Zambians in terms of circulation and as an alternative voice in the
UK at the time of this research, its reception and consumption were
framed by its readers’ experiences. The social and cultural context of
the readers was a major issue in terms of understanding their reading
patterns and perceptions. Importantly, the readers often detached them-
selves from the magazine’s news content as evidenced by the way they
described their association with the publication. However, despite their
detachment, their brand identification with the publication was strong,
especially in comparison with other publications that provide diaspora
information for Zambians in the UK.
Furthermore, the study looked at the audiences’ perception of the
publication by exploring the interplay between their news tastes, their
level of accessibility, and whether the magazine was able to meet its
set objectives and was consistent with audience preferences. Although
the analysis was based on interviews with a few respondents widely
distributed across the UK, it shed sufficient light on the audience percep-
tion of the media of the diaspora communities and the challenges faced
by readers. Nonetheless, even though the publication was strategically
positioned as an alternative medium for the diaspora Zambian commu-
nity, its news content needed to be carefully selected to meet the needs
of the intended audience and tailored according to their preferences to
achieve its set objectives.

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14
The Use of New Media by the UK’s
Palestinian Diaspora
Amira Halperin

The Palestinian people form a nation with a rich culture, but they
are scattered throughout the world with no state of their own. This
‘stateless’ condition has a direct impact on Palestinians’ media con-
sumption and media production. The reality in the region is harsh –
conflicts within and without prevent journalists from operating freely.
It is in this point that the problem lies: Palestinians’ need for infor-
mation is pressing, but as it is a conflict area there are major obstacles
that impede media outlets from distributing news that would answer
demands for consistency, accuracy and, most importantly, real-time
updates. As the literature shows, the revolution in new technology has
answered the Palestinians’ demands for reception of news from home.
The availability of hundreds of news websites has eased the diasporic
Palestinians’ ability to access information – a fact which is highly impor-
tant at times of major news events. The Palestinians in the diaspora are
an active audience. They create websites and blogs to disseminate their
personal stories and to receive updates from Gaza and the West Bank
from the people who live there. The new technologies are bypassing geo-
graphical distance and editorial guidelines, and they help to overcome
the news problem, which was significant before the Internet revolution,
overcoming delays to enable the immediate dissemination of news.
Interestingly enough, the Israeli media are a major information source
for diasporic Palestinians. The main reasons for using Israeli media are
their professionalism and the will to understand the Israeli point of view.
The Palestinians use the Israeli media as a major source for news from
the Palestinian Territories and Israel – for them, Israeli media is not the
media of the Other; it is an estimated source of news from the region
which provides them also with the local news that they are so eager
to receive, while residing in the diaspora. Another dimension that is

218
 Amira Halperin 219

being provided by the Israeli media is the fulfilment of the need of the
diasporic community to understand the Israelis’ views. Living in Gaza
and the West Bank, they were exposed to Israeli media as part of their
daily lives. In the UK, they would use Israeli media to fill the gap created
when they left their home.
Conducting this research entailed a significant challenge because I
perceived myself to be an ‘outsider’, being an Israeli. The participants
perceived themselves to be Palestinians. This is the first research on the
Palestinian community in the diaspora that has been conducted by an
Israeli researcher. To date, mostly Palestinians and scholars with other
Arab nationality have published research in this field. This is a serious
deficit within the development of the academic research on Palestinians
and ‘Palestine’ topics. The existing published research is written by
Palestinians who are ‘insiders’: they belong to the Palestinian commu-
nity. The meaning of this is challenging the norms expected as a result
of the political climate in the region. Israeli researchers do not research
the Palestinian community. The main reasons can be understood from
Salem and Kaufman’s description of the current situation:

To date, few Palestinian and Israeli academics have co-operated in

research projects . . . over the years an estimated 2 per cent of Israeli
academics have participated in such ventures . . . the vast majority
of Israeli academics have remained indifferent, concentrating on
their own careers and research agendas. Furthermore, these figures,
calculated before the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa intifada in October
2000, may have been further reduced by the increasing psycholog-
ical hostility between Palestinians and Israelis due to widespread use
of violence by both communities, as well as by the physical limita-
tions, such as Israel’s checkpoints in the West Bank and the unilateral
pullout from Gaza, the separation wall and legal statutes restricting
contact between the two national groups.
(Salem and Kaufman, 2007, p. 9)

Salem and Kaufman continue, claiming:

Cooperation is especially difficult in the humanities and social sci-

ences, as in these disciplines academic research is more closely
connected to the overarching political issues than is the case in the
natural sciences. In addition, a great deal of logistical and politi-
cal manoeuvering is required to find ways to meet face-to-face due
to the legal, physical and psychological barriers separating Israelis
220 Reception and Consumption

and Palestinians from one another. These obstacles combined with

a general indifference . . . make it easier for Palestinian and Israeli
academics alike to remain isolated in their own communities.
(Salem and Kaufman, 2007, p. 21)

In this complex situation, it was a personal risk that I decided to take

once embarked on this research – the risk that I might not be able to
get access, the risk of not being able to prove my findings as evidence,
and that the results would, rather, be perceived as manipulation by par-
ticipants who have no interest in cooperating with an Israeli researcher.
Having said this, my interest in the investigation of the Palestinian com-
munity was strong and I also believed that I should publish the research
to advance knowledge in the field.
This study has contributed to knowledge in the area of diaspora stud-
ies, adding to understanding of those diasporic groups that strive for
independence and live in conflicted spheres, and in the fields of new
media and Arab media through Palestinians’ utilization of new media
for political ends, and the expansion of their social networks, which
serve as transnational meeting places.

Methodology

Researching the Palestinian audience in the UK entailed difficulties,

as would the research of any other audience, but, learning from the
Palestinian community, these are even more pronounced, for internal
and external reasons: the Palestinians are immigrants from a conflict
zone, the collective trauma of 1948, as well as the challenge of liv-
ing in a Western country, especially following 11 September 2001. As a
researcher, in order to understand the media consumption practices of
the Palestinian audience, I learned to know the Palestinian community
in the UK. Among other things, I participated in its social and political
activities on a regular basis.
I conducted 52 open-ended, in-depth interviews with Palestinians
who reside in the UK. In addition, I discussed my questions with
many Palestinians who were not included in the research for a vari-
ety of reasons: they were not using the Internet at all, they did not
want to participate, or they could not complete the interview because
of a lack of time. I also spoke with Palestinians from the West Bank
and Gaza who were visiting the UK, and who were not included in
my research because they do not belong to the Palestinian diasporic
community.
 Amira Halperin 221

The participants came from different socioeconomic backgrounds and

different political positions, as follows:

• age: 20–60
• place of origin: Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan and the UK
• number of years in the UK: 2–30
• education: divided between no academic education at all and aca-
demic education at different levels
• occupation: journalists, political activists, unskilled workers, stu-
dents, lecturers and professional workers
• reasons for leaving their home country: economic, educational and
family
• political affiliation: Hamas, Fatah and independent.

The Palestinian websites as an irrelevant news source

Most of the participants do not use Palestinian websites at all. On the

surface, it seems clear that, because they live in the UK, they do not
necessarily need Palestinian news media for news from Palestine. Even
though they have access to unlimited sources of news online, ideally
they would like to use Palestinian media. In non-Palestinian media there
is not enough space for Palestine’s news, according to many of the par-
ticipants. The Palestinian media for them means a combination of two
things: having a sense of home and local news updates. New commu-
nication technologies, such as satellite and cable, bring the images of
different places with specific cultural significance together, at home.
These can reflect the diverse senses of home and the desire for a sense of
home. More than anything, they can bring together the diasporic homes
into a new relationship – they become nodes in networks that are cultur-
ally distinct and transnationally connected (Georgiou, 2006, p. 99). The
computer is used not only to contact people in faraway places but also
to interact with neighbours. ‘Community Empowerment’ may enhance
individual empowerment (Laguerre, 2010, p. 56).
The interviews that I conducted, though, indicate a real problem
that is experienced by Palestinians in the UK when using the media.
As much as they want to read news on Palestinian news websites, they
are prevented from using them because of the existing situation in the
Palestinian media.

I do not believe that the media is independent [referring to

Palestinian political websites]. There are no journalists; the quality
222 Reception and Consumption

of the news is no good. Problems of censorship. That’s why we go to

other sites. Al Jazeera online – no censorship.
(Hasan)

The role of Al Jazeera, in this case, can be defined as a glocal medium –

the Palestinian audiences use the Qatari network to receive local news
from Gaza and the West Bank. Instead of globalization, there is a possi-
bility for glocalization where the global gets its meaning from the local,
and from the local we reach the global (Castells, 2001). In fact, the global
is understood as something that assimilates values and mixes elements
of a global culture within the local. Samir says:

I do not use Palestinian [political] websites. I do not have time to look

in Palestinian websites. Al Jazeera covers Palestine. We cannot blame
the Palestinian websites; they try to do their best.

A woman who emigrated from Gaza to study says:

I do not read the Palestinian websites because they have news from
their own point of view, they aren’t neutral. In time of crisis – Maan
is the website for local news from Gaza and other places in Palestine;
then Al Jazeera.

Professor A., who is 60, does not feel any need to use Palestinian
websites:

The Palestinian websites are not reliable. I do not use these websites.
It’s for the local people.

P., a professional worker, explains:

I do not read Palestinian websites. It’s the liability issue. Reporters

cannot access, websites are being removed . . . it does not fill my need
for reading the global news.

An anonymous interviewee said:

I do not read the Palestinian websites. Hamas and Fatah are lying,
everybody wants to support his case.

Despite the developments in new technologies, the perception of the

Palestinian media as promoting the party’s interests hasn’t changed. The
 Amira Halperin 223

aim of the political websites is to serve the agenda of a specific political

party, rather than to provide information about the macropolitical situ-
ation. According to Nossek and Rinnawi, not only do the Palestinian
media not reflect on political processes as they occur, but also they
are trying to determine an agenda which fits their political ambitions.
The most important case was the 1998 closure of the Hamas newspaper
al-Risalah (The Message) by the Palestinian authorities due to its con-
stant attacks on the peace process (Nossek and Rinnawi, 2003, p. 197).
Having said this, the Israeli media, mainly at times of conflict,
advance national goals. To put it differently, the victory of each side
is not through observation of the factors that would help them to
achieve their goals but, rather, in watching the suffering of the other
side. The media reflect this tendency. The media do not necessarily oper-
ate to promote political achievements and negotiation talks between the
Israelis and the Palestinians. Instead the broadcasting of destruction and
suffering among civilians is a major theme in news bulletins.
A recent example (2012) is ‘Operation Pillar of Cloud’ in Gaza. On
the one hand, the rockets that were launched from Gaza into cities
in South and Central Israel created suffering among the Israeli civil-
ian population. On the other hand, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacks
on Gaza created suffering among the Palestinian population. The Israeli
government made major efforts to gain the support of the international
community through the publication of online pictures of Israeli casu-
alties. The Palestinian media did the same. To conclude on this point,
I would say that the media in general, and the new media in particular,
are the only means that allow wide audiences to be exposed to events
in the region. This fact indicates the centrality of media in agenda-
setting. Using a critical approach, it might be argued that media owners
should take a major role in conflict resolution, and not in the narrow
role of delivering dramatized aspects of conflicts. Conversi argues that
although cybercommunities have provided avenues for peace, prosper-
ity and conflict prevention, the evidence indicates that unregulated use
of the Internet can enable quasi-spontaneous outbursts of hate speech
via incitement to conflict by virtual peer pressure (Conversi, 2012).
Research into the media’s impact on misperceptions in the West
suggests that ethnic conflicts tend to be treated in a generalized and sim-
plified manner. The media are the gatekeepers of information for society
(a widely held view in communication research). According to many
communication scholars, the means by which such information is pre-
sented – specifically, the terminology used – are perhaps most influential
in shaping the minds of Western audiences. In relation to the coverage
224 Reception and Consumption

of Islam and ethnic conflicts, there are numerous instances in which

terminology – specifically the confusion of religion with ethnicity –
is quite commonly practised by the Western media (Wiegand, 2000,
pp. 245, 246). I have, though, to mention peace journalists who try to be
involved in conflict resolution through their coverage. They are guided
by the following main principles:

• identify the views and interests of all parties to human conflict;

• give voice to the oppressed to represent and empower them;
• seek peaceful solutions to conflict problems;
• note that the media representation of conflict problems can become
part of the problem if it exacerbates dualism and hatreds;
• note that the media representation of conflict can become part of the
solution if it employs the creative tensions in any human conflict to
seek common ground and exercise the professional media ethics of
accuracy, veracity, fairness and respect for human rights and dignity
(Tehranian, 2004, pp. 241–242).

The fact that the participants do not use the Palestinian media reveals
the gloomy situation of the Palestinian media market – the Palestinian
media, according to the participants, lack the resources to become pro-
fessional. Instead there are many politically driven websites that struggle
to exist. There are participants who are aware of the disadvantages of
the political websites but they do use them in addition to their use of
transnational media.

The Palestinian media – the social dimension

The Palestinians’ use of media for news is not the passive use of watching
news. It is also not only active use, where they interpret and choose
news. It is, rather, news from Palestine which is part of their political
and existential daily struggle and identity formation. News media also
shape participants’ social contacts.
It would be easy to understand the meaning of news for participants
if we were to compare the Palestinian audience to Western audiences.
For Western audiences in the diaspora, the use of news media is trivial.
News media operating in a free and competitive media market is one
of the foundations of any democratic state. In contrast with Western
audiences, the Palestinians’ place of origin is an entity where access to
news online is limited and television stations, as well as the print media,
in Palestine have been affected by the political situation.
 Amira Halperin 225

Once they emigrated to the UK, the participants’ news practices

changed significantly. They have a strong interest in news from Palestine
and a real need to receive updated news daily. They would therefore look
for news media a few times a day on a variety of media broadcasters’ and
news websites. They also contact their families and friends in Gaza and
the West Bank to receive updated news from primary sources (as the
participants define family’s and friends’ updates), and more detailed
information about specific news stories that relate to them.
The centrality of news in the lives of Palestinians crosses age, occupa-
tion and economic status. Most participants look for updated news every
day and often more than once a day. Sam, a 28-year-old student, says:

The news for me, for the Palestinians, is very important. In Gaza the
culture is different from the UK – people watch news all the time.
People are not working and they watch news and talk about the news
all day. Things happen. In the UK, people watch news only in the
morning, before they go to work and in the evening when they come
home.

P, a professional, said:

I follow news every hour. I read news two hours a day. I use the
Internet on my mobile. I read it on the train. I have three blogs and
I read over 100 blogs. I participate in two levels: first, I comment. Sec-
ondly, I write articles. The people who use the blogs are from Western
Europe, mostly UK and the US, the Silicon Valley.

Indeed, political programmes are the most important programmes for

the Palestinians in Palestine in the morning, during the day and in the
evening (United States Agency for International Development, 2006,
p. 6).
Most of the participants not only search for news but also get involved
in media and political activities which aim to provide meaning for
news for UK and transnational audiences. I call it the ‘politicization of
Palestine’s news’.
Mahmoud’s case is an example. The Israeli – Palestinian Conflict is a
dominant issue in the life of Mahmoud, a 40-year-old PhD student and
teacher. Following the bombing of the Gaza Strip by Israel in January
2009, he organized a demonstration in the city where he lives in the UK.
He managed to mobilize, for this purpose, Arab and non-Arab protesters.
The coverage of the demonstration by the local media, online, helped
226 Reception and Consumption

Mahmoud and his fellow Palestinians to gain the audiences’ attention

for their problems and concern for their families in Gaza. British politi-
cians commented on the situation online also. This is only one example
of Mahmoud’s political activity.
A is a member of Action Palestine. He reads news every day for
two hours, and he checks news updates at least three times a day. He
explains:

I am very interested in what is happening back home. I read UK

media because I am interested in what the British media has to say.
I do not have an interest in local news.

Mahmoud, A and many other participants act for the Palestine cause
and follow Palestine’s news as their first priority in their news selec-
tion (not necessarily using Palestinian media for this purpose). The
discourse about news events among Palestinian community members
is dominant – it gathers the participants together and constructs their
national political aspirations. Moreover, they have developed their own
terminology for discussing news media.
I interviewed Sazar, a 35-year-old housewife, and her son, Yaser. Sazar
talks about news events using terms that have become part of the
consensus among the Palestinians:

Al Aqsa talks more about Palestine. The Holocaust, Yaser, the Holo-
caust, when was it? We saw the Holocaust on Al Aqsa TV and
Radio.

But, no less important for the participants is their use of news media
they have created. Their enormous participation in hundreds of blogs,
chat sites and social news websites indicates the importance of news in
the lives of Palestinians, the importance that the participants attribute
to the news that has been disseminated for contact with the Arab
circle, as well as the ability of Palestinians to use the Internet to pub-
lish their news stories in order to reach audiences beyond the Arab
world. Since the mainstream media will not dedicate much space to
background information, the Palestinians publish their own personal
accounts. According to Hanieh, the Internet lets Palestinians speak for
themselves in their own voice, without mediation or distortion from
outside bodies or interests (‘news by newsmakers’). Those involved in
newsworthy events can choose what to present, rather than passively
allowing others to represent and reinterpret developments in Palestine
 Amira Halperin 227

(Hanieh, 1999, p. 42). This trend helps Arab, as well as Western audi-
ences, to learn in depth about news stories from Palestine and the
region.

Reasons for using the Internet

The participants who prefer to use the Internet over any other
medium, for news consumption, are not a homogeneous group. The
disadvantages of the Palestinians in Palestine relating to their media
consumption – a lack of resources and lack of language skills – do not
apply to these participants. In other words, the common feature of all
of the participants is their easy access to the Internet, as well as their
usage in languages other than Arabic for news consumption. What are
the differences then?
First I would like to relate to the division of Internet users according to
gender. Palestinian society is a patriarchal society where women, in most
cases, do not have the same personal and professional opportunities as
men. There are therefore more participants who are men, plus many
men emigrated without their families (wives and children). Bowker says:

Socially and politically, Palestinian society – like most Arab societies –

is highly stratified and patriarchal. Family and kinship ties are central
to Palestinian society, finding expression in the dominant influence
of family on the socialisation and subsequent control over many
aspects of the lives of individuals.
(Bowker, 2003, p. 42)

The question I explore is the use of the Internet and television by

Palestinian women in comparison to that of men. Palestinian women
who emigrated to the UK are not a representative sample of the women
in Palestine. Most of the women who live in the UK have financial
means and are educated, or they are students at some level. They lead
a different life from most of the women from Gaza and the West Bank,
who simply cannot emigrate because of financial challenges, as well as
the difficulties of obtaining a visa. The women I discuss are those who
use the Internet as their main medium. Later I will discuss the media
consumption of the participants who watch television news as their
main source of information. The number of women using the Inter-
net is relatively small compared with men but, as opposed to the men’s
group, all of the women who mainly use the Internet for updated news
are educated and professional, or are students, except for one woman,
228 Reception and Consumption

who has no higher education and is a housewife. In contrast, only a

few men, who use the Internet as their major source, are professionals.
Among them there is thus no correlation between education, profession-
alism and Internet usage. In addition, the fact that the men who work in
non-professional jobs do not have Internet availability, as professional
workers have, does not prevent them from using the Internet. In other
words, even though the men do not use the Internet at work, it is their
main medium for news consumption. They thus look for news online
outside their working hours – either at home or in the library. This fact
signals the increasing influence of the Internet on Palestinians.
Compared with the men, the women’s work is dominated by the new
technology environment and they use the Internet not only to read
news but also to receive news that they select from various sources,
plus many of them have blogs. I asked them why they preferred the
Internet. The main reasons are availability, selectivity and immediate
updates. In a historical context, since the attempt to form a media watch
group to combat unacceptable images about women on satellite tele-
vision, ‘groups of women from different countries in the Middle East
have taken advantage of easier communication via the internet, to share
their experiences in this field’ (Sakr, 2001, p. 197). Wajcman’s argument
strengthens my findings. In her research, Feminism Confronts Technol-
ogy, she says that women are constructed, and construct themselves,
as ‘other’ to men. In our society, ‘technical competence is central to
the dominant cultural ideal of masculinity, and its absence is a key fea-
ture of stereotyped femininity’ (Wajcman, 1991, p. 159). Consequently,
women’s reluctance to be technological can be attributed to cultural
structures which differentiate women from men (Green, 2002, p. 172).
The men’s main reasons for choosing the Internet are similar, but they
added that the Internet is quicker and is a hypermedium (Hanieh, 1999,
p. 43) that allows them to look simultaneously at a few websites. Let me
quote two men’s replies. Sami, 24, emigrated to the UK to learn English.
He said:

I can search for news, even yesterday’s news, and see everything. I
can print, look at pictures and take notes. I am using the Internet all
the time for emails, so it’s easy to use the websites. I use Google to
find news. I do not need to buy newspapers. I receive results from Al
Quds, Maan, BBC . . . I use the Internet at the library in the college,
I do not have a computer.

Mahmoud, a 40-year-old PhD student, said:

 Amira Halperin 229

The websites are important, you cannot live without it. I have access
to newspapers, but it’s the traditional way. The students, including
me, do not have money to travel back to Palestine to visit. Also,
there are restrictions on travel to Gaza, and Palestinians need a visa
to travel in Europe. That’s the reason the internet is important for the
young Palestinians.

In contrast with the Palestinian community in the UK, most of the

Arab diaspora in Germany came under the auspices of the German Asy-
lum Law and the Political Asylum Law (1980). Most parents belong
to the first generation, are unemployed and, as refugees, live off the
welfare assistance that they receive from the state. The media con-
sumption practices among the two Palestinian diasporic communities
in Europe are very different. In Germany, most women were consumers
of television rather than the Internet; they did not use the Internet.
The women usually did not consume German media but relied heav-
ily on Arab television (Rinnawi, 2012, p. 1459). In contrast with the
women in Germany, most of the Palestinian women in the UK use the
Internet as the main medium for news consumption. They are notably
educated and professional, or they are students. Another major differ-
ence between the two communities relates to the content aspect: while
in Germany, Palestinian men prefer news and talkshows, the women
favour entertainment (Rinnawi, 2012, p. 1460). In the UK, both men
and women use the media mainly for news consumption.
I asked my participants which medium they used most for news con-
sumption. The majority said that they use the Internet. They not only
read news online but also watch television news on the Internet. Some
of them also read news on their mobile phones. Only a few watch
television for news.
The Internet serves as an efficient tool for the reception of news from
Palestine, since terrestrial and satellite television in the UK lack many
channels that the Palestinians would like to use. For example, only
the Internet enables them to receive news from Palestinian news agen-
cies and, in some cases, Palestinian political websites. Most importantly,
Israeli media are a major source of information for the participants, and
they only have access to them online. Moreover, many of the partici-
pants do not have a television set at home, or a connection to satellite
television. Television is a minor medium among the participants.
The main reasons that the participants use the Internet as their major
medium are availability, selectivity, variety of news websites, and finan-
cial considerations. Above all, the participants explained to me that the
230 Reception and Consumption

Internet symbolizes for them a shift from the traditional to the modern
way of news consumption. The implications for them are not only at
the technical level but also at the message level. The Internet empowers
them – the Palestine problem is no longer the problem of a minority
in a remote area; it is a problem that lies at the heart of the global
community.

Palestine is an Islamic issue, not only Palestine; it opens a window

to the international world. If the first Intifada was covered by the
websites, it would bring the Palestinians cause. Now you are part
not only of a million people in Palestine, but part of one billion, a
community.
(Ghada, Exeter, June 2008)

R, who has lived in the UK for 30 years, sees the Internet as a

major source of information, saying that it has changed her news-
consumption practices. Whereas in the past she read Palestine’s news
in the newspaper, today she reads it online. She describes the journey
she has made:

All of a sudden, everybody is online. My mother [in Nablus] starts

speaking on the internet. I use mostly the internet. I read Maan News
and Electronic Intifada . . . I read The Guardian . . . Al Jazeera. At times
of big news events, I check the internet and ITV headlines on Teletext
on TV. In the past, I checked Palestine’s news in the newspaper.

Similarly, M says:

The websites are important, you cannot live without it. I have access
to newspapers, but it’s the traditional way.

The benefits of the Internet for the Palestinians are explained by

Aouragh thus:

It [the Internet] could help defy the repression of everyday life in

Palestine by overcoming the limitations of checkpoints and occu-
pation and thus generate feelings of ‘mobility’ and ‘political auton-
omy’ . . . the great enthusiasm for the online possibilities which the
internet offers Palestinians reveals essential facts about offline limi-
tations . . . they allude . . . to the absence of The Independent territory;
 Amira Halperin 231

free access to the very infrastructures necessary for free debate, free
mobility, and free democratic decision making.
(Aouragh, 2011, p. 2)

I suggest that the Internet has a dimension that is lacking in the

print media and satellite channels. The Palestinians interviewed use
the advantage of the new medium – the Internet, on the traditional
media: newspapers and television. They read the readers’ comments and
send comments online, they create websites relating to Palestinian issues
and communicate via blogs with Palestinians from different countries.
As Schulz and Hammer say:

Transnational communication technology facilitates the mainte-

nance of relationships throughout the Diaspora as well as the
maintenance of a national (ist) discourse. Information technology
brings Palestinians closer together and therefore reduces geographical
distance.
(Schulz and Hammer, 2003:181)

Rinnawi’s research into the Arab diaspora in Europe indicates that ‘mem-
bers of this virtual community are no longer a marginalised minority,
but are members of a majority via television and the web, since they
are members of a virtual community. These groups remain less assim-
ilated into their host societies’ (Rinnawi, 2012, p. 1456). In making
Arabs and Muslims in the West less of a minority, the Internet increases
not only their sense of identity as Arabs and Muslims but also their
self-confidence (Harb and Bessaiso, 2006; Matar, 2005; Miladi, 2006;
Rinnawi, 2010; Sedgwick, 1998).
Other researchers, such as Ros, point to the benefits of the information
society, alongside the challenges. Although there are new potentials for
information transmutation in migration contexts, there is still a lack of
information among most migrants. At the level of migration policies,
the new tools of the information society have not yet been used to solve
the basic problem of a lack of information, both before and after the
arrival in a new country (Ros, 2010, pp. 26–27).

Conclusion

The significance of this research is in two main issues. First, in the

researcher’s identity, as an outsider who belongs to a nation which is
in conflict with the subject of the research – the Palestinian people;
232 Reception and Consumption

second, in the research topic and findings. There is a shortage of studies

on the Palestinian diaspora, especially in relation to the Palestinian
transnational community. Recently, Arab states in the Middle East have
taken part in uprisings against dictatorial regimes, aiming to create
revolutions. Investigating the role of the new technologies in advanc-
ing mass protests is relevant to current political developments. In the
light of these changes, it is important to explore the Palestinians,
who are part of the Arab world, their transnational existence and the
influence of new media on their lives. In contrast with other Arab
communities, such as the Syrians and the Egyptians, the Palestinians
operate in a non-state space. This fact makes this research more inter-
esting, in particular as a study of the Palestinian diaspora’s role in
relation to Palestinian state building, their right to return aspirations
and their utilization of the new media for these purposes. It is impor-
tant, for the benefit of the discussion, to contextualize the term ‘stateless
diaspora’ in the light of recent political developments in the region.
‘Palestine’ is still not recognized as a state and there is also no territo-
rial continuity in the Palestinian Territories. Since the ‘Oslo Accords’
(September, 1993), a few of the conditions for state-building have
been fulfilled. There is a Palestinian interim self-government author-
ity and elections have been held. ‘Palestine’ is not yet a state but the
Palestinian authority has autonomy to govern its people. The conflict
with Israel is a major obstacle to the full implementation of the pro-
cess and to the resumption of the peace talks that might lead the way.
The Palestinian diaspora’s case demonstrates that, due to conflict, a
stateless diaspora has a genuine interest in news, mostly in news from
the homeland.

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15
Longing and Belonging:
An Exploration of the Online
News-Consumption Practices of the
Zimbabwean Diaspora
Tendai Chari

The global dispersal of the Zimbabwean population at the turn of the

century due to multi-layered crises coincided with the mushrooming of
online news websites catering to the growing diaspora population. Tech-
nological innovations of the late 1990s, such as the Internet, spurred
news organizations to introduce online versions of their newspapers.
The introduction of stringent media laws by the ZANU-PF govern-
ment, resulting in the closure of some newspapers and restructuring
in the state media, also forced unemployed journalists to start online
news websites catering to the bourgeoning diaspora population as well
as those in the country (Mano and Willems, 2010). The phenomenal
increase in the diaspora population, estimated to be about 3 million
(Bloch, 2005), meant that online news sources became a ‘virtual dis-
cussion forum for Zimbabweans all over the world’ (Fitzmaurice, 2011,
p. 8).
This chapter examines the online newspaper consumption practices
of the Zimbabwean diaspora in order to broaden theoretical debates
around transformations of citizenship in a digital era. The chapter argues
that the way in which the diaspora seeks to symbolically reconnect with
its homelands constitutes a form of patriotic citizenship. Patriotic citi-
zenship in the context of this chapter is a state of consciousness that
signifies memory, desire and the quest to remain emotionally attached
to the motherland. It is a form of psychosocial remitting and the
cyberspace is the catalyst for the affirmation of transnational loyalty in
a manner that is akin to material remittances, such as the telegraphic

235
236 Reception and Consumption

transfer of funds to the homeland to assist relatives with funerals,

medical bills, weddings or property investments.

Theorizing citizenship and diaspora

Although academic fascination with human migration has a long his-

tory, there has been renewed interest in the diaspora phenomenon
owing to increased human mobility globally (Tsagarousianou, 2004).
Millions of people now live outside their countries of origin and there
is no single country without a diaspora population (Baser and Swain,
2010, p. 37). The term diaspora is so nebulous that its meaning now
depends on who is invoking it (Vertovec, 1997). Some scholars argue
that the term is synonymous with the dispersal of populations through
colonization (Verhulst, 1999, p. 30), but lately it has been conflated with
immigrants, ethnic or racial groups, refugees, expatriates and travellers
(Vertovec, 1997).
A substantial part of the literature has focused on the tensions
between the experience of living in another country and the desire
to belong to the homeland (Braakman and Schlenkhoff, 2007), and it
mainly draws inspiration from postcolonial studies. Among other issues,
the literature on the diaspora focuses on the dilemma of belonging to
‘two geographies’ or ‘third spaces’ (see Appiah, 1997; Bhabha, 1990;
Hall, 1990). Identity construction among the diaspora often reflects
the tension between the pleasant memories of the homeland and the
material comfort of the host land. This evokes Benedict Anderson’s
notion ‘of imagined communities’ (cited in Mulluer and Van Gorp,
2011, p. 2), suggesting that the diaspora is more a state of mind. Thus
the term has a geophysical as well as mental/psychological meaning.
It is the mental/psychological meaning that is of particular interest in
this chapter.
Pasura (2008) notes that a series of overlapping phases of outward
migration dating back to the pre-independence period have produced
different types of Zimbabwean diaspora, including students, skilled and
unskilled labourers, political exiles, expellees, undocumented migrants,
asylum seekers, former white farmers and naturalized citizens of host
countries. Zimbabwean diaspora can be categorized into four groups
according to their level of participation in the political sphere – namely,
visible, epistemic, dormant and silent members (Pasura, 2008). ‘Visible’
members are those who are most politically engaged, while epistemic
members are ‘cyberspace’ or ‘desktop’ activists who engage in politi-
cal and economic discussions online. ‘Dormant’ members denote those
 Tendai Chari 237

who are politically inactive, because of their illegal status in the host
country or because they are too overworked to participate in any politi-
cal activities, or because they are simply disillusioned about the situation
in Zimbabwe (Pasura, 2008). ‘Silent’ members are those who distance
themselves from the Zimbabwean identity because of the country’s
negative publicity and ridicule in foreign countries (Kuhlmann, 2010).
To ‘camouflage’ themselves, silent members adopt the identities of other
countries because they do not stand the embarrassment of being iden-
tified as Zimbabweans. Visible members identify with Zimbabwe and
maintain connections with the homeland, but silent members rarely
participate in diaspora political activities because they do not regard
themselves as Zimbabweans (Kuhlmann, 2010).
Every Zimbabwean in the diaspora has a family in Zimbabwe and
maintains regular contact with their family back home, involving funds,
investments of various kinds, and participation in social and political
activities (Bloch, 2005). As a result, the Zimbabwean diaspora has a
powerful symbolic visibility at home expressed through the ownership
of properties and investments (Bloch, 2005). The ‘fractured’ nature of
the Zimbabwean diaspora (Pasura, 2008) and the variety of meanings
that it constructs about its conditions and realities partly explain the
use of the referral sampling procedure employed in this study. While
Pasura’s typology speaks of a Zimbabwean diaspora that is fragmented,
accentuating psychological attributes, such sentimental attachment to
the homeland brings to the fore a more inclusive idea of citizenship,
which I would like to call ‘patriotic citizenship’. This notion of citizen-
ship harks back to Appiah’s notion of cosmopolitan patriotism whereby
every cosmopolitan is ‘attached to a home of his own, with its own
cultural particularities, but taking pleasure from the presence of other,
different places that are home to other, different people’ (Appiah, 1997,
p. 618). As a psychosocial form of remitting, patriotic citizenship runs
counter to nativist and exclusivist notions of citizenship based on race,
geography and political party affiliation. Such a notion of citizenship is
broader because it is located in the realm of the consciousness. Appiah
(1997, p. 618) argues that by virtue of their decision to live outside
‘their natal patria’, patriotic citizens embrace cosmopolitanism but can-
not wish away memories of the homeland. My own argument is that
the spirit that motivates the diaspora to send money through electronic
transfers is linked to their desire to read about the homeland in online
news outlets.
One way of broadening the meaning of patriotic citizenship is to
explore how citizens symbolically affirm their sense of belonging to the
238 Reception and Consumption

nation-state. Online news consumption is one of those symbolic ges-

tures in the sense that online news platforms have become the locus
upon which the diaspora symbolically experience and ‘participate’ in
the affairs of their ancestral homeland.
Although there are some snippets of literature on how online media
shape ‘consciousness’ and ‘identifications’ (Clifford cited in Kvasny
and Hales, 2009, p. 4), the relationship between online media and
the diaspora has not been adequately theorized. Macri (2011), who
examined the identity narratives of the Romanian diaspora in Ireland,
concluded that Romanian diaspora have mixed feelings about their
ancestral homeland. She also found that Romanian diaspora’s nar-
ratives about their homeland bear imprints of their dual locality,
thereby amplifying the dilemma of belonging to different geographies
(Appiah, 1997; Bhabha, 1990; Hall, 1990). Cho (2011) examined how
the Burmese diaspora in New Zealand use the Internet to construct
certain identities. She observes that the Burmese diaspora in New
Zealand have a desire to share stories of suffering and to have their
pain recognized. They also maintain their language and cultural prac-
tices because they wish to return to Burma. The intention to return
home engenders strong sentimental attachments towards the moth-
erland, which are manifested through reading and listening to music
in their own language (Cho, 2011). Similarly, Mainsah (2009, p. 83)
studied how the Cameroonian diaspora in Oslo, Norway, utilized email
and websites to negotiate their identity, arguing that the construc-
tion of diasporic identities involves a ‘multidirectional gaze’, which
entails the diaspora looking to the host country, backwards to the
homeland, and all around to the global arena in their construction of
identities.

Zimbabwean online newspapers: An overview

Zimbabwean online newspapers are as diverse and fractured as their

audience, comprising mainly foreign-based, English-language online
newspapers and websites, satellite radio, such as SW Radio and Studio,
Internet radio and television stations, social networking sites, blogs and
online shopping websites offering a variety of Zimbabwean-produced
goods and services. News websites with a special focus on Zimbabwe
(Moyo, 2007) provide a virtual means of connecting the diaspora among
themselves as well as with those at home, and they constitute the glue
that holds Zimbabweans in the diaspora together (Witchel, 2005). They
have opinion columns featuring prominent journalists, scholars and
 Tendai Chari 239

politicians both in and outside Zimbabwe, as well as entertainment news

and business news.

Methodological considerations

The intention of this study was to capture the experiences, feelings and
motives of respondents in reading online newspapers from their point of
view. Theoretically, the study is anchored within Bennedict Anderson’s
concept of imagined community (1983), where the diaspora is viewed
as a form of consciousness shared by geographically dispersed people
linked by an imaginary connection to a specific sovereign state. Key ele-
ments of this consciousness are the desire to return to the homeland,
regular symbolic contact with families and friends back home, and the
maintenance and sustenance of material and psychosocial remittances.
The diaspora are an imagined community in the sense that their ‘com-
munion’ exists only in their minds (Anderson, 1983, p. 83). Studying
online consumption habits and practices therefore facilitates entry into
the consciousness of the diaspora so as to establish the scope of their
national imaginings (Anderson, 1983). The study sought to investigate
how the Zimbabwean diaspora engage with online news, the nature
of information they look for and how that information helps them to
reimagine their citizenship.
To address these concerns, a mixed-technique methodological design
primarily based on qualitative factors, but also including elements of
quantification, was used. The qualitative aspect was aimed at accessing
the narratives, attitudes, feelings and experiences of the Zimbabwean
diaspora in their consumption of online news, while the quantitative
aspect was meant to deal with elements of quantification emanating
from evaluative responses (Johnson et al., 2007). Empirical data were
gathered through a questionnaire – the primary research instrument –
comprising ten open-ended questions. The questionnaire was emailed
to acquaintances in the diaspora who were requested to forward it to
their email contacts, friends and acquaintances. To complement the
data from questionnaires, in-depth interviews were held with five of
the respondents from South Africa, where I am based, making it pos-
sible to establish physical contact with respondents. The idea was not
to generalize but to ensure that I extracted rich data that speak to the
how questions of the study through an intensive investigation of the
problem at hand (Gerring, 2004).
Whereas the respondents for the online questionnaire were recruited
through snowball sampling, subjects for the in-depth interviews were
240 Reception and Consumption

selected on the basis of availability, thus making the sampling strategy

for both the questionnaire respondents and the in-depth interviewees
essentially convenient. Data drawn from the online questionnaire and
in-depth interviews were extrapolated, coded thematically and inter-
preted using the hermeneutic approach.
A total of 31 questionnaires were collected between October 2011 and
April 2012. The period coincided with the constitution-making process,
which had begun in 2009 and was expected to pave the way for water-
shed harmonized elections that were anticipated to end the coalition
government (the GNU) between the two MDCs and ZANU-PF. Signifi-
cantly, this was a time of hyperpolitical activity, and the prospects of
political change and the issue of the diaspora vote, which dominated the
constitution-making process, were expected to heighten the diaspora’s
interest in the affairs of their motherland.
For the questionnaires, the breakdown of respondents who completed
them was 15 in South Africa, 5 in the UK, 3 in Australia, 3 in Botswana,
1 in Mozambique, 1 in Iran, 1 in Saudi Arabia, 1 in Namibia and 1 in the
Netherlands. After emailing the questionnaire to selected contacts in my
e-mail address list, I had no control over who received the questionnaire
next in the referral chain but could only determine the destination after
it had been returned, meaning that there was an element of chance in
the distribution of the questionnaires. However, the large number from
South Africa reflects my large number of contacts in South Africa. The
only people who are known to me are those in my e-mail contact list.
The political and economic circumstances under which this category
of Zimbabwean diaspora left the country shape their values and moral
obligations to the home country, and their engagement among them-
selves and with the host country (Musoro et al., 2011, p. 3). Although
this was a purposive sample, the demographics of the respondents mir-
ror the general composition of Zimbabwean diaspora in terms of age,
educational status and gender (Bloch, 2005; Pasura, 2008) – typically
young, predominantly male and well educated.
The use of snowball sampling was justified on the grounds that the
Zimbabwean diaspora population is too diverse and dispersed all over
the world and so difficult to access such that it would be difficult to draw
a representative sample. Although some scholars have accused snowball
sampling of bias because of its potential to include like-minded respon-
dents (Johnston and Sabin, 2010), others have lauded it for providing
an ‘efficient and economical way of finding cases that may otherwise be
difficult or impossible to locate or contact’ (Faugier and Sargeant, 1997,
p. 716).
 Tendai Chari 241

Online news surfing as a diasporic ritual

Question 7 of the questionnaire asked respondents how often they read

news online. Most respondents (23) disclosed that they read online
newspapers ‘every day’, one read every six days, three read twice a week
and two read once a week, thus underscoring the ritualistic tendency
of online newspaper consumption by the Zimbabwean diaspora. Such
readership practices point to a strong attachment with the homeland.
The habitual consumption of online newspapers reflects the currency
of ‘temporality’, ‘spatiality’ and ‘materiality’, three of the seven dimen-
sions in Schroder’s typology of factors that influence news media use
(cited in Schroder, 2010, p. 6). According to Schroder the worthiness of
news depends on an individual’s available time (temporality), their loca-
tion (spatiality), their ability to participate in the news media universe
(participation), the affordability (economics) of the news source, encour-
aging and discouraging inputs from one’s surroundings (normativity)
and the relevance of the content (textuality) (cited in Schroder, 2010,
p. 6). These observations provide an opportunity to expand knowledge
about the different experiences and motives behind news consumption.
It is, however, important to point out that the frequency of reader-
ship is bound to change over time because it is mediated by political
developments in the country and individual expectations. This change
in values and moral obligations is aptly illustrated by one respondent,
who said:

I used to read online newspapers daily, but now I read less fre-
quently, probably monthly. I guess you realize nothing will change
in Zimbabwe and I realize that the news from there just depresses you
instead of encouraging or updating you.

Thus strong sentimental attachments towards the homeland by the

Zimbabwean diaspora are mediated by individual expectations about
the sociopolitical developments in the country and are therefore bound
to change. This shows that online news consumption by the diaspora is
shaped by politics, economics and geography.

Zimbabwean diaspora, surveillance and the

media-dependency syndrome

Question 8 asked when respondents read news online. The findings

show that 30 of them said that they read online newspapers in the
242 Reception and Consumption

morning, 4 said in the afternoon, 23 in the morning and evening and 3

at any time of the day. This suggests that most respondents read online
newspapers in order to get an update about developments in Zimbabwe
and that the best time to do that is in the morning after all of the
newspapers had been published or before doing anything else. The large
number of people who read online newspapers both in the morning and
in the evening (23) is also significant in the sense that people want to
keep abreast of breaking news from Zimbabwe.
Although reasons for consuming online newspapers by the
Zimbabwean diaspora vary, information-seeking was the major
driver. The desire to get information about the ‘political developments
in Zimbabwe’ was the main motive, reflecting information-seeking ten-
dencies that are consistent with people who are disconnected from
their homeland. Although a few respondents mentioned that they read
online newspapers in order to access news about entertainment and
sports, the main reason was to get information related to the economic
and political crises in the country. Statements such as ‘to have a rough
idea of the general political situation and the socio-economic situation
of my country’, ‘to get an update of the current issues in Zimbabwe’
and ‘to get an update about the political and economic developments
in Zimbabwe’ illustrate a compelling desire by the Zimbabwean diaspora
to remain symbolically connected to the motherland. The diaspora are
kept engaged with the politics of the homeland through online discus-
sions, commentaries, opinion surveys and columns. The surveillance
and participatory possibilities offered by online newspapers enable the
diaspora to maintain strong sentimental attachments to their coun-
try of origin. The following statement from the survey questionnaire
succinctly captures how online newspapers invigorate transnational
citizenship:

Through online newspapers I have not only managed to get informa-

tion about developments in my country, but I have also been able to
add my voice to the ongoing debate about the diaspora vote through
online forums and there are signs that someone somewhere has been
listening because civil society groups in the country have taken up
the issue.

Geographical disconnection from the motherland implies that diaspora

are unable to experience the political dramaturgy in the country. As a
result, they use online newspapers to complement information that has
been obtained from interpersonal sources back home. Many members
 Tendai Chari 243

of the diaspora still have strong links to the home country cemented by
kinship ties, friendships, financial remittances and investments in the
form of houses and other resources. This heightens anxiety about the
political situation in the country.
It is for this reason that the diaspora vote has been a thorny issue
in every election held between 2000 and 2008 and in the constitution-
making process, which began in 2009 and culminated in a referendum,
which was held in March 2013. Demands for the ‘diaspora vote’ have
been tied to the diaspora’s contribution to the economy. Statistics show
that remittances from the Zimbabwean diaspora constituted 7.2% of the
country’s gross domestic product in 2010 (International Organisation
of Migration, cited by Fitzmaurice, 2011, p. 5), thus underscoring the
diaspora as a key national resource. The affinity between the diaspora
and their homeland is demonstrated by Macri as follows:

On the one hand migrants keep in touch with their family and
friends at home and they tend to see the home country not only
through diasporic eyes, but also through the eyes of their dear ones.
Thus, the homeland’s sad realities appear as extremely real and imme-
diate even for those living thousands of kilometers away from ‘the
source’.
(Macri, 2011, p. 132)

Zimbabweans in the diaspora express a strong desire to belong to their

ancestral homeland, and online newspapers have become sites where
this desire is expressed. Reading online news becomes an assertion
of ‘cosmopolitan patriotism’ whereby one remains attached to their
home while enjoying the material comfort of another country. This is
illustrated by one respondent who revealed:

I read online newspapers in order to keep up with political develop-

ments in the country. I live in hope [sic] that one day my beloved
Zim will return to normality, with a strong currency-stronger than
the US dollar, the Bots pula, and the ‘zuda’ [‘Zuda’ is Zimbabwean
slang for South Africa], as we used to call the South African rand in
the good old days.

This statement reflects a sense of both nostalgia and optimism about the
future of the homeland, with a currency stronger than major global and
regional currencies. The respondent feels that their country will regain
its economic dominance in the southern African region. The patriotic
244 Reception and Consumption

instinct makes one look into the future with hope. The dire straits of
the country are blamed on the ZANU-PF government, thus portraying
the country as a victim.
One respondent pointed out that she reads online newspapers in
order to know about ‘the unfolding political discourse at home, mun-
dane way of life for [sic] my fellow Zimbabweans as they struggle in
the daily grind of life living [sic] under a dictatorship’, thus reinforcing
the victimhood of the country. Zimbabwe is therefore constructed as an
innocent victim of a rapacious political leadership. While the respon-
dent remains committed to Zimbabwe and has fond memories of the
country, she is averse to the country’s leadership and its toxic politics.
As pointed out by one respondent, reading online newspapers becomes
an affirmation that ‘Zimbabwe will always be home’ regardless of the
sorry state of affairs in the country.
It is hardly disputable that online newspapers carry the mantle left
by the printed newspaper because they enable the diaspora to virtu-
ally reconnect with their motherland and relive the experiences of the
home country. If migration has transformed the notions of citizenship,
the online newspaper is the handmaid of this transformation. Thus
transnational citizenship evokes the dominance of the media depen-
dency theory whereby the media are used as a guide to remain ‘in touch
with the world’ (Ball-Rokeach cited by Bentley, 2000, p. 58). The essence
of the media dependency theory in this particular case is that isolation
creates conditions in which the media become surrogates upon which
the diaspora depend for information (Bentley, 2000, p. 56). Consistent
with Rubin’s observation that physical barriers restrict interaction (cited
by Bentley, 2000, p. 57), it is logical to argue that the physical distance
between homeland and host country nourishes a dependency on online
newspapers for information about the homeland.
Some scholars argue that some people develop a dependency syn-
drome on the media system as well as on specific media channels
(Bentley, 2000). This is true for some Zimbabwean diasporas’ heavy
reliance on online newspapers. The daily ritual of surfing the Internet
in search of recycled ideologically palatable information from politi-
cally correct websites is ample testimony that the online newspaper has
become an intrinsic dynamic of the Zimbabwean diaspora.

Transnational loyalty: Longing and belonging

Diaspora communities try to maintain connections with the home

country and other parts of the world through both interpersonal
communication networks and mass communication. This is important
 Tendai Chari 245

since most people in the diaspora hope to return to their home coun-
try. Some scholars argue that the cyberspace provides the context in
which the diaspora reconstitute relationships that existed before they
migrated to foreign lands (Mainsah, 2009, p. 89). Respondents in the
present study not only showed a willingness to maintain links with the
home country but also were keen to build new ones across the globe.
Many of the respondents indicated that they share what they read in
online newspapers with people back home, ‘fellow Zimbabweans’ in
the diaspora, and with people of other nationalities who care about
the Zimbabwean situation. Thus, for the Zimbabwean diaspora, online
newspapers have become pegs upon which ‘old’ and ‘new’ relationships
are constituted. News from online newspapers is debated, interrogated
and negotiated both online and offline. One respondent based in
Johannesburg, South Africa, explained how stories that originate from
online newspapers become subjects of discussions with other people:

Sometimes I share some stories with friends here in South Africa or

the United Kingdom. For example, the issue of the diaspora vote is
a topic that is close to our hearts, as people who are contributing
something to the development of the economy. We often discuss
these issues with friends and colleagues here in South Africa, but we
also try to raise these issues with some politicians in the inclusive
government.

This shows that stories from online newspapers are implicated in inter-
personal relationships. Responses from the questionnaire showed that
there is considerable social intercourse between the diaspora, people
back home and those in other parts of the world, resulting in the for-
mation of a triadic network of relationships. Members of the diaspora
share information among themselves, with other nationalities in the
diaspora and with family members and friends back home. This fits well
into the three-directional-gaze framework of Sreberny (cited in Mainsah,
2009, p. 93) whereby the diaspora transnational media, such as the
online newspapers discussed in this chapter, enable the diaspora to look
‘backward’ to their home country, ‘inward’ into the host country and
‘all around’ the globe for relationships and common identifications.
The three-directional gaze of the diaspora mirrors the complex identity
of the Zimbabwean diaspora and its media consumption activities, an
indication that the diaspora is a state of mind.
The range of motives for which people share what they read in online
newspapers also shows that Zimbabweans in the diaspora construct
different identities for themselves depending on their circumstances.
246 Reception and Consumption

Some respondents reported that they share what they read in online
newspapers with others because they want to be ‘opinion leaders’,
while others said that sharing information with others was a way of
gauging other people’s opinions, or as a way of catching up or fill-
ing information gaps. The fact that some only share information with
non-Zimbabwean nationals if the news is positive attests to the lim-
its of patriotism (Cohen, 1996), whereby geographical separation from
one’s country may blind loyalty to it. For instance, a participant in the
in-depth interviews said:

I often discuss the stories about the country’s economic meltdown

with fellow Zimbabweans. But if there is anything positive, I also
share with friends from other countries because our country has a
drought of good news. A case in point is when the United Nations
[Development Programme] announced in 2010 that Zimbabwe had
overtaken Tunisia to become the African country with the highest
literacy rate in Africa, a number of Zimbabwean websites published
the story. I printed the story and discussed with fellow students and
other Zimbabweans based here in South Africa. I also forwarded the
links to the story to my friends from other countries. For once I felt
proud to be a Zimbabwean again.

Despite the negative perceptions about their country, some Zimbabwean

diaspora still view it positively. The hunger for positive news about their
homeland is the diasporic response to the insecure living conditions and
discrimination that they face in host countries. The longing for positive
news about the motherland is useful in understanding the repertoire
of political activities by the Zimbabwean diaspora in both host and
home country. Baser and Swain (2010, p. 40) argue that diaspora main-
tain strong ties to the homeland with ‘a strong sense of belonging’ by
actively participating in the political affairs of their homeland.
The keen interest in the political affairs of their nation exhibited by
the Zimbabwean diaspora is testament to the desire to be embraced by
the motherland. The precise link between the diaspora’s online media
consumption practices and the repertoire of activities in the host and
home country is a subject for another investigation. It is clear that the
effect of being disconnected from their country heightens the demand
for information about sociopolitical and economic developments in the
country as they engage in a virtual affirmation of their citizenship of
Zimbabwe. It is clear that being disconnected from one’s country may
 Tendai Chari 247

intensify the desire to be connected and to belong, and may conse-

quently heighten the demand for news about one’s home country as
a virtual affirmation of one’s citizenship.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that online newspapers are transforming the way in

which the Zimbabwean diaspora display citizenship. Through these the
diaspora are able to imagine themselves as part and parcel of the old
‘political community’ in their homeland and online news has become
the catalyst through which this is realized. The diaspora’s loyalty to
the home country challenges primordial notions of a nation as a geo-
graphically bounded entity in the sense that citizens are able to assert
their affiliation to the nation. There is a need to rethink the strict def-
inition of the nation-state as territorial and exclusive (Brubaker, 1990).
Online news consumption creates a sense of community among the dis-
placed, constructing a shared national and virtual history, and serving
as an arena for civic engagement and dissent as well as status produc-
tion (Bernal, 2006, p. 175). When diaspora groups consume news online
they become members of an in-group/out-group, thus debunking the
notion that diaspora groups are atomized due to globalization (Bernal,
2006, p. 175). Thus examining the news consumption practices of the
diaspora can be useful in gaining insights into their political activities
and their potential impact on homeland politics. Future studies on the
way in which the diaspora interact with online news media could focus
on how they use online media to influence the democratization agen-
das of the homeland. Such studies could deploy multisited ethnographic
approaches with larger samples to enable the drawing of richer data so
that findings can be generalized.

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Postscript: Prospects for Future
Research
Ola Ogunyemi

The Introduction (Chapter 1) identified some gaps in the dominant

literature to justify the rationale for this volume. Here I intend to expand
on specific research clusters for setting the agenda for future research
on diasporic media. However, before this I would like to reiterate that
this volume is as an exploratory investigation in which the contribu-
tors, in their different ways, analyse empirical studies from the prism of
dominant paradigms to provide answers to pertinent research enquiries.
They demonstrate that the media of diaspora do not only exist side by
side with the mainstream media but also flourish as media of choice for
their particularistic audience, and contribute to the global public sphere.
However, the contributors have also opened a Pandora’s box of
research enquiries beyond the scope of this volume. Some of these
enquiries relate to questions about historical developments in the social,
political and economic aspects of journalism and media of diaspora at
national and international levels; the comparative analysis of different
models of journalism and media of diaspora; and the analysis of the
appropriation of journalism genres (literary, campaigning, investigative,
environmental, ethics, etc.) in their historical, national and global con-
texts. These research areas place the study of diasporic media on an
equal footing with its mainstream and alternative media counterparts.
Hence this volume is intended to be a starting point for a serious debate
and analytical venture among scholars and students of the media of
diaspora.
I argue for a focus on the journalism of the media of diaspora because
journalism has become ‘one of the most important social, cultural and
political institutions’ (Craig, 2009, p. ix) for diasporic people in the dig-
ital age. Wahl-Jorgensen and Hanitzsch (2009) in their introduction to
The Handbook of Journalism Studies make a strong case for why the study

250
 Ola Ogunyemi 251

of journalism is a worthwhile endeavour for scholars, which I think

is relevant to those interested in the media of diaspora. They argued
that ‘news shapes the way we see the world, ourselves and each other’
(ibid., p. 3). There is a gap in the literature regarding how the media of
diaspora play this role and contribute to ‘shaping our identities as citi-
zens, making possible the conversations and deliberations between and
among citizens and their representatives so essential to successful self-
governance’ (ibid.). Moreover, Wahl-Jorgensen and Hanitzsch argued
that journalism ‘advances the key narratives of modernity and provides
a store for our collective memory’ (ibid.). This function is not only
significant but also complicated for the media of diaspora to execute
because the diasporic people grapple between two competing collec-
tive memories – those of the homeland and the host country. In such
a contradictory sociocultural milieu, ‘journalism is the primary means
for articulating and playing out both consensus (Hall et al., 1978) and
conflicts (Cottle, 2006) in society; so news stories capture the ongoing
drama of the battles between the dominant ideology and its challengers’
(Wahl-Jorgensen and Hanitzsch, 2009, p. 4).
The examination of the production perspective is the first research
cluster that I will propose for further research because it relates ‘to the
media production process rather than either specific media products
or the consumption of those products’ (Crane, 1992; Croteau et al.,
2012, p. 31; Peterson and Anand 2004). The adoption of this perspec-
tive will enable scholars of the media of diaspora to provide a deep
insight into ‘how these economic, political and organisational forces
shape decision making and influence media content; and how actors
within the media industry interpret and respond to these constraints’
(Croteau et al., 2012, p. 29). Moreover, the production perspective will
reveal the extent to which the diasporic media ‘are influenced by issues
such as profitability, cost containment, and evolving ownership pat-
terns’ (Croteau et al., 2012, p. 31). An exploration of the production
perspective will also reveal wider issues surrounding free speech, the
regulation of ownership, technology, content and distribution. Most
importantly, this perspective will provide answers to the questions raised
by Ralph Negrine in the Foreword, where he asked: ‘Are the media of
diaspora, today as in the past, seeking to maintain coherence among dis-
placed populations, recent arrivals or migrant workers? Are they seeking
to preserve the language? Are they seeking to preserve the culture and
religion? Are they political in their aims and objectives?’ These ques-
tions connect to work practices and professional norms of the media of
diaspora.
252 Postscript: Prospects for Future Research

The content of their media products is the second research cluster

that I will propose for further research because it will shed light on
social cleavages, including gender, race, religion and sexual orienta-
tions, and will also complement the growing literature on the content
of diasporic media (Bozdag et al., 2012; Georgiou, 2006; Karim, 2003;
Landzelius, 2006; Nacify, 2003; Ogunyemi, 2012b; Yin, 2013). Ralph
Negrine pondered this in stating that

instead of reading the local Arab press, it may be possible to watch

Al Jazeera or Al-Arabiya. Does this make the work of local content
producers easier or more difficult? Does it force them to re-think what
they need to produce and the communities they seek to reach (and
how they seek to reach them)? Does it make it easier or more difficult
to produce counter-narratives?

These questions concern the analysis of content and all of its ram-
ifications regarding how it links to ‘producers, to audience interests,
to society in general, to audience effects and to examine content
independent of context’ (Croteau et al., 2012, p. 187).
The relationship between the diasporic media and their audiences is
the third research cluster that I will propose because there is a dearth
of literature on this aspect. Consequently, we have little understanding
of the content preferences/interests of diasporic audiences and of their
media habits because of a lack of a longitudinal study. However, Quandt
and Singer (2009) caution against technological determinist approaches
that ‘stress the technological basis of developments’ (ibid., p. 131) and
advocate the social scientists approach, which stresses ‘human aspects
of technological development, for instance describing how people use
and make sense of new tools’ (ibid) and journalism studies scholars’
approach, which concentrates ‘primarily on the production of con-
tent for multiple media platforms and the associated changes in work
routines, skills, and news culture’ (ibid.).
Moreover, a human aspect approach will enable us to understand
how diasporic audiences use the media both as a resource and as a
source, how they use its messages to actively construct meaning, and
how they use new technologies to interact with the diasporic media.
But diasporic media scholars should heed the observation by Croteau
et al. (2012) that ‘research on the media’s impact on citizens highlights
the tension between media influence and reader agency’ (ibid., p. 236).
This will enable scholars to pay attention to the relationship between
media and social movements, on the one hand, and to the diasporic
 Ola Ogunyemi 253

media effects on political elites and individual citizens, on the other.

Such a research approach also entails an exploration of how the social
movements for and by diasporic groups ‘represent an interesting story
angle or are significant “players” in the issues at hand’ (ibid., p. 237) and
how they ‘work to influence the nature of media coverage they receive’
(ibid.).
The nature and impacts of media globalization form the last research
cluster that has been under-researched within the context of the media
of diaspora. Croteau et al. (2012) highlight two central components of
globalization that are relevant in conceptualizing diasporic media. ‘The
first relates to the changing role of geography and physical distance
and the growing interconnectedness and intensification of connections’
(ibid., p. 326). This aspect contributes to the growing research on the
connective and orientation roles of the diasporic media (see Matsaganis
et al., 2011; Ogunyemi, 2012b). The second relates to ‘the content of
this communication. With electronic mass media, the ideas, images,
and sounds of different cultures are potentially available to vast net-
works of people outside the culture from which the message originated’
(ibid., p. 326). This aspect will contribute to our understanding of the
potentially positive outcomes of using diasporic media (e.g. culturally
specific news, self-representation, cross-cultural understanding) and of
the potentially negative consequences of using diasporic media (e.g.
audience fragmentation, stereotyping, cultural insularity).
Finally, I have argued for the application of dominant theoretical
approaches to the analysis of the media of diaspora. Future research on
them should encompass the interrelationships between the diasporic
media industry and the various attributes of messages/products, tech-
nology and the diasporic audiences, on the one hand, and be alert to the
dichotomy between the host and home countries, on the other. Hence,
diaspora media scholars should avoid a preponderance of research on
a single cluster which will engender an incomplete picture of the sig-
nificance and contribution of diasporic media to the global public
sphere.

References
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on 27 September 2013 from http://nms.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/09/
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Index
active audience, 2, 8, 11–12, 172, 218
alternative media, 3–4, 35, 38, 42,
69, 106
audience, 1–3, 5–9, 11–12, 14, 19, 30,
41, 43, 49, 53–5, 57–8, 65–6, 68–9,
74, 89, 121–2, 134, 153–6, 160–2,
166, 171–2, 177–80, 181–2, 197,
205–9, 210–15, 218, 220, 222–7,
238, 250, 252–3
belonging, 1–3, 73, 79, 94, 132, 134,
205, 235–8, 244, 246
black, 36, 44, 54–5, 64
community broadcast, 11, 152–3,
156–7, 159–60, 161, 166
consumption, 3, 6–8, 11–12, 35, 69,
80, 105, 172, 174, 176, 178, 180,
182, 191–2, 196–8, 204–9,
213–15, 218, 220, 227–30, 235,
238–9, 241, 245–7, 251
cultural practice, 8, 121, 126, 209
culture, 3, 4–7, 19, 22, 45–6, 48, 54,
63, 65, 69–70, 71–4, 77, 93–5, 97,
121, 123–8, 130–3, 135, 153, 156,
158, 160, 162, 205, 218, 222, 225,
251–3
deliberative democracy, 35, 39–41,
48–9
diasporic media, 2–12, 53–4, 65–6, 79,
125, 127, 134, 189, 191, 250–3
diversity, 1, 4, 6, 8, 40, 45, 69, 90, 93,
99, 105, 121, 133, 135, 153,
165, 209
domestic abuse, 124, 130, 132, 134
domestic violence, 10, 121–3, 125–9,
130–2, 134–5
engagement, 2, 7–8, 11, 57, 173, 182,
187, 196, 198, 207–8, 247
ethics, 4, 6, 50, 53, 55, 224, 250
255
ethnic/ethnicity, 1, 2–3, 19, 20–2,
28–9, 31, 38, 68–70, 73, 77, 80,
88, 90, 92, 94, 96–8, 101, 104–5,
107, 109, 112, 114, 122, 125,
128–9, 141, 144, 146, 152–60,
162–6, 191, 223–4, 236
ethnic minority media, 105
fragmentation, 190, 253
framing, 9–10, 59, 106, 108, 115,
118, 173
gatekeeping, 4, 53, 74
gender, 10, 61, 68–9, 88, 90, 92, 95–8,
101, 121–3, 126–7, 213, 227,
240, 252
identity, 3, 9, 19, 21, 28, 30, 31, 45,
63, 68–70, 75, 92–5, 98–9, 105,
107, 134, 139, 141, 153–8, 160,
163–5, 190, 193, 196, 224, 231,
236–8, 245
ideology, 9, 53, 55–6, 59, 69, 72, 133,
190, 251
immigrants/migrants, 19, 20, 37, 39,
75, 87–99, 100–4, 105–20, 134,
180, 182, 189, 203–5, 220, 231,
236, 243
integration, 68, 71, 88, 89, 92, 96, 98,
100–1, 116, 156, 191
Iran/Iranian, 9, 11, 171–3, 175–9,
180–2, 240
Jewish press, 9, 17–22, 27–31
journalism, 4–6, 10–12, 19–20, 22,
24–5, 27, 41, 43, 49–50, 54, 56,
58, 69–70, 72–4, 76, 79–80,
108–9, 111, 117, 123, 134–5, 152,
155–6, 159, 163, 165–6, 171–2,
174–6, 178–80, 204, 247, 250–1
knowledge diaspora, 2
256 Index
mainstream media, 2, 10, 11, 18, 22,
68–9, 87–8, 90, 92, 98–9, 104–6,
109–10, 112–14, 118, 122–3, 125,
128–9, 132–3, 152, 155, 157, 161,
165, 179, 181, 205, 213, 226, 250
media of diaspora, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12,
251–3
newspaper, 9–10, 17–20, 25, 27–8, 30,
35, 38, 53, 68, 70–80, 89, 93–6,
105, 109, 111, 115, 118, 129, 131,
133, 134, 138, 145, 147, 160,
173–8, 205, 213, 223, 228–30,
231, 235, 238–9, 241–7
news values, 9, 53–6, 61, 65, 74, 110
Nigeria, 8, 60, 62–3, 204–5
objectivity, 4, 6, 55, 59, 74, 80
Ponzi scheme, 9, 17, 25
public sphere, 1, 3, 8–9, 34–6, 38–43,
45, 47, 49–50, 65, 79, 88, 96, 99,
101, 177, 192, 250, 253
Punjabi-Canadian, 121, 124
race/racism, 2, 126, 131, 142, 237, 252
religion, 10, 18–19, 21, 54, 75
representation, 1–2, 8, 10–11, 57, 68,
71, 87–90, 91–100, 101, 104, 118,
122–5, 129, 132, 134–5, 138, 143,
152–7, 160, 162, 165, 180–2, 194,
198, 224, 253
resistance, 97, 134, 135, 181
Sikh, 123, 126, 132–3
sourcing, 2, 53, 108–9, 111–12, 118
South Asian-Canadian, 121, 123–4,
126, 132, 134
stereotypes, 1, 57, 95, 97, 123, 127,
133, 153, 155–7, 165, 180
taboo, 9, 38, 53–6, 58–63, 65, 176
Turkish, 9–10, 70–80, 116
United Kingdom, 12, 245
uses and Gratifications, 11, 172,
177, 182
Yiddish, 17, 19–20, 23
Zambia, 12, 203, 205, 207–10, 211–15
Zimbabwe, 8, 9, 11–12, 34–43, 45–6,
48–50, 171–8, 181–2, 204–5,
235–47