Historically
and etymologically, a diaspora is a dispersal of people from one country into
many, notably the Jewish and Armenian Diasporas of past centuries and, in
modern times, the great flows of people out of China and India and into the
rest of Asia and the world. For centuries, humans have embarked sometimes
wilfully and sometimes forcibly on transnational migrations, thereby creating a
process of Diasporas linked by social characteristics like ethnicity, language,
religion and culture.
Analysing
these varied diasporas in today’s global context highlights a very interesting
point; i. e. the innovative use of transnational networks of communication as
sites of both expressing and creating their identities. The social implications
of such diasporic mediascapes are what this paper will seek to understand.
Diasporic
groups have often sought media as means of not only seeking connection to their
homelands, but also as sites to create and assimilate their identities. The
creation of Diasporic websites provides platforms to alumni associations,
forthcoming cultural events and festivals to the availability of online
versions of newspapers from their countries of origins; Diasporic media has
further enhanced intercontinental connections, which has made these diasporic
groups, and the diasporic media as sites for genuinely cosmopolitan citizenship
would be a logical human outcome of globalisation
This paper seeks to understand the multi-faceted
dynamics of media and diaspora by undertaking the case study of the Middle
Eastern diasporic television in Los Angeles, which has resulted in the minority
and ethnic television video. The paper also studies the case of Kurdish
satellite television channel - Med TV, which used media as site for creating
political and cultural movement against Turkey, while having its office in
London
