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Television and ethnic minorities Eva Bakøy Summary: This paper is the result of an interest in the role television plays in the lives of ethnic minorities. So far, reception research within the field of media has delivered a limited number of answers to this question. Some of them are: Ethnic minority audiences frequently feel excluded by or represented in a demeaning way by mainstream television. Immigrants welcome the advent of satellite television in order to keep in touch with their original culture, also because they have informational needs that are not met in their ‘new’ countries. Young second generation immigrants have a viewing profile quite similar to the majority teenager preferring mostly American series. The quality and increasing commercialisation of minority media is regarded a problem. Soap opera talk is an outlet for personal feelings and a resource for identity negotiations about ethnicity, gender and morality, and knowledge about ‘white’ family life. The research questions of the studies mentioned above can be divided in two categories. The first category of questions is inspired by public debates concerning ethnic minority groups such as media discrimination and questions of integration versus ghettoization. Studies of this kind are of course very relevant, and they have yielded interesting results, but they can potentially recycle negative stereotypes and ideas about ethnic minority groups if they do not take a self-reflexive stance to such problems. Unfortunately, the works mentioned in this paper do not reflect much about their own construction of ethnic minority groups in spite of the fact that they are very sensitive to how media messages portray such groups. The second category of research questions are based on theoretical and political debates within media studies such as media imperialism and the idea of the active viewer. Works with such a starting point have in a very fruitful manner contributed to professional discussions. But as a source to information about the role television plays in life of ethnic minority groups, their contribution seems more limited since they are primarily directed at proving specific theoretical points often at the expense of saying something significant about the lives of social groups they are studying. However, lack of background information about the people being interviewed seems to be a general feature in reception studies mentioned in this paper. This is of course a waste of an important opportunity to inform the public about the lives of less ‘visible’ people in society. It is also a problem concerning the validity of the interpretations made by the researchers. Lack of focus upon individual differences is also a general problem with the reception studies mentioned above. The different ethnic groups are often portrayed in a uniform manner. This can easily lead to problematic stereotyping and charges of ethnic determinism. Seen in this context, Marie Gillespie’s ethnographic study of how Punjabi teenagers in Southall relate to television proves to be a refreshing alternative. By taking part in the daily lives of the informants she is able to go beyond the agenda set by political issues and academic discussion and capture new and significant aspect of the role television might play in the lives of an ethnic minority group – both as a challenge to and as a reinforcement and revision of cultural traditions. In general, this investigation into the audience research concerning the role of television in the lives of ethnic minorities reveals that teenagers have been studied more often that grown up immigrants and that little is said about what the ethnic minority groups learn from television for

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instance about the majority population or other ethnic minority groups. The potential pleasures of the medium have also largely been ignored together with questions concerning how television is inserted into the daily lives of the different groups. In general television studies have moved from an interest in decodings to a sociological interest in viewing contexts (Morley 1992). This development has so far had only a limited impact upon reception studies concerned with ethnic identities. Hopefully, some of these areas will be studied in the near future, preferably with a more self-reflexive stance, than seems to be the case so far, towards how the research procedures (including the background of the researcher) construct the minority groups in question. In general, ethnic minority groups are in a vulnerable position in our society. This makes it necessary to pay extra attention to the implicit assumptions that guide the research questions asked concerning their behaviour. However, this does not mean that researchers are obliged to gloss over potential areas of conflict between majority and the minority groups. The key is paying due respect to the integrity of the individual as members of both groups.

Introduction What role does television play in the lives of ethnic minorities? This seems to be a pertinent question to ask for at least three reasons. First, because we live in an increasingly mobile world where different ethnic groups mix much more frequently than before and this makes questions of ethnic identity highly controversial. Secondly, because television plays an important role in the daily lives of most social and cultural groups, continually indicating what kind of people and issues that are important and valuable. This in turn affects the social possibilities, the mode of understanding and the sense of self-worth of the viewers. And thirdly, because satellite distribution has made television into a fundamentally trans-national medium consisting of a complex mixture of messages sent from a multitude of different sources; potentially creating «a new order of instability in the production of modern subjectivities» (Appadurai 1996:4). Media studies have until recently shown a limited interest in answering the question above. But as Simon Cottle wrote in the introduction to the book Ethnic Minorities and the Media, this picture is about to change. There is a growing ‘multiculturalist’sensibility as a consequence of the conditions mentioned above and a number of other reasons such as: the targeting of minority viewers as a potentially lucrative market and, more academically, an interest in differentiated decodings and media use within local settings and cultural milieus (Cottle 2000.24). The main purpose of this paper is to present a picture of research questions media studies have raised with respect to the relationship between television and ethnic groups. In this connection, a distinction is drawn between three influential trends which deal respectively with: • • •

The representation of ethnic minorities in mainstream television, How ethnic minority groups use and evaluate cable and satellite television, and How minority audiences read particular programs (usually soaps or news).

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In the following, each of the trends will be represented by relevant studies and exposed to a critical examination, which includes issues such as how the different studies construct their informants and the television medium, and their ideas about ethnic identity. Finally, in order to present a viable alternative to the three dominant perspectives, the fourth part of the paper will present a book that adopts an ethnographic approach to the study of the role of television in the lives of ethnic minority groups. This does not imply that the ethnographic approach, which explores the social uses of television and its messages in the context of every day life, should replace other perspectives and methods, such as textual analysis of television program, interviews or questionnaires in order to make sense of the television medium and how it is received. But the willingness of the media ethnographer to participate in people’s daily lives, watching what happens, listening to what is said and asking questions, has the advantage of potentially challenging the conventional mental schemes of the academic researcher, as well as highlighting how the media is integrated into social relationships and social events.

Representations in mainstream television Until recently research about the relationship between the television and ethic minorities has focused upon how dominant national television channels represent such social groups. These kinds of studies usually make for depressing reading. As Simon Cottle pointed out: Under-representation and stereotypical characterization within entertainment genres and negative problem-oriented portrayal within faculty and news form, and a tendency to ignore structural inequalities and lived racism experienced by ethnic minorities in both, are recurring research findings. (Cottle 2000: 7–8) Works concerned with issues of representation rarely include audience studies, but based upon the above mentioned results they frequently infer that mainstream television programs promote a particular understanding of minority ethnic communities and this impacts negatively on viewers from the majority population, influencing their thinking about ethnic minorities in their own social world. In other words, television might cause negative attitudes towards ethnic groups (Ross 2001:4). This inference, inspired by cultivation theory and neo-Marxist assumptions of the media as a relatively autonomous ideological practice, seems plausible, but not unproblematic. Based on the idea of the active viewer, audience studies have convincingly argued that it is impossible to understand the effect of a text on the basis of textual analysis alone, and that the reception of a text, within certain limits, varies from viewer to viewer. Audience studies have also repeatedly shown that television viewers are not passive dupes, but critical and self-conscious subjects. Consequently, it seems unlikely that television viewers would accept the images of ethnic minorities produced by major television channels without any criticism. This is an issue that needs further investigation. Textual studies of the representation of ethnic minorities in television also frequently infer how ethnic minority groups react to mainstream television. They suggest that ordinary television programming produces feelings of exclusion, worthlessness and hostility among

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ethnic minorities and potentially increases the tension between majority and minority groups. This inference is of course subject to the same criticism as the inference concerned with the majority population. However, in this area audience research exists that appears to confirm some of the claims mentioned above. Karen Ross has explored the general lack of information about the ethnic minority audiences’ own views on the way in which race and ethnicity is portrayed on mainstream television. In a study, based upon interviews with 35 focus groups, with viewers belonging to a variety of minority ethnic backgrounds across England and Wales, she reported that the interviewed groups felt marginalized by mainstream television and were dissatisfied with the range and characterisations of ethnic minorities. They also voiced more specific criticisms of British television: Characters are rarely perceived as realistic, are never properly integrated into the community they inhabit and are mostly peripheral to the main action. When the viewer is allowed into a Black of Asian character’s home, there is no ornament or decoration or picture which suggests the personality or history of its incumbent. Crucially, there is nothing culturally distinctive in their homes, no signs of provenance outside white mainstream culture. What often irritated viewers was a lack of cultural authenticity, where Muslim characters had Hindu names or where a Caribbean elder was seen eating the ‘wrong’ food or where individuals are shown doing something completely against what viewers believed to be the ‘acceptable’ cultural norms. (Ross 2001:6)

A study based on 24 focus group interviews with inhabitants of London’s South Asian and Greek-Cypriote communities undertaken by Roza Tsagarousianou, reached the same conclusion as Karen Ross. She wrote: A feeling of non-representation or, at best under-representation and exclusion, was prevalent in audience responses as the overwhelming majority perceive that membership of British society is effectively denied to them, as minority audiences are denied representation in broadcasting. Even on some occasions in which some provision is made, respondents compared the ways in which the ‘mainstream’ audience are being treated. According to audience evaluations, even on such occasions tokenism and ghettoization appear to be the main effect. (Tsagarousianou 2001:23)

Textual and audience based research upon issues of representation is of course to be valued when it can put pressure upon mainstream television to take the needs, dignity and opinions of ethnic minority groups more seriously. For example programming in order to give immigrants a sense of recognition and feel more at home in their new countries. National broadcast media have in general proved slow to respond to the changing composition of the population. But as pointed out by Simon Cottle: As general findings, however, these may suggest a relatively static and uniform picture of ideological and representational closure, and in consequence, cover over historical processes of change. (Cottle 2000:9)

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In general, the focus upon representation tends to result in a very bleak and limited account of the role television in the lives of ethnic minorities. It constructs television as a basically oppressive apparatus, and does not produce significant information about how television functions in the everyday lives of ethnic minorities because it totally ignores the pleasures of television and the fact that television can be an important and valuable source of information, even to ethnic minority groups. Furthermore, research about representation in the media does not appear to be very sensitive to what images they construct of the groups they investigate, is spite of their critical awareness concerning television images. They do not reflect upon the fact that they tend to portray ethnic minority groups as passive victims of oppression and as basically discontent with the practices of their new homeland. Thereby repeating a mass media stereotype that provokes part of the majority population who often find themselves victimized and ignored by the media.

Stereotyping in The Cosby Show Another problem about the research concerned with media representations is that it seems like a no win game to represent ethnic minority groups in a manner that is generally acceptable, even when an effort is made to construct ‘positive’ and respectful images. This dilemma is clearly demonstrated in the book Enlightened racism: The Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of the American Dream (1992) by Jhally Sut and Justin Lewis. On the basis of several interviews with both black and white viewers, this book discussed the cultural significance of The Cosby Show (1984–92), a very successful sit com about a well to do black family where the mother is a lawyer and the father a medical doctor. When this sitcom first went on air, it was welcomed as a symbol of a new age in popular culture. An age in which black actors no longer had to suffer the indignities of playing a crudely limited array of black stereotypes and white audiences were able to accept TV programs with more than just a token black character. Sut and Lewis reported that the series promoted an attitude of racial tolerance among white viewers and generated a feeling of intense pride among black viewers. Most black viewers were delighted by a show that portrayed African Americans as intelligent, sensitive and successful. But in spite of this enthusiasm Sut and Lewis claimed that this new way of portraying blacks had a negative political effect for black Americans because it masked the real inequalities between white and blacks in American society. The show created the pleasurable impression that blacks were climbing the social ladder occupied by whites, while in fact the opposite was true in the world beyond television. According to Sut and Lewis the Cosby era witnessed a comparative decline in the fortunes of most African Americans in the U.S. Since 1980 the White House had retreated from any notion of intervention against an iniquitous system and instead committed itself to the promotion of a freewheeling capitalist economy. The success of The Cosby Show was according to the two researchers a result of the American obsession with individual endeavour rather than class structure and they claimed that the series fed the myth that racial injustice could be overcome through individual economic advance. They underlined that the element of class was absent from the vocabulary of their respondents. In the opinion of Sut and Lewis white people liked the series because the admission of black characters to television’s upward mobile world gave credence to the idea that

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racial divisions, whether perpetuated by class barriers or by racism, do not exist. They believed that most people were extremely receptive to such a message, because the idea allowed them to feel good about themselves and the American society. The problem with this discussion is the assumption that according to Sut and Lewis, there existed a correct reading of The Cosby Show, and that this reading included watching the show from a realistic and class oriented perspective. This assumption entailed a certain disregard for the views and opinions of the respondents, their positive attitude to the show and what were clearly different reading strategies. Once again people of colour were constructed as victims, such that some kind of false consciousness was spread by the television medium. According to Sut and Lewis this functioned primarily to satisfy the needs of the white majority. Sut and Lewis’s analysis also appeared somewhat insensitive to the gate opening function of The Cosby Show. The series was succeeded by a large number of black television shows, offering new professional openings for many black artists. However, this discussion clearly demonstrated the elusiveness of textual meanings. The viewers felt good when watching The Cosby Show because it portrayed blacks in a sympathetic and respectful manner. The researchers felt bad because they felt that the show masked the fact that in real life it was very difficult for a black family to attain the standards of the Cosbys.

Television as a transnational medium As already indicated, the research concerned with the issue of representation has concentrated upon mainstream television channels in western countries. The advent of satellite and cable television has given rise to new research questions concerning the role of television in the lives of ethnic minority groups, especially so called diaspora groups. The term diaspora refers to people settled far from their ancestral homelands (Webster’ Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 1988:351).1) Satellite television has broken down territorial boundaries; giving immigrants the opportunity to select from a wide range of local, national and international television channels, some targeting specific ethnic groups. They can maintain contact with the television culture of their homelands: By articulating new kinds of spatial and temporal relationships, communications technologies can transform the politics of representation and the modes of identification available to migrant and diaspora groups. (Gillespie 2000:168) This has given rise to an interest in studying ethnic minority viewing preferences with respect to chosen television channels and programs. Several studies can report that for first generation immigrants, television channels connected to their motherland or their original language areas are very important. But most of them are also careful to underline that the impact of cable and satellite TV on minority audiences is quite complex. Alec H. Hargreaves compared the television consumption among Turks in Germany and Maghrebis (from Algeria) in France. He concluded that although Turkish and Maghrebi migrants equipped with satellite or cable were strongly inclined to watch stations broadcasting from their countries of origin, few of them were entirely monocultural in their viewing

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choices. Most watched at least some programmes on German or French channels, and sometimes also other stations. Different forms of ‘pick and mix’ are further complicated by generation and gendered differences as well as by variations in the types of channels available in different households. The quality of the available channels also matters. Turks living outside Berlin who only had access to the state-owned Turkish channel TRTg-International were less inclined to watch television from their homeland. As Hargreaves wrote: Where ‘home’ country viewing options are restricted to state-owned monopoly, these may prove insufficiently attractive compared with commercial stations based in the country of settlement. (Hargreaves 2001:153) Roza Tsagarousianou’s study of London’s South Asian and Greek-Cypriot communities examined the uses of ethnic minority media by the two groups in question. She concluded that members of both the South Asian and the Greek-Cypriotic communities, found media catering specifically for their ethnic community useful for a number of reasons: Maintaining contact with the country of origin and culture and traditions, filling a gap within mainstream broadcasting because they offered a more balanced picture of their motherland, trying to attract the younger generations to their parents’ culture, religion and language, being a daily support and companion and making life more manageable in an alien environment which might otherwise cause feelings of cultural and linguistic incompetence (Tsagarousianou 2001:25–28). But the author of the study stressed that the interviewed members of the two groups did not find the output completely satisfactory. Many were troubled by the increasing commercialisation of diasporic media. Both older and younger audiences complained about bad quality, lack of professionalism and an inability to address the specific needs of the diaspora audience, as opposed to the people living in the country of origin: Diasporic media (satellite television as well as local cable TV and radio, in their effort to address the largest audiences possible or due to financial constrains, often treat their audiences as a mere extension of the ‘homeland’ or as undifferentiated audiences that just happen to live in different countries or just as members of a undifferentiated diaspora. In contrast to this, a desire for emphasis on and the respect of the local dimension and its needs seems to be present in many audience responses. (Tsagarousianou 2001:29)

Between the summer of 1997 and December 1998, Marisca Milikowski interviewed a total of 50 Turkish-Dutch people about their experiences with and ideas about Turkish satellite television. The large majority of these respondents were young adults, aged between 20 and 30, but some older people were also interviewed. In the first phase of the data collection, 30 people were interviewed individually. The second part of the data collections consisted of focus group discussion. She concluded that Turkish satellite television, viewed in the context of the Netherlands, had the rather unexpected effect of contributing to the questioning, rather than confirming of previously established ethnic-cultural boundaries. According to my may of my informants, Turkish commercial television helps ‘Turkish immigrants, and particular their children, to liberate themselves from certain outdated and culturally imprisoning notions of Turkishness, which had survived in the isolation

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of migration. Commercial television performs this role by showing turkey for what it is: a rapidly modernizing country, with a population that is culturally, politically and religiously various as it is large. (Milikowski 2001:32).

The generation gap A general finding in research about trans-national television is that young second generation immigrants have a viewing pattern which is quite similar to that of the majority population in question. Hargreaves wrote that the viewing patterns of second-and third generation Maghrebis and Turks had much in common with those of the majority ethnic French and German youths, but added that some of the youth underlined that watching satellite television made them feel closer to their parents’ country of origin. Tsagarousianou reported that young people often found ethnic community media out of date. In an article called Minority youth, Media Uses and Identity Struggle: the Role of the Media in the Production of Locality, Thomas Tufte argued, on the basis of talking to teenagers belonging to different ethnic groups in Nørrebro (a neighbourhood to Copenhagen), that the television consumption of these teenagers was «very similar to that of most Danish youth their age they generally dont watch Danish TV fiction or Danish public service channels» (Tufte 2001:46). American TV series, talk shows and films were most popular. Homeland media consumption was generally parent-initiated be it TV news turned on by the parents, film chosen from parents video archive or radio listened to by parents. Tufte was however cautious about making too strong assumptions about the difference in cultural orientation between the parents and the teenagers on the basis of their television consumption. This was because some of the teenagers were very interested in music and films from their country or region of origin. In other words, the fact that grown up immigrants used television in a different manner than their children, did not necessarily imply a cultural clash between the different generations. In this context, it seems important to investigate whether the second generation immigrants continue to have a viewing pattern similar to the majority population as they grow older. In his article Tufte also raised the intriguing question of what exactly the place of origin means is it the village, the country, the religious community or the language region the ethnic minority groups to belong to before they moved?

Television, integration and national identity Works dealing with immigrants and their relationship to television from their country of origin or to so-called diaspora media (e.g. trans-national or national television channels directed at specific immigrants groups) are often rooted in anxiety and concern about ghettoization and lack of integration. It is often assumed that watching mainstream television is an important means to integration. This might be the case when learning the language of the majority population is the goal, but if the issue is gaining insight into the national culture in the new homelands, the influence of television in much more ambiguous. The old idea of television as

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a central force in the construction and consolidation of national consciousness is being steadily eroded. American imports have long been a staple ingredient of prime time schedules on quite a number of so called national channels, and the popularity of American-made soaps, movies and sitcoms bear witness to the fact that national broadcasting boundaries have never been wholly synonymous with the diffusion of purely national cultures and identities. Besides, the increasing numbers of television channels catering to different tastes and different interests also severely undermines the idea of television as a transmitter of national culture. This suggests that immigrants, in order to learn about the new culture(s) they are entering, should invest their time and effort on something more immediately rewarding than television. In this connection, it is also important to note that watching television is traditionally regarded as a low status activity that the majority population generally does not consider as a particular intelligent or rewarding way to spend leisure time. On the other hand, immigrants who prefer to watch television from their homelands are frequently represented in an unfavourable light and regarded as unwilling to integrate and pay due respect to their host countries. This position raises very difficult and sensitive questions about what it means to be integrated in a society, and if integration necessarily includes television viewing habits. The Norwegian study mentioned above quite bluntly assumed that it would be difficult for immigrants who preferred media from their country of origin to become integrated into the Norwegian society. A Danish article focusing upon ethnic minority families and their consumption of news, takes a more or less opposite position to the Norwegian article. The author, Connie Carøe Christiansen, argued that due to the fact that the informational needs of ethnic minorities were largely ignored by the Danish media, the use of trans-national television channels acted to counteract the informational isolation that especially immigrants with language problems experienced. In other words, the use of trans-national media was quite understandable seen from the point of view of the immigrants, and did in fact make the life in a foreign country easier. She argued that being able to watch television from their country of origin, paradoxically made the immigrants feel more at home in their new country. In other words, being integrated did not exclude close ties with the country of origin. Hargreaves seemed to agree with Christiansen that immigrants watching television from homeland did not necessarily feel hostile to their new environment. He wrote the Maghribis that ...while satellite television may be helping to strengthen affective links between the respondents and their home country, this does not seem to have provoked any significant increase in dissatisfaction with France as a place in which to live. (Hargraves 1001:154) Christiansen was also quite critical to the fact that the issue of integration, in a time characterized by regionalisation, internationalisation and globalisation, was thought of solely in national terms: Integration might mean taking part in local communities and/or different international networks. In sum, by focusing upon the integration/ghettoization perspective there has been a tendency towards overestimating the positive role of mainstream television in the integration process, and underestimating the positive role of homeland television for the well being of first generation immigrants in particular. And in general, there is a lack of reflection about how important television is in the integration process. Another problem with this politically

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inspired approach is that it has tended to construct immigrant groups as social problems (are they willing or not willing to become one of us?) and not as people with resources, such that negative attitudes towards such groups result.

Negotiating identities – ethnicity and the reception of specific programs Studies of the receptions of specific programs by ethnic minority groups are mainly based on two theoretical concerns: the theory of cultural imperialism and the idea of the active viewer with critical abilities who is not duped by the text she or he is reading. The ideas underlying the thesis of ‘cultural’ or ‘media’ imperialism have their origin in early research concerning the role of media in national development, but have later been applied to the international level by writers, such as Schiller (1969). This thesis states that the media can play an important role in the modernization process, but that they do so at the cost of a breakdown of traditional values and the loss of ‘authentic’ local cultures (McQuail 1983: 44). In other words, the thesis of cultural imperialism implies an ongoing westernisation, or according to Schiller, an Americanisation of the world. Today the theory of cultural imperialism is commonly regarded as overblown due to the fact that the global flows of cultural discourse are not a one-way traffic from ‘the west to the rest’ (Barker 1999:38). Moreover, the minds of viewers are not totally invaded by e.g. American soaps, which represent a television product much appreciated all over the world. People read texts in a manner appropriate to their concerns. In a much cited study, The Export of meaning. Cross-cultural readings of Dallas, Tamar Liebes and Elihu Katz asked, in tune with the theories mentioned above, whether the famous soap opera Dallas was not just culture for sale but also an agent subverting indigenous values. They tried to answer this question by interviewing Russian and Moroccan Jews, Arabs and kibbutz members2 living in Israel, as well as Americans and Japanese viewers. The Japanese were included due to the failure of the program in Japan (Liebes and Katz 1993). They found that all the viewers in the different ethnic groups had a basic understanding of Dallas as a drama of human relationships, that they primarily talked about the program in a referential manner by comparing it to real life situations including their own, and that they were all much more alert and critical to different aspects of the soap opera than critics of such genres usually supposed. The different reading strategies that were applied contained defence mechanisms against the influence of the program, but Liebes and Katz found that patterns of involvement and criticism varied considerably by ethnicity. The ‘modern’ groups (as the two authors called them): the Russians, the kibbutz inhabitants, the Americans and the Japanese had a more meta-linguistic and distanced relationship to Dallas then the ‘traditional’ groups, the Arabs and the Moroccans, because their comments dealt more frequently with the generic features of soap opera. The Russians and the Japanese were critical to the aesthetics of the soap opera on the basis of stories they were familiar with and liked from their own cultural background. The Russians compared Dallas to the novels of Tolstoy and Pushkin, the Japanese to their familiar ‘home dramas’. The Americans were most

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familiar with the generic feature of the soap opera and the business behind this television genre. Together with the kibbutzniks they refused to take the characters in Dallas seriously, and as a consequence they did not express particular ideological concerns or make any speculations about the motives of the producers of the series. The Russians and the Arabs on the other hand, were very critical to the semantic level of Dallas. They saw the program as symptomatic of moral degeneracy and rotten capitalism, and the Russians, who studied the credit list carefully, were concerned with the potentially false and hidden messages of the producers (Leibes and Katz 1993:152–153) As a study of different reading strategies this study is very rewarding reading, but seen as a study of ethnic identity the book is more problematic. Their study lends itself quite readily to a recycling of negatively charged stereotypes concerning different ethnic groups. Ramaswami Harindranath has criticized the two authors for not paying enough attention to why the different groups apply different reading strategies. The only explanation Leibes and Katz gave according to Harindranath, was that the manner in which the referential versus metalinguistic readings corresponded to degrees of modernity evident in the ethnicities in question. Harindranath wrote: Primarily, Liebes and Katz’s conclusion that the degrees of involvement in and distanciation from mediated communication correspond to degrees of modernity reinforces the perception of the west (on whose terms modernity is conceptualised) as the repository of modernity and ‘progress’ as well as of all its positive connotations. The term ‘traditional’, which they use to label the Arabs and the Moroccan Jews on the other hand, contains the negative assessments seen as characteristic of pre-modern cultures. The modern-traditional dichotomy was intrinsic to the value system which, for instance, supported the creation of a hierarchy of cultures and races during colonialism. (Harindranat in Cottle 2000: 151)

Harindranath’s point is well taken in spite of being a bit exaggerated since Leibes and Katz offered some rudimentary explanations to the different readings strategies that they described. It is also possible to object to how Haridranath defined and gave value to the terms traditional versus modern. But there is another problem with the Export of Meaning which Harindranath considered in terms of the question of ethnic or cultural determinism. By treating the respondents’ accounts as evidence of ethnically diverse appropriations of the text, they came very close to saying that ethnic background determined reading and thereby potentially reproduced ethnic stereotypes. Do all Arabs and Russians regard capitalism, represented in Dallas by the oil industry, as something evil? Do all Americans have a playful attitude to Dallas and find the story morally unproblematic? Unfortunately, Leibes and Kats did not raise such questions because they did not explore the problematic character of ethnic identity and the relevance of the term for their project. This lack also caused the above-mentioned study to implicitly treat ethnic identity as something fixed and unchangeable. In an article called «Beyond Imagined Community? Trans-national Media and Turkish Migrants in Europe» Kevin Robins claimed that it is necessary to critically examine the concept of cultural identity. He wrote that historically this concept had functioned as an ordering device: «…put simply, a person who became the bearer of an identity became a particular kind of person. We may say that the ‘efficacy’ of the notion of

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identity has been to do with fixing cultures in place. It has been to do with a logic of immobilisation – involving the inhibition of cultural mobility, and consequently of what mobility would make possible» (Robins 2003:198). This means that reception research interest in how different social groups read the same text is not very well suited to capturing cultural change, and that the approach might lead to an unfortunate fixing and homogenisation of cultural or ethnic identities. However, the turn to a postmodern understanding of identity as something fluid and continually in negotiation has modified this tendency. Chris Barker, for example, has on the basis of a postmodern identity concept, studied the soap opera as a resource employed by British Asian and Afro-Caribbean teenagers for discussions about ethnic identity, gender identifications and personalsexual morality, and he concluded: In our case study we explored some examples of the way in which young girls from Asian and Afro-Caribbean diaspora enunciated identities in the context of talk about television soap operas. In doing so, it was suggested that may of the girls defined themselves as Asian or black at the same time as they defined the meaning of those terms to encompass their own British Asian and black Asian hybrid identities. It was argued that conceptions of ethnicity as identity were cross-cut by questions of class and above all, gender. Thus the girls enact multiple, hybrid and fragmented identities. (Barker 1999:139) Barker’s study indicated that ethnic identity was just one of many human concerns that the girls expressed through their talk about the soap operas. This points to the potential danger of over emphasizing the importance of ethnic identity in reception research concerned with ethnic minority groups. Ethnicity is of course only one of the many concerns of human beings, and how important this part of the human identity is depends upon specific circumstances. Watching soap operas seems to be a social activity that only to a limited extent triggers reflection upon ethnic identity in viewers, and that is maybe one of the reasons why this genre is so popular all over the world. In other words, when the issue is watching television, ethnic identity can be regarded as a latent disposition that is activated by specific programs or parts of programs, and not as a fixed attitude that determines in a total manner the reading of texts and can be deduced from the reactions of the informants. A problem with Barker’s study as presented in the book Television, Globalization and Cultural Identities is the lack of background information about the respondents. As David Morley reminds us: «meaning is the stuff that world of everyday life is made of, individual instances of communication make no sense before they have been interpreted in the total context of the audience’s lifeworld» (Morley 1992:185). Barker’s informants remained anonymous representations of a particular ethnic identity – they were just British-Asian girls and nothing more. They had dynamic identities but Barker seems to imply that their identities developed in the similar trajectories, thereby denying them individuality and difference. In describing the activities of ethnic minority groups in a scientific manner it is particularly important to keep the question of individuality in mind because of the general tendency to talk about minority groups as a homogeneous mass where group members are carriers of the same dispositions. A second problem with Barker’s study was that he did not write about the soap operas that his informants talked about. If the reader was not informed about what the girls reacted to, it becomes almost impossible to make sense of their reactions and get a critical distance to Barker’s interpretations of the soap talk.

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The ethnographic approach The research results mentioned so far have been mainly based on interviews, individually or in focus groups, and grounded on top down perspectives such as political concerns (discrimination, integration…etc) or theoretical concerns, such as the thesis of cultural imperialism or the idea of the active viewer. These approaches have a tendency to yield isolated and to some extent predictable answers, which can be difficult to interpret in a meaningful manner. As Tufte acknowledges, it is difficult to compare the cultural identity of young immigrants and their parents solely on basis of what they watch on television. And it is correspondingly difficult to reach conclusions about integration by using data connected to the extent immigrants watch mainstream television. In the book Television, Ethnicity and Cultural Change (1992) Mary Gillespie used with very fertile results an ethnographic approach in order to study the significance of television in the lives of Punjabi teenagers and their families in Southall, London. The book was based upon three years of fieldwork, and she underlined that her focus upon the role of television in the lives of Punjabi youngsters was not the planned object of research but arose out of her fieldwork. TV-talk proved to be «a crucial form of self-narration among the young people I was studying and a collective resource to which they negotiate their cultural and ethnic identities» (Gillespie 1995:23). Gillespie highlighted the ways in which TV and video were used in diaspora families, both to maintain and remake, and to challenge and revise cultural traditions. She tells about how the Punjabis maintain their culture by having large collections of Indian films that they usually view in large family gatherings and accompany by intense debates about salient themes, especially the issues of kinship and duty, courtship and marriage. Some of these films are based on the sacred texts of Hinduism, the Ramayana and the Mahabarata. These films texts are watched in a devotional manner: For example, at the start of a religious film, incense is lit and when a favourite god such as Krishna appears, the mother will encourage her children to sit up straight and make a devout salutation…Once a religious film has been switched on it must be viewed until the end out of respect. Food should not be eaten whilst viewing, except prasad or holy food that has been blessed. (Gillespie 1995:89) Elderly regard most Hindi films as a powerful resource for educating their children in the values and beliefs that are seen to be deeply rooted in Indian culture and tradition: ..they teach not only the language but how «to be» in an Indian environment (Gillespie 1995:86). However, Gillespie concludes that the Hindi films also open contradictions of the Indian worldview in a manner that enabled the youth to deconstruct traditional culture. In addition to this, the young in – a more or less assertive – manner tried to circumvent parental control by watching British and American films. In this connection Gillespie presented an interesting account of how young people challenged the culture of authoritative elders by imitating a

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rather erotic dance sequence from the American film Dirty Dancing in connection with the celebration of the Festival of Lights marking the beginning of the new year.

Soap opera Gillespie’s study included an interesting account of how the Punjabi youth related to the Australian soap opera Neighbours. She writes that watching western soaps was a domestic ritual that encouraged a sense of participation in an activity shared simultaneously with youth audiences nationally and internationally. At the same time immediate, local concerns were projected on to the soaps. The soap talk of the Punjabi youth included veiled discussions of personal and in particular, family problems, as these were displaced on to soap opera narratives. A sense of family loyalty would inhibit most of the young Punjabi people from talking directly about their own family problems, but the talk about Neighbours allowed them to compare and contrast their own family lives and neighbourhood with ‘white culture on the box’. This activity contributed, according to Gillespie, to their consciousness of cultural difference and encouraged them in their aspirations towards change. Several of the young Punjabis, especially girls who had little direct access to people outside their kinship and peer network, claimed that they gained most of their ideas of ‘white’ family life from the soaps, and Gillespie noted that watching Neighbours seemed to have encouraged slightly over-inflated ideas about the freedom of young ‘whites’. Viewing soaps with siblings, and in many cases with the mother, was the most common arrangement. Some mothers used the situation for didactic purposes in order to pass moral judgments on the characters; an act that often served as a confirmation of shared values. But viewing with the mother could also lead to arguments and censure. In some families the channel was switched over as soon as kissing of more explicitly sexual behaviour appeared on the screen. Gillespie noted that mothers were usually more tolerant in their children’s attitudes than fathers. They are in general closer to their children and much more in tune with their interests and preferences. But many parents, including mothers, also felt that their values were undermined by soaps like Neighbours; the only virtue of such programmes in their eyes was that they alerted them to the temptations and traps that their children might fall into. Those most commonly mentioned were squandering money in gambling arcades, smoking, drinking and taking drugs.

The news According to Gillespie TV news was reported to be the genre most frequently watched and discussed by the Punjabi teenagers, This despite the fact that interview and observational data consistently showed that the majority of her young informants did not enjoy watching news and found much of it uninteresting and difficult to understand. Gillespie explained this paradoxical feature of their TV consumption partly by the fact that news viewing was a domestic ritual in most homes and therefore some news viewing was inescapable. There were however,

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more compelling reasons. Competence in understanding and talking about TV news was perceived by the Punjabi youth as a sign of adulthood and as a way of gaining access to the world beyond local experiences. This perspective made most of the informants attach great significance to the genre, no matter how boring they found particular bulletins. Gillespie related how young Punjabis offered a number of more specific reasons to explain the importance of news: News was valued as serving a relativising function and without news about the wider world, people would stay locked in their own small communities and remain ignorant. It was seen as a prerequisite to functioning as a citizen in British society, such that news informed about changes in laws and in one’s duties and responsibilities as a citizen. Many informants reiterated the priority of news from India in the parental culture. The news was able to function as a link to their homeland. Feelings of attachment to India remained strong despite settlement in Britain. Political turmoil in the Punjabi in the last decade was incentive. Many families had relatives there and fear about their safety was often intense. In this connection, anxiety about the accuracy of the news was common. Gillespie reported that news about religious and political conflict between Shiks and Hindus in India had an affect on life in Southall, London. In this town area Hindus and Shiks had co-existed peacefully under the umbrella of an unspecific Asian identity. But when confronted with news stories from India telling about increased tension between the groups, the BritishIndians reacted patriotically. Many young people witnessed with dismay how religious politics in the parental generation could interfere negatively with their matrimonial relations. Gillespie’s work, which completed as a Ph.D. dissertation, was of course a luxurious study compared to the limited amount of time and resources that most researchers have at their disposal. But her intensive fieldwork and truly explorative attitude enabled her to provide a highly multifaceted account of how television was used by a diaspora community; an account which was not limited to an investigation of pre-established political discourses concerning ethnic minorities, nor theoretical issues in the field of media studies. Her study was also able to construct the informants as active and resourceful subjects and it gave a fairly balanced view of good and negative sides of the television medium. Another positive aspect of Gillespie’s book was that she devoted a chapter to the presentation of the Punjabi community, thereby providing the reader with valuable background information concerning the ethnic minority group she was studying. However, her account could have even more interesting and thought provoking if it had let us come a bit closer to the individuals and their personal antagonisms. Her account seems a bit dry and detached. Gillespie can also be criticised for not reflecting enough about how her own subjectivity and status as a female schoolteacher in the Punjabi community and as a researcher might have coloured her data collection. She does pay attention to such issues in the introduction in the book, but they are not properly integrated and reflected upon in the rest of her account. This is of course an important objection to her study, and it is not difficult to imagine how the youngsters talk about television was heavily influenced by her role as a teacher, and how her own ideological and ethnic position towards immigrants and doing research with an ethnic minority group might have cautioned her into presenting too rosy picture of the Punjabi teenagers. As Clifford has pointed out, Cultures do not hold still for their portraits. Attempts to make them do so always involve simplification and exclusion, selection of a temporal focus, the construction of self-other rela-

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tionship, and the imposition or negotiation of a power relationship (Clifford 1986 cited in Morley 1992:190). However, Clifford is also careful to note that this should not end up «into a paralysing trance (…) trance of epistemological navel-grazing» and that it is a question of managing our subjectivity not being paralysed by it (Clifford 1986, cited in Morley 1992:190).

References Barker, Chris (1999) Television, Globalization and Cultural Identities, Open University Press, Buckingham, Philadelphia Barker, Chris (1996) «Did you see? Soaps, teenage talks and gendered identity» in Young. Nordic Journal for Youth Research vol.4, no.4 Clifford, J and Marcus G. (1986) Writing Culture, University of California Press, Berkeley Cottle, Simon ed.(2000) Ethnic Minorities and the Media, Open University Press, Buckingham Philadelphia Gillespie, Marie (1995) Television, Ethnicity and Cultural Change, Routledge, London Gripsrud, Jostein ed. (1996) Media and Knowledge. The Role of Television, Arbeidspapir Retorikk, kunnskap, formidling 2/96 Liebes, Tamar and Eliuha Katz (1993) The Export of Meaning: Crosscultural readings of Dallas. Polity Press, Cambridge Kamalipour, Yahya R. and T. Carilli eds. (1998) Cultural Diversity and the U.S. Media, State University Press, Albany New York McQuail, Denis (1983) Mass Communication Theory. An Introduction. Sage Publications, London Morley, David (1992) Television, Audiences & Cultural Studies, Routledge, London Ogan, Christine and M. Milikowski (1998) «Television helps to define ‘home’ of the Turkish women of Amsterdam» in Media Development no.3: 13–21 Robins, Kevin (2003) «Beyond Imagined Community? Transnational Media and Turkish Migrants in Europe» in S. Hjarvard (ed.) Media in a Globalized Society, Northern Lights, Film and Media Studies Yearbook 2003, Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen Ross, Karen and P. Playdon eds. (2001) Black Marks: Minority Ethnic Audiences and the Media. Ashgate, Aldershot Schiller, Herbert (1969) Mass Communication and the American Empire, Augustus M. Kelly, New York Sut, Jhally and Justin Lewis (1992) The Cosby show, audiences, and the myth of the American dream. Westview Press, Boulder Colorado Tufte, Thomas ed. (2003) Medierne, minoritetene og det multikulturelle samfund, (The Media, Minorities and Multi-cultural Society) Nordicom

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Notes 1 2

The term diaspora was originally applied to the Jewish experience of living in communities scattered around the world, while maintaining a mythic relationship to Israel (e.g. Gullestad 2002). Kibbutz members are mostly second-generation Israelis of European origin.