HERE are the lecture slides for the week.
I'm really pleased how everyone has become comfortable sharing both their insights and their personal (unspeakable?) stories in class. I think that our class has become a real space for critical and responsible discourse. :) I'm still waiting for more posts online however.
Here are the questions regarding our readings for the week:
1) What does a "diasporic perspective" (Gillespie) contribute, if any, to our understanding of identity and the media?
2) Critically discuss one or more central (conceptual) tensions or contradictions that Gillespie explores in her empirical study.
3) How is the framework of media as environment (Silverstone) applied, if at all, in Gillespie’s AND/OR Cabanes’ studies?
4) Why are strategies for inclusion and exclusion central in understanding diasporic identity in Cabanes’ study?
5) Evaluating Cabanes’ study, what is the value of essentialist discourses in self-representations of diasporic identities?
I am excited to hear your thoughts.
Once again, I ask the case study and creative project groups to consult with me. You don't have to have fixed plans for your projects during consultation; I am happy to help you think things through. It's just crucial to discuss these at this time and not cram everything. Allow ideas to simmer and give data time before they "speak to you."
For next week, you can choose between two readings: Madianou and Gillespie. Madianou's chapter (in Filipiniana) is a very sophisticated framework on media and identity. Very useful background material, even for your other classes. Gillespie's book (in Reserve Section) has chapters that reveal her findings, which are quite fun to read because they're in narrative form. (Additional Note: For folks doing discourse analysis, the best discourse analysis book is in the Reserve Section as well--MacDonald's Exploring Media Discourse)
For those wanting more of Oh Tokyo, HERE is the link to the website where you can download episodes. Enjoy!
Happy weekend!!!
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1. What does a “diasporic perspective” (Gillespie) contribute, if any, to our understanding of identity and the media?
A diasporic perspective allows us to see how identity is formed beyond boundaries and culture. It shows how identity isn’t static, it is not hinged on an ethnicity but is always changing and transforming. It is worth observing how “displaced” people utilize the media in order to connect with their new location and at the same time use it to either connect or disconnect themselves with their homeland. Gillespie’s example of Southall Punjab youths, show their attempt of reinventing their ethnicity as something Indian-yet-British at the same; relating to the music of the likes of Apache Indian Bally Sagoo. In doing so, they make an attempt to present themselves as something of an ‘acceptable other’ instead of something as completely alien in the hope of becoming acceptable to British society. For these youths, despite their heritage, they see themselves not as Indian but British and desire to be perceived as a part of (instead of apart from) the society they live in. This tension between choosing to assimilate oneself into the current society or subscribing to the cultural identity of one’s homeland (sometimes trying to do both) is a common dilemma faced by diasporic people. Identity is never more questioned, consciously constructed and rationalized as with these people. Which is why studying a diasporic perspective is so crucial in seeking to understand identity and media.
4. Why are the strategies for inclusion and exclusion central in understanding diasporic identity in Cabanes' study?
Cabanes' study highlights two strategies used by young Filipino professionals in Singapore in re-presenting their cultural identity: performances of patriotic pride and cosmopolitanism. These strategies are important for they challenge our notions of people and culture and the hybridity to which diasporic identity is a cause or a result of.
Georgiou and Silverstore are correct in saying that "the case of the diaspora is the most visible challenge to ideologies of the boundedness of people, culture, identities, and the media.” This is also similar to what Gillespie said about how the flow of images, narratives, and information challenge established national and cultural boundaries and identities. In the case of Cabanes' study, these are manifested in the ambivalence of diasporic identity caused by the participants' inclusion of "positive" Filipino traits (e.g. identification with popular Filipino media icons) but in so doing inadvertently exclude "negative" Filipino traits (e.g. failure of participants to discuss "inequalities or distorted institutional processes" prevalent in their "homeland"). This ambivalence are also evident in the struggle to disassociate with "lower" types of Filipino workers in Singapore and also in asserting cosmopolitanism or the participants' “mythic ability to assimilate themselves in Singapore” (e.g. one blogger narrated his airport narrative using an outsider's tone while another blogger narrated her everyday experiences in informal tone but in so doing "Filipinizing" it).
These inclusions and exclusions that describe the diasporic identity of young Filipino professionals in Singapore are in part and parcel a result of their multiple attachments to their homeland and host country. Their diasporic identities are transformed and continue to being transformed because of relocation and "cross-cultural exchange and interaction." This diasporic identity construction and transformation are being shaped by the participants’ articulations of similarities and differences (e.g. one blogger compared the Filipino uling with what was being served in a Singaporean restaurant). This is also an example of Gilroy’s “double consciousness” and “locate to dislocate.” As Cabanes put it, "their routes are still intertwined with their roots."
Strategies of patriotic pride and cosmopolitanism and the ambivalence of diasporic identity caused by these inclusions and exclusions can be explained by Gilroy (1997) when he said that “diaspora identity is focused less on the equalizing proto-democratic force of common territory and more on the social dynamics of remembrance and commemoration defined by a strong sense of the dangers involved in forgetting the location of origin and the process of dispersal.” Cabanes’ study shows that diasporic identities are inevitable consequences of migration and transnational diasporic communities and that these identities in general are not constructions solely of tradition (attempts to restore purity –e.g. usage of Filipino icons and symbols) but a transition or “oscillation between tradition and translation (identities as transformative processes), as a result of multiplicity of crossovers (search for roots and routes).
5) Evaluating Cabanes’ study, what is the value of essentialist discourses in self-representations of diasporic identities?
While essentialist discourses are usually frowned upon as deterministic and reductionist, they can become, arbitrarily, markers of one’s ethnicity. Cabañes talks of the discourses of association and dissociation. To be able to perform these discourses, the existence of a distinct cultural identity (that one can “glorify” or turn away from) must be affirmed as a premise. Case in point, headings A and B under Findings & Discussions: “Performing Patriotic Pride : Being Proud to be Pinoy,” and “Performing Cosmopolitanism : Being a Global Filipino”; that is, certain attributes as being Pinoy as a somewhat fixed (but not entirely rigid) identity. Also, essentialist discourses are powerful tools in the formation of new diasporic communities, providing an avenue for agreement and identification. When and where the national boundaries end, ethnicity takes over the steering wheel. Given these, diasporic identities can be seen as promulgated self-representations through performances that draw upon existing practices and artifacts, and increasingly crossing over—through various discourses of time, space, place, nationality, etc.—to the realm of ethnic performativity.
4. Why are the strategies for inclusion and exclusion central in understanding diasporic identity in Cabanes' study?
Madianou states in "Mediating the Nation" that the identities maintained by the diasporic individuals must be seen as "constantly shifting manuevers" that enable them to define themselves in relation to an Other.
What that means, for me, is that the person has the opportunity to "put their best foot forward" to the Others that judge him or her by adopting only the positive attitudes of a culture.
If an American comes to the Philippines, a Filipino would usually display the best traits of the Philippine culture, but what if a Filipino meets an American in America? In such a situation, the Filipino can incorporate the pleasing aspects of American culture as well, both to represent his adoption of American culture, and his maintenance of Philippine culture.
The creation of this hybrid identity is a necessity to be accepted by Others. They need to be able to show that they are not "abandoning" their previous identity but at the same time, they have to show that they are "improved" over the people they left behind.
In the case of Cabanes' study, we see a hybridisation of the love of nation (Philippine culture) and cosmopolitanism (as Cabanes noted, a Singaporean trait).
3) How is the framework of media as environment (Silverstone) applied, if at all, in Gillespie’s AND/OR Cabanes’ studies?
When Silverstone spoke of media as environment, he spoke of it “as tightly and dialectically intertwined with the everyday.” This provides the basis for Cabanes’s choosing to study blogs, since blogs are probably the most interactive form of media right now. Cabanes emphasized this further by mentioning how the distinction between consumer and producer has become blurred because bloggers are both consumers and producers at the same time. In this context, media is not just something they take into their everyday lives, but also a way of sending out what their everyday lives are about. Media here is not only an environment that one is placed in, but an environment that one creates as well.
This brings us to how blogs re-present cultural identity. I think it is important to note that the word used was re-present and not represent. I think the dash in between reinforces the meaning of represent as not just presenting again, but presenting again in a different way. These blogs that re-present the Philippines are an example of a media environment that is created. I think Cabanes and Silverstone were on the same line of thought when Silverstone referred to media as “a key component of the cultural infrastructure of contemporary society.” Media is a way of re-presenting cultural identity, as well as a way of seeing a culture’s identity from the re-presentations.
1. Young people's identites are formed and shaped by their background, location, language, and culture, but they are not fenced within these factors alone, and extend to their actions, behaviors, such as their food consumption(how and what they eat; do they eat dogs, do they eat with their hands, etc), thereby creating themselves a new identity in a new locale, irrelevant to their race, gender, or nationality.
Take for example, the Punjabi teenagers in London. These kids would more or less be aware of their innate heritage, while being faced with a conflicting reality and location with way different cultures and languages. This shows that identity can not only be formed and shaped by the media alone, but by different factors, both external and internal.
Media may represent them as foreigners, pure Indians, in another country(England), assuming that these diasporas have full knowedge of their identity rooted back to their homeland, India. They have cut out the assumption that maybe these Punjabi Londoners have a mingling sense of belonging to the foreign country already, and perceive themselves as somehow more attached to the foreign land, than relating themselves to their native land at all.
"Diasporic perspective" therefore helps familiarize one to the "otherness" of the "others" by slipping on the feet of these people and experiencing them as they are, helping open the eyes of outsiders who are unaware of the existence of these minorities, while at the same time, unveiling the biases and prejudices the media, or the outsiders have aforehandedly formed or have had created.
This perspective of the diasporas helps one realize that though cultural identity may constitute a big part of one's identity, it may not be all, but just a mere part of it, the remaining parts depending on the choice and behavior, the actions and beliefs of the individual, or the society that individual has enjoined, mixed with the innate identity of one's self.
2) Critically discuss one or more central (conceptual) tensions or contradictions that Gillespie explores in her empirical study.
A concept crucial to Gillespie's study is ethnicity. She explains its complexities in relation to race and nation.
For Gillespie, ethnicity is a function of biological or natural givens such as physical attributes or certain attitudes. As such, ethnicity becomes a tool for distinguishing a particular group of people from others. Gillespie then asserts that ethnicity is crucial to forming one's identity.
Although determined by physical or natural factors, ethnicity may also be self-constructed and therefore is changing and constantly in process. This understanding of ethnicity distinguishes it from race, which is a more rigid and essentialist lens for viewing identity. Race would attribute people's behavior and attitudes solely to their biology. Gillespie illustrates that this kind of thinking is evident in the use of the phrase "It's in their blood."
Gillespie's definition of ethnicity is integral because it veers away from the deterministic confines of race and acknowledges people's capacity to shape and choose their identity. As Hall says, "Identity is not an essence but a positioning."
In another level, Gillespie discusses ethnicity vis-a-vis nation. She posits that dominant ethnic groups in modern nations often hide their ethnicities to assert their power over other ethnic groups. Used in this sense, the concept of nation ignores the reality that there are multiple ethnicities in a territory as it creates an illusion of a homogenized ethnicity. Hence, nation can be an alienating concept.
2) Critically discuss one or more central (conceptual) tensions or contradictions that Gillespie explores in her empirical study.
In Gillespie's section of Postmodernism and Identity Politics, it is mentioned that the postmodern era is distinguised by its increase in communications through media. This increase of communications gives an array of "identities/qualities" for people to choose from. Thus people may not exactly be homogenous in terms of their culture because depending on how the users absorb it, it varies from person to person. One person can be a mix of a variety of cultures because of his/her exposure to so much information. That person is still affected by his/ her location, religion, class, interests... etc.
So with regards to Diaspora's it is possible that the people arent limited to construct their identities from their host country and their homeland country, but there is the opening up of their choices to the whole world. (For example, a british- filipina student raised in a american based school in singapore can have a very unique identity as opposed to being straight british/ singaporean/ filipino in a cultural sense.)
But what does give the homogenous aspect of this increase of communications is the consumer politics of it all. Ironically, people can develop values based on advertising. Since it can create a "desire" to become someone after purchasing a certain product, consumers, especially the youth, can pattern their identity after advertising. So the youth can experience mcdonalds, ipods and nikes in practially every country. "Our perceptions of self and other have been changed by the consumer lifestyle, by the constant stream of TV images, by the media's power to seduce us into a 'hyper- reality'".
The emergence of pop culture seems to be dominating traditional culture. I believe that is why there is the struggle for identities is given a higher importance because the consumer culture is hardly a culture at all- it is merely a business. This capitalist business can have uniform intentions throughout the world, which is to sell more product.
I think that as opposed to the past, there used to be a strict sense of cultural differentiation. Perhaps this worries the older generations who could define themselves based on values and attitudes over the "global" consumerist attitudes and values the youth seems to have.But my question is maybe the youth does recognize their heritage, traditions, values and traditions but fails to find adequate ways of representing it. Maybe they actually are very much cultured but have weak ways of communicating it because of their distraction with the consumer culture. Is it possible that the ways of representing their "hybrid culture" is not considered the standard or acceptable way that one must express their identity. What if society dictates how expression and representation should be? In addition, the way they express their identities now may be very different from how they express their identities in the future because alot of people, not just the youth, is influenced by a variety of expriences every day of their lifes.
Identity is something that is constantly in flux. So for one to determine their "identity", with the collapse of time and space, the increase of information/ communications, political influences from society/family/ friends, I have come to realize that it is not essentially based on a traditional culture but a mix of all of these internal and external influences.
4. Why are strategies for inclusion and exclusion central in understanding diasporic identity in Cabanes’ study?
It must be painful to attempt to try to find your identity in a country you inhabit that is foreign to you whilst adhering to that part yourself that belongs to the land where you came from.
And in this process, a renegotiated diasporic identity emerges. This new identity is essentially hinged on association and dissociation.
With respect to Mr. Cabanes’ study, Patriotic Pride and Cosmopolitanism establishes the cultural identity of the young professionals in Singapore. It is in these strategies that they find themselves amidst the state of being neither here nor there. It is with these that they renegotiate their being without letting go of who they were and where they come from, yet keeping pace with the customs and circumstances in their host nation.
hi sir ill be answering question number 4 "Why are strategies for inclusion and exclusion central in understanding diasporic identity in Cabanes’ study?"
The strategies for inclusion and exclusion were necessary for Sir Jace's study because his research was about how Filipinos understood and expressed their identity in a foreign country (Singapore). Being in a foreign country means trying to adapt or fit in into the community of Singapore while in the mean time not forgetting about their nationality. The idea of inclusion is detected in the Filipinos' desire to become a truly "global Filipino." The global Filipino is one who can adapt to different societies, and in the process develop as a human being. The aspect of exclusion is detected when the Filipino adoringly remembers his home in the Philippines and desires for his native country. In a sense the Filipino who resides in Singapore, and reminisces about his country is a man who "struggles not to forget" about his native country, but in the same time tries to discover himself in a different society. The strategies of inclusion and exclusion reflect a deeper more fundamental tension in man; that tension between finding a community away from his/her native community, and finding himself through self-determination.
Kryng De Leon
4) Why are strategies for inclusion and exclusion central in understanding diasporic identity in Cabanes’ study?
In Cabanes’ study of how the Filipino professionals in Singapore re-present their cultural identity through blogs, he identified two strategies by which the bloggers re-present their Filipino-ness. These are the inclusion and exclusion strategies. In essence, both strategies are used to promote or put forward a positive image of Filipinos and their culture. It is in the way of justifying the claim that the strategies differ. However, the most important characteristic of these strategies is that they are consequences of each other. For instance, an inclusive strategy has the tendency to claim that Filipinos are all English-literate. In so doing, majority of the Filipinos who do not know English are alienated hence, excluded from the narrative of what being a Filipino is.
These strategies are crucial in the diasporic analysis because in the attempts of the diaspora to re-present their identity, they are faced with problems such as discrimination and stereotyping. In the case of the diaspora in Singapore, Filipinos are stereotyped as domestic helpers. For this reason, the bloggers in Cabanes’ study are more inclined to include everything positive and exclude those that will not help in re-presenting a good image of Filipinos. Cabanes, being Filipino himself is able to present an insider’s view or judgment of their re-presentations. This insider’s perspective allows for a critical analysis. Thus, the identification of these strategies will serve as the benchmark in understanding how the diaspora’s idea of their root’s identity is formulated and justified.
it is necessary to understand the concept of inclusion and exclusion in cabanes' study because the situation is ambiguous and two-sided. the situation of people living in another country is rather complex (in this case, filipinos living in singapore).
both inclusion and exclusion show positive things about being a filipino, although they show it in different ways.
for filipinos to be intact and updated with their roots signifies that the philippines is something to be proud of. being proud of the country's culture of close-knit families shows foreigners that it is something positive and it is something to be valued. to forget about one's roots is unthinkable, especially in a culture such as ours. thus, in this situation, it is good to be rooted to the past.
however, it is unhealthy to stay rooted to the past. as the filipinos are in singapore now, they had to do things the singaporean way. they must learn to adapt. the urge to adapt does not mean that the filipinos have become less nationalistic. in a way, their being able to adapt becomes a success for them and for the philippines as well. this shows that the filipinos in general can be global. they can be placed anywhere, and yet, they can excell.
2) Critically discuss one or more central (conceptual) tensions or contradictions that Gillespie explores in her empirical study.
One of the tensions Gillespie explores in her introduction is the tradition/translation of identities. Because of the impact of globalisation, what results from this is the contesting and the dislocating of national identities. Generally, it's hard to discern the impact but, it falls among tradition, translation, or maybe a combination of both.
Tradition according to Robins is an attempt to restore former purity and certainty.
The other response is Translation, where identities become trnansformative processes and not fixed notions of history, politics, representation, and difference.
The general response is something along the lines of traditional/translational response. Quoting Hall, he says that "Such people retain strong links with their places of origin and their traditions, but they are without the illusion of a return to the past."
It would be too much of an assumption to say that globalisation causes people to move towards one homogenous culture; however, it also does not mean that people are hellbent on remaining true to their roots. Generally, people vary their responses between translation and tradition into a process of identification that is complex, uneven, and many-sided. This results in "cultures of hybridity".
Indeed, Appadurai acknowledges that the tension between homogenisation & heterogenisation is something to think about when it comes to global interactions. When it comes to her own studies in Southall, she remarks about how young people there reject cultural politics that aspire to re-enact internal colonialisms of the nation-state via an invented homeland Khalistan -- resulting in reterritorialization. Instead, they aim for something more cosmopolitan, what Hannerz describes as an openness toward divergent cultural experiences, focusing more on contrasts instead of homogenisation.
4) Why are strategies for inclusion and exclusion central in understanding diasporic identity in Cabanes’ study?
Inclusion and exclusion in Mr. Cabanes’ study of Filipino professionals in Singapore becomes central such that it sheds light on how the subject bloggers identify or claim their Filipinoness, as well as their being globally competitive, within their stay in Singapore, thus their identity within the host nation. The subjects identify themselves as global Filipinos, globally competitive but still rooted in their origins. The way they associate themselves with those that bring fame and pride to the Philippines (how they espouse ideas of patriotism or more appropriately in the study as patriotic pride) and as well as how they are able to assimilate and adapt to the culture of their host country, whilst distancing themselves from the widespread “negative” notions (i.e., DH, Third world, uneducated labor, etc) attached with being a Filipino in the eyes of Others, thus the process of inclusion and exclusion gives rise to their diasporic identity within Singapore.
Basically as I see it, the process of inclusion and exclusion of ideas and notions attached with being Filipinos and of their experiences in the Philippines and the host country to their identities in Singapore explains how such identities are created or at least as perceived and then proclaimed by themselves as to be.
4) Why are strategies for inclusion and exclusion central in understanding diasporic identity in Cabanes’ study?
First of all, I would think that the lives of diasporic communities aren't easy because they are excluded from being a "pure" local by culture and origin. They are only local to a specific location by culture (maybe not always). Maybe as a coping mechanism and a way to be accepted and included somewhere they try to learn and be accepted in their "roots" or "mother-land" culture. So they try to contruct these identities, even if a bit essentialist (like having a list of what is it to be Pinoy), but they are accepted (most of the time). They are welcomed even as heroes. So come to think of it they have the best and the worst of both worlds. They contruct their identities they present online by getting the good parts of "mother-land" culture/traits, they fuse it with the culture of the locale they are currently in. Then viola they have an identity that would be accepted in the Philippines and even praised because of the Filipino culture of looking at foreigners to be superior and it would blend in in their current locale. The diasporic communities or people maybe from the Philippines and are associated with them and yet they are more. They are also excluded from the negative traits. They also get only the positive culture of Singaporeans. With that they are actualy in a way superior. Of course they are both excluded and included. In between. Not really seen to have a full hold on being Filipino and/or Singaporean. But lets compare it to Asian fusion cusine. It's not fully asian, not fully modern, and yet its new, exciting, and acceptable to a wider spectrum of palettes. However it is neither praised by food critiques as the best and the most original, yet it is more than acceptable. It is well appreciated by a wider audience. So they do have the best and worst of both world. They are caught in the middle.
On a side note it is quite hard anyway to pin-point in the first place how to be Filipino (or what it is to be one). So in forming identities in Diasporic communities (I guess) one had to suffice with a more "essentialist" construction of what it is to be a Filipino. Like using uling, how can it be a filipino only trait in the first place? It is basically just coal right? So how can that be an expression of Filipino-ness?
(I found the list btw of the 175 signs that you are a filipino.
http://www.jeepneygang.com/bola/pinoysgn.htm)
Back to topic, how can this be the only way to be filipino? It excludes growth of the culture of a Filipino. So if I don't "1. point with your lips" does that mean I'm not Filipino? So this method to be included is quite effective because it is quite easy to have at least a few of those qualities. So for diasporic communities it is an easy way to be included. Of course they can easily exclude themselves also, because they would like to point out their being cosmopolitan. So they can exclude themselves (from the bad traits) and make themselves to be better than the "pure" Filipino. Of course its hard to just hold claim to Filipino-ness with a mere listing of 175 signs that you're a filipino. Its hard to actually pin-point Filipino-ness. However one can't help but feel excluded if one cannot conform to the said list. It is also a means for exclusion. It actually unifies "Filipinos" because its like (ooohhh we conform to the list, we have things in common, we are part Filipino, we belong) but in a way it is also (yes we have some qualities but we are different also because...) so it may also put themselves in a "higher" position.
1. What does a “diasporic perspective” (Gillespie) contribute, if any, to our understanding of identity and the media?
A diasporic perspective of the media contributes to the continuous change that media undergoes. As technology improves, more and more can we see that the diaspora of a particular place becomes more in line with the local sentiments of the place.
Citing the blogs in Cabanes' study, we can see that they espouse a slight sense of nationalism even if it is intended or not. That, in turn, strengthens local identity and goes back to the local instead of moving too much to a global perspective.
Citing a more concrete, although an off-topic example, I read in PDI that in California and other US cities where there are large Filipino communities, there is a one-stop supermarket owned at operated by migrant Filipinos. From selling only Filipino goods, they have broadened their market to other Asian goods. This only proves that identity in a diasporic setting can fluctuate.
What does a “diasporic perspective” (Gillespie) contribute, if any, to our understanding of identity and the media?
Identity being a mutable cumulative concept, it is perpetually being reworked. The media's role here is to present possible representations of identities, or to put forward identity 'tags' that may be appropriated, rejected, or even modified before being accepted, by a person in the process of constructing his or her identity.
The diasporic perspective is particularly salient in this respect because it demonstrates the constant dialogue between identity construction and media influence. The Punjabi youths of Gillespie's study, for instance, show just how various representations of ethnicity relayed by the global media influence the 'reinvention' of ethnic identity by affording them a melee of tags - the lot loaded with meanings and associations - to ostensibly 'choose' from in their identity construction. Even more interesting is the power dynamic implied here: the media's power, that is, in their ability to present these very tags. Audiences may interpret, yes, and even appropriate to their liking, but only insofar as the material allows them to - and the media has control over the material.
Gillespie cites Appadurai, for example, as speaking of "'mediascapes' of 'invented homelands'" as becoming "the site of desires for change which are transferred to the living 'ethnoscape'. The term 'invented homeland' is especially appropriate in light of the second-generation-diasporic perspective. After all, most of the second generation diaspora have never physically been to the territorial 'homeland' upon which they base their identities. If they have, it is usually in the sense of a quick tourist trip - and yet, they often view this as a "going back," even if this is their first time to actually GO THERE. Most of their 'trips' are through the media, which feeds them images or memories of other generations, upon which they 'invent' their conceptions of what this homeland is. The mediated nature of these images already hints at the power the media can have in this process.
Let us take the example of Proskurov, for instance. Proskurov was a town in Ukraine that was razed during the 2nd World War, rebuilt later in 1950, and renamed 'Khmelnitski'. Khmelnitski, of course, was no longer Proskurov. Proskurov had been destroyed forever, materially speaking, and was kept alive only by the few historical entries/reports accounting for it, as well as the memories of its expatriates. Then there are the pictures... and all these come together to form, in a sense, the 'media' account of the town that was Proskurov.
Here we see the power of those who tell the story: for it is "their" Proskurov that will endure in the minds of their audience. It shall be the pictures they have - the ones in the Memorial Book published in the early 1920's, specifically - that shall influence heavily their children's ideas of their supposed ethnic heritage. But these images, for all we know, are skewed towards a specific demographic: they could have been the most important citizens of that community, a small elite with ways different from the commoners of the town; or they could have been the Jewish part of the populace, which is likely since most of the surviving emigrees were Jews and half of the town's population was Jewish; and so on. Proskurov, as the second-generation diaspora understand it, is almost certainly no longer the Proskurov of old, but the Proskurov 'invented' by the media (and by them, since they will no doubt have engaged the text of that invention with their own codes of interpretation and association). The media manifests one point of its power here: its ability to recommend a history for an identity as well as a historical identity. It is able to influence a generation's formulation of their Proskurov 'roots' (although, from a postmodern perspective, I would prefer to contest that term - but it is convenient here) by giving them its own formulation of what Proskurov 'was' and what being a Proskurovian(?) meant.
Since diasporic communities are rather susceptible to these intricacies of identity formation due to their peculiar placement ("within but not of"), a diasporic perspective may reveal more of the power relations embedded within the process of identity construction. This is important because it can aid in the development of a more informed understanding of both the politics of the media and the ramifications of its terms of representation upon collectives as well as individuals. Within all of this, no doubt, is the question of an ethics of 'responsible' representation - but I would prefer to let others comment on that... even if I do acknowledge it.
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