Transnational media consumption among Iranian

Transcription

941540-MIG 1-2009.fm Page 5 Tuesday, June 23, 2009 10:15 AM
Transnational media consumption among
Iranian-Norwegians in Norway
Sharam Alghasi & Arne Kristian Aas
Abstract:
This article provides an account of media consumption by a group of 181 Norwegian citizens
with Iranian backgrounds, and examines the transnational aspects of their consumption. The
article investigates how Iranian-Norwegians’ status as falling between two cultures is expressed
in their media consumption. It is based upon a quantitative survey of the informants and indepth interviews with a select subgroup- conducted in 2006 and 2007. The focus is primarily
on their TV and Internet consumption. The quantitative part indicates diverse media consumption preferences and habits among the informants. The qualitative part, on the other
hand, shows how the variations in media-consumption habits and preferences may be related to
ongoing processes of identity and identity negotiations, and how these processes relate to the
informants’ past and present lives. The quantitative part also reveals diverse consumption patterns relating to the country of origin (Iran) and the country of settlement (Norway). In addition, some informants consumed only Iranian media or only Norwegian media. The
quantitative part also shows that despite different patterns of consumption, the respondents shared a considerable interest in using media as a source of information, particularly for information about Iran. The qualitative approach examines the meaning the respondents assigned to
their media habits and how they used the media in their everyday lives. It is revealed that informants very often linked their consumption to their present and past contexts. For the respondents, the past was found to be important for managing the present, and the present was
important when looking back into the past.
Introduction
The question of media consumption is often discussed within the context of the integration of immigrants into new societies (Christensen, 2004). In so doing, an increased inte-
Sharam Alghasi & Arne Kristian Aas (2009) Transnational media consumption among Iranian-Norwegians in
Norway. Norsk tidsskrift for migrasjonsforskning, 10 (1), s. 5–26
5
Norsk tidsskrift for migrasjonsforskning 1:2009
rest in and consumption of media from the country of origin is often suggested as
endangering the process of integration by immigrants (Eckhardt, 1996). Relying on transnational and diasporic approaches, however, some recent media studies have opposed such
«either/or polarities of origin and destination» (Sreberny, 2005) and instead have emphasized possibilities of multi-consumption of media from both the new country and the
country of origin (Christiansen, 2004; Sinclair, 2000; Sreberny, 2000).
Some scholars have emphasized the interconnectivity of migrants with their respective
country of origin (Portes, 1998; Vertovec, 2001). Migrants live their lives across borders
and maintain ties to their geographically distant home. The maintenance of links between
their country of birth and country of settlement is a quality often referred to as transnationalism, which may be defined as «[…] the social process in which migrants establish
social fields that cross geographic, cultural, and political borders» (Glick Schiller, Basch, &
Blanc-Szanton, 1992, p. ix). Globalization and technological advancements in, for example, global media and communications have made it possible for migrants to be mentally
present in two places at one time. Global media and communications create the opportunity for migrants to maintain contact with their country of origin, and are reckoned to be
important in the transformation of migrants’ identities (Appaduri & Breckendrige, 1989).
A range of studies has focused considerable attention on the media consumption of diasporic groups in their efforts to trace the state of ‘in-betweenness’ in the lives of migrants
(Christiansen, 2004; Gillespie, 1995; Sinclair, 2000; Sreberny, 2000; Tsagarousianou,
2001). Moving from these studies, we examine the transnational aspects of Iranian-Norwegian relationships with the media by building on previous analyses while using a broader
set of analytical tools.
This article investigates how Iranian-Norwegians’ «in-between» quality is expressed
in their media consumption. The ways that Iranian-Norwegians relate to the country they
have left behind and to the new lives they have started to build in the societies they have
entered may indicate a particular complexity of its own. On the whole, Iranians who have
left Iran are predominantly politically conscious individuals who have left a country they
desperately wished to change and reform (Ghorashi, 2003). For such individuals, an undesirable sociopolitical transition in Iran led to massive emigration from the country. As they
entered new societies in the West they started the task of building new lives. Ghorashi
(2003), for instance, has emphasized a vast diversity within the Iranian diasporic group in
the Netherlands in the sense that Iranians seem to possess diverse and individual orientations, as well as diverse strategies for interaction with the majority populations in their
struggle to build new lives. Regarding media consumption, Sreberny’s (2005) study of Iranian media consumption in London mirrors a condition of «looking around» as well, as
«looking back» among the Iranians, meaning that Iranians’ in-between quality is mirrored
in their multimedia consumption.
There are two central issues at the heart of this investigation. One issue, as mentioned,
is linked to the media consumption of Iranian-Norwegians, and how and to what degree
their in-betweenness in Norwegian society is mirrored in their media consumption. In this
regard, considering the political and sociocultural aspects of Iranian migration, particular
6
Transnational media consumption among Iranian-Norwegians in Norway
focus is on the content of the media they consume. Some scholars have suggested a distinction between media as a source of information and media as a source of entertainment
(McQuail, 1987; Weibull & Wadbring, 1998). Hence, the focus is on how Iranian-Norwegians relate to both their country of origin and country of settlement through their consumption of TV and the Internet as well as how the media is used by these informants as
a means of information or entertainment.
The second issue concerns respondents’ habits and preferences relating to their social
context (Ang, 1990). In this regard, the study aims to relate the specific media use of the
informants to the overall management of their everyday lives. Put differently, the aim of the
study was to link the informants’ media use to the larger specter of the Norwegian sociocultural context and the practices they were involved in.
To investigate these issues, the study employed two methodological approaches: survey analyses and interviews. There are several benefits to this dual approach, namely we
obtained a broader overview of the field using quantitative methods, and by selecting informants using broader survey material we diminished the risk of selected interview respondents being markedly different from the remainder of the Iranian diaspora in Norway. The
results of our in-depth interviews offer a more nuanced view of how Iranian-Norwegians
employ media to negotiate identities in various ways. This more detailed picture may
enhance our understanding concerning how media consumption in general is used by
minority communities – not only as a way to integrate themselves within dominant cultures, but also to maintain identities relating to their country of birth.
Analytical framework: methods and sample
Our focus is primarily on how the usage of TV and the Internet by our Iranian-Norwegian
informants indicates either a transnational relation to Iran or a national relation to Norway, or both. We traced how the individuals used their remote controls and keyboards to
negotiate a diasporic identity. Several studies have examined TV use by diasporic groups
and have emphasized the dominating role that TV plays in the lives of immigrants (Weibull & Wadbring, 1998). Various studies emphasize the importance of technological
advances and of minorities’ easier access to their native homeland TV through, for
instance, satellite networks (Christensen, 2004; Roald, 2001; Weibull & Wadbring,
1998). The Internet has also been suggested as a medium that effectively links geographically separated places and people, and therefore has also been recognized as vital in the construction of diasporic identities and communities (Rheingold, 2000). As Graham and
Khosravi have explained, «Iran’s newspapers appear online several hours before they are
available in print on newsstands in Tehran» (Graham & Khosravi, 2002, p. 229). Due to
the effective use of this particular media form by diasporic populations, our main focus is
on Iranian-Norwegian habits and the preferences linked to the use of TV and the Internet.
Our second focus is on the specific types of media content that Iranian-Norwegians
consume. Here again, a distinction between information and entertainment may be of par-
7
ticular importance considering the political past that Iranian-Norwegians have often experienced (McQuail, 1987; Weibull & Wadbring, 1998). Such individuals may wish to stay
up-to-date on the sociopolitical developments in Iran, or they may simply enjoy maintaining identity ties to their homeland through entertaining programs. This article aims to
explore how the informants’ desire to maintain ties to their country of birth may be traced
in the content that is of interest to and consumed by them.
Based on the aforementioned focus areas, a customized survey of Iranian-Norwegian
media habits was the starting point for exploring Iranian-Norwegian media consumption.
Within the surveys, we focused on the country of origin of the media consumed (either
Iran or Norway1) and the content that Iranian-Norwegians consumed within various
forms of media. In order to identify and contact our survey informants, we used the snowball method, whereby almost 50 Iranian-Norwegians introduced us to other Iranian-Norwegians within their network.2 A questionnaire was sent out to almost 300 IranianNorwegians living in the Oslo area,3 and 181 responses were received, giving a response
rate of approximately 60%. Two complete questionnaires were rejected due to seemingly
random answers. Even if representativity is of minor interest in a sample selected using the
snowball method, it is of interest to know how the sample differs from the overall IranianNorwegian population. Table 1 shows a comparison of our sample population with the
register-based statistics for the overall Iranian-Norwegian population in Norway.
Table 1: The respondents: a brief overview of how the study sample differs from the Iranian population in Norway (Source: Henriksen, 2007)
The results presented in Table 1 suggest that our sample is somewhat different from the
8
overall population of Iranian-Norwegians. In particular, our informants had lived in
Norway for a long time and had higher levels of education on average than the overall
population of Iranian-Norwegians.4 However, the intention in this article is to offer a
broader impression of the media consumption of a large important immigrant population in Norway than is possible by interviewing a random sample. While we cannot
broadly generalize from the sample to the overall population of Iranians within the diaspora in Norway, efforts were made to ensure that no subgroups of Iranian-Norwegians
were left out and that our sample was sufficiently broad to enable us to detect a wide variety of consumption patterns. Our quantitative survey methods allowed us to reach a
broader group of people and enabled us to use a greater variety of approaches to observe
how media was used to adapt to life in this diaspora.
Two sets of indices were created from the survey data. An index is a number that contains the sum of responses from a battery of questions, each question highlighting different
aspects of the same phenomenon For the purpose of the study, each question was coded as
either 0 or 1. For example, watching Norwegian TV more than one hour per day was
coded 1, and less than an hour per day was coded 0. To ensure that all of the questions
described the same phenomenon we used factor analysis. The first index described the
degree to which TV consumption was directed towards either Iran and/or Norway. The
second set of indices described how the selected media types were used as information or/
and entertainment. Tests using the survey data showed that each media type was best treated independently. Factor analyses were used to determine which unrelated questions
should be removed from the questionnaire within each media type in order to create reliable indices.
Table 2 shows an overview of the indices. All indices consisted of 7 to 16 indicators.
The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test of sampling adequacy, used to check whether the
questions were suitable for factor analysis, was above 0.80 for all indices. This is well within
reasonable limits. Trimming unrelated questions from the indices using factor analysis
reduced the number of dimensions to one for all indices, with the exception of the index
for using TV as entertainment. In the latter case, the scree-plot showed that one of the
dimensions was far more important than the others. Hence, it was not necessary to trim
away additional indicators within this index. A high Cronbach’s alpha, which measures the
internal consistency of the indices, shows that they were reliable in that they measured different aspects of the same phenomenon (Skog, 2004). Given the focus on multimedia consumption in this article, indices were not constructed as mutually exclusive. For
presentation purposes, we divided each index by the number of questions to obtain an
index score between 0 and 1.
9
Table 2: Overview of the indices
Notes: The Table shows the results of a factor analysis conducted in SPSS. The number of indicators reflects the number of questions within each index. A consistent index should be unidimensional, have a KMO-value of above 0.7, and
a Cronbach’s alpha value of above 0.6 or 0.7. The KMO-value reflects sampling adequacy, or whether the questions are
suited for factor analysis, while the Cronbach’s alpha measures internal consistency of the index.
* While the scree-plot shows three factors, it also shows that only one factor is important.
The survey was followed by in-depth interviews with a select subgroup of twenty IranianNorwegians living in Norway whose media consumption was representative of the complexity and diversity found in the media consumption of Iranian-Norwegians. The
respondents were selected for interview on the basis of the results shown in Table 3 (in
the next section), which is a cross-table showing the diversity of Iranian and/or Norwegian TV-consumption. Our aim was to identify respondents who represented the entire
demographic spectrum of adult Iranian-Norwegians in the survey material as well as
simultaneously represented the diversity of consumption patterns. With Table 3 as our
starting point, we selected respondents using two criteria – first, according to their placement on Table 3, and second, according to their demographic traits. Through this
manual and qualitative process, we selected respondents of both genders, all educational
levels, and of varying social networks (recruited using a variety of different initial contacts). In-depth interviews were conducted in order to grasp the respondents’ understanding concerning their own media consumption (Kvale, 1983, p. 184). The interview
guide used was semi-structured and designed to gather facts and information relating the
respondents’ media consumption. In turn, the results were used to determine new areas
of investigation which emerged during the interviews. The interviews were mainly conduced at the respondents’ place of residence.
10
Results
We present our results in four sections. In the first section we address how transnationalism was reflected in Iranian-Norwegian TV consumption. This is followed by assessing
the importance of the Internet in section two, after which we examine how different media
types are used for information and entertainment purposes in the third section. Finally, in
section four we offer a qualitative look at how Iranian-Norwegians use TV and the Internet to stay up-to-date with affairs in their homeland, Iran.
Transnationalism and TV consumption
On an everyday basis, our Iranian-Norwegians informants relied mostly on TV: 83% of
the informants watched TV on a daily basis, which was almost on par with the native Norwegian population. We investigated preferences for Norwegian and/or Iranian TV among
our informants. According to the responses to our questionnaire, only 38.5% of our informants had access to Iranian TV channels at home. However, only 25% of these informants
responded that they never watched Iranian TV. Our qualitative interviews revealed that
many informants gained access to Iranian TV through their network of friends and families, increasing the possibility for general access. It means that access clearly affected how
people in the sample consumed TV. Figure 1 show in detail how the scores measuring consumption of Iranian and Norwegian TV were sorted by percentiles.
Figure 1: Consumption of Iranian and Norwegian TV
Note: The figure shows index scores sorted by percentile of the sample. For instance, the value at the thirtieth percentile
is 0 for consumption of Iranian TV. This means that 30% of the sample did not score 1 on any of the questions relating
to consumption of Iranian TV. The indices consist of eight Norwegian TV indicators and nine Iranian TV indicators.
The index scores are divided by the number of indicators so that the value is between zero and one.
11
Two main assumptions can be made from Figure 1. First, there is a clear tendency towards
transnational multi-consumption by the informants. Even if virtually all informants watched
Norwegian TV, it is clear that Iranian TV formed part of everyday life among many IranianNorwegians living in Norway, even after many years outside Iran. Regression analysis5 shows
that demographic variables such as «years since migration», «gender» or/and «education» did
not have a statistically significant impact on the index scores. While this result may be due
to a relatively small sample size, it does not alter our main finding concerning how widespread multi-consumption of TV was among the Iranian diaspora living in Norway.
Figure 1 shows that there was no clear relationship between Norwegian TV and Iranian
TV consumption. The complexity in our sample is further clarified by the data in Table 3,
which shows great diversity in media consumption among our Iranian-Norwegian informants.
Table 3: Consumption indices – the importance of Iranian TV compared to Norwegian TV
Note: The indices in this cross-table contain nine indicator questions relating to consumption of Iranian TV and eight indicators of consumption of Norwegian TV. Each index ranges from zero to one. High scores occur if an informant answered
positively to questions regarding consumption of either Iranian or Norwegian TV. The two indices are not mutually exclusive.
While Norwegian TV played a bigger role in everyday life than Iranian TV for most of
our informants, there were no clear patterns in TV consumption according to national
lines. Table 3 makes visible some of the diversity within our informant population. There
were Iranian-Norwegians in the sample who almost only watched Iranian TV. There was
also a large group of multi-consumers, ranging from those consumed both Iranian and
12
Norwegian TV at medium to high levels to those with a clear preference for Norwegian
TV yet still watched Iranian TV once in a while, to a substantial group of informants who
watched only Norwegian TV. In addition, there was a minority for whom neither Norwegian nor Iranian TV was important in everyday life.
From the results, the Iranian-Norwegian’s media consumption seems to have had a
considerable transnational character in the sense that both Norwegian and Iranian TV
were frequently consumed by the informants. However, no primary pattern of habits or
approaches regarding TV consumption was traceable.
Transnational Internet consumption
Various studies have emphasized the importance of the Internet within a transnational context
(Eriksen, 2007; Vertovec, 2004). In contrast to TV, access to online content from one’s country
of origin is often as readily available as content from the country of one’s residence. Table 4
shows the percentage of survey respondents who used the Internet for specific purposes.
Table 4: The respondents’ use of the Internet on a daily basis, and the source of their most
important Web pages
Note: Percentages do not always add to 100% due to rounding. In terms of most important Web pages, the category
«Other» includes international news sites and online mail services as well services such as online banking. Quite a few
respondents did not respond to all the questions concerning their favorite Web pages, and the missing responses are
included in the «Other» category.
13
The data in Table 4 suggest that in terms of accessing traditional types of media online,
three main points can be made. First, not all Iranian-Norwegians accessed traditional
media types online. This applied to online TV and, to a lesser extent, online newspapers.
It is also worth noting that more of our informants reported never using Iranian online
services than never using Norwegian ones.
The first finding stands in contrast to our second finding, namely that among those
informants who did report accessing traditional media online, Iranian providers were more
popular than Norwegian ones when it came to TV. In addition, in terms of more commonly accessed online newspapers, Iranian providers were almost as popular as Norwegian
providers. The popularity of online Iranian newspapers may have been due to the fact that
Iranian printed newspapers were not readily available in Norway. Within this context the
Internet had become a very important source of Iranian media for many of the IranianNorwegians informants.
Third, there was a tendency towards brief online usage. Most informants who reported accessing newspapers and TV online spent less than one hour per day on each type of
media. While only 34% of our informants spent more than an hour per day watching Iranian TV, 67% reported spending over an hour per day watching Norwegian TV. That said,
a considerable portion of the sample spent more than an hour per day consuming traditional media (TV and newspapers) online, underscoring the importance of the Internet in
their everyday lives, and the importance of the Internet as a provider of Iranian media for
those in the sample who used the Internet to access traditional media.
It is clear from Table 4 that both Iranian and Norwegian Web pages were important
to our informants. Given that many necessary and everyday online services, such as banking services, are Norwegian it is striking how many Iranian Web pages were regarded as the
most important ones for many of the informants. In total, 25% of our informants identified
an Iranian Web page as their most important choice for Internet surfing, whereas 43%
named a Norwegian one.6 While the Internet was embraced by many Iranian-Norwegians
in similar ways to Norwegians, it also served as a transnational carrier of information and
entertainment from Iran for the informants.
Information or entertainment?
What type of content attracted the attention of informants in this study? Within a transnational context, the purpose behind the consumption of the media is a point of interest.
Given that most individuals within the Iranian diaspora were refugees with various degrees
of political consciousness and previous involvement in activities, an interest in information
about the political situation in Iran or in the international scene was to be expected. In
Figure 2 traditional newspapers and radio were added to the TV presented earlier in this
article, and an overview is provided in Figure 2.
14
Figure 2: Consumption in terms of information and/or entertainment. How Iranian-Norwegians use three media types
Note: The graphs show index scores relating to the use of three media types as sources of information and/or entertainment. Index scores are sorted by percentile of the sample. For instance, the 10% who used TV the least as a source
of information, still scored approximately 0.3 on the index. This means that they used TV for information purposes to
some extent. The indices are not created as mutually exclusive.
We defined news and news-related content, such as that provided by debate programs as
well as documentaries on social, political and cultural issues, as information, while the
remainder of the content accessed was defined as entertainment. Figure 2 shows that our
Iranian-Norwegian’ informants clearly embraced media as informational in their everyday lives: for all three media types, information-oriented content was reported as more
important than entertainment-oriented content. This applied to all percentiles, with the
exception of non-users of newspapers, non-users of the Internet, and the most frequent
consumers of TV. It is clear that information-related content was actively gathered by
most informants.
When it came to newspapers, the difference reported between the importance of information and entertainment was bigger than for the other types of media explored, underlining the traditional role that newspapers maintain as a source of information. On the other
hand, among those with little interest in information-oriented content, TV seemed to be
15
the most important source of information. The decile with the lowest score on the index
for using TV for informational purposes scored 0.3. This shows that even those respondents with limited usage of TV as a source for information used TV for information to
some extent. The importance of TV as a source of information was reflected in the percentage of Iranian-Norwegians who watched news programs. In the questionnaire, 77% of our
informants7 reported that they followed the news on Norwegian TV, while 28% watched
the news on Iranian TV channels from time to time. TV debates were almost as popular.
A total of 67% percent of our informants followed Norwegian TV debates, while 21% followed Iranian TV debates, only available on Iranian TV. In finding and maintaining their
place in Norway, our informants actively used media as a source of information.
However, there seemed to be an «information gap» between users and non-users of
newspapers and the Internet. While more than half of our informants spent a good deal of
time reading newspapers and browsing the Internet for informational purposes, the
remainding informants were less inclined to do so. A total of 10% of the informants in our
sample never read newspapers and 16% never used the Internet. In other words, information was not evenly accessed by all of the Iranian-Norwegians in our sample. This was also
found to be the case when looking at the consumption of media sources of TV, online, and
newspaper separately, where there was great variability in our informants’ consumption
patterns in terms of content type.
TV was clearly the most important source for our informants when it came to entertainment, followed by the Internet. Almost two-thirds reported that they considered TV
their most important source of entertainment. The high index score reflects how many
informants consumed different kinds of entertainment programs, resulting in many hours
in front of the TV every day. For instance, almost 60% watched TV series on Norwegian
channels and one-third followed Iranian TV series on Iranian TV-channels. Reality series,
talk shows, consumer reports, and documentaries were also popular among the Iranian
diaspora in Norway. A multitude of different forms of entertainment was also available
online, making the Internet an important source for this type of content. Notably, information and entertainment were more closely linked when our informants referred to online
sources; reading book reviews, computer-related articles, and searching for plane tickets
and restaurant-recommendations – certainly information gathering activities – were categorized by our informants as entertainment. Purely entertainment-oriented content was
also popular. Quite a few Iranian-Norwegians also watched various TV series online,
downloaded music and movies, chatted with friends, and sent e-mails.
It might be tempting to interpret the graph statistics concerning the use of newspapers
as entertainment as indicating that newspapers were not an important source of entertainment for our informants. However, such an interpretation would be misleading. Rather,
fewer people were extensive users of newspapers as entertainment. Entertainment in newspapers was, for many, limited to reading the sports pages. Without classifying sports as
entertainment, the importance of entertainment would be far less important than the
results presented here indicate.
16
In the next section, we will examine the varied patterns of media source and type consumption more closely, as well as discuss the ways that everyday media consumption by
Iranian-Norwegians was tied to the creation of a transnational identity in a diasporic context. The latter was determined by conducting in-depth interviews with a select group
from among the informants.
Media consumption and the everyday management of media
We were interested in studying respondents’ different media use approaches in relation to
their social context. The quantitative data indicated extensive transnational media practices among the respondents; a wide and diverse range of media from both their homeland
and the country of residence was employed by the respondents. The quantitative data also
indicate a one-dimensional usage of media either from their homeland or their country of
residence. However, the quantitative data inform little about the Norwegian social context
of media use within which our Iranian-Norwegians informants operated. By employing indepth interviews one of the study objectives was to relate the specific media use of the
informants to their overall management of their everyday lives.
As shown in the quantitative section, the diverse quality of Iranian-Norwegian media
consumption often emphasized a strong transnational character of media consumption
within the group. The respondents also emphasized the informational aspect in their
media use. In our survey sample, 132 of 181 Iranian-Norwegians regarded international
events, especially Iran-related issues, as being quite important. They seemed to use various
media to varying degrees to quench their thirst for orientation on issues linked to Iran, as
expressed by respondent Afsaneh (41 years):
My media habits vary a lot from day to day. Often, when I go to work, I buy newspaper, and read on the bus to work. When I go back home, I surf on the Net to get
the news, different sights, both Iranian and Norwegian. At 7 o’clock we watch the
news on Norwegian TV, and when the children are in bed, I have the chance to be
more online, trying to catch up with latest events. Maybe twice a week I chat with
my family in Iran.
Afsaneh demonstrated multitude media consumption, employing media from both Iran
and Norway. She also displayed an eagerness to use media to access information that was
also characterized by many of our Iranian-Norwegian respondents. Another respondent,
Morteza (50 years), also conveyed this eagerness, and demonstrated a diverse media usage
in which a «search for Iran» was vital:
I wake up six in the morning, and while preparing breakfast I watch a favorite film
of mine in Jam-e Jam [an Iranian TV channel] at 6.30 or 7 o’clock. At work, at
lunch break I go on the Internet and read Aftenposten, Dagbladet and Dagsavisen
17
[Norwegian newspapers]. Back home, I have News on Radio Farda [an Iranian
radio channel] at 4.30 in the afternoon. And again at 6 o’clock I have radio America or the TV. [At] 6.30 I often try to watch the news on TV2 [a Norwegian TV
channel]. If I don’t make it, I still have the news on NRK [a Norwegian TV channel] at 7. And again I have the news on TV2 at 9. Then I go online again; I particularly visit Gooya [an Iranian website]. I pick up things from this site.
Afsaneh and Morteza, in common with many other respondents in the study, had lived
outside Iran for considerable amount of years. However, they clearly demonstrated a transnational and often information-oriented media consumption in which, with differing
degrees of eagerness, they stretched themselves when faced with material and media input
they found interesting. They maintained contact with Iran by, among other things, consuming Iranian media on a daily basis, and at the same time they seemed eager to follow Norwegian media sources. The Internet seemed to play an especially vital role in maintaining
contact between «here» and «there, and in this way blurred the conventional divisions between these localities. This medium created the opportunity for our respondents to access
a wide range of sources of information and entertainment. Many of our respondents read
a number of Iranian online newspapers every day, in addition to Norwegian Web pages.
One respondent spoke about his nightly search for Iran-related issues on the Internet, particularly on Iranian Web pages, while he noted that during the day he primarily consumed
Norwegian media, particularly Norwegian TV.
Both Afsaneh and Morteza, like many other respondents in the study, had a background as exiles; they had experienced a revolution and possessed strong cultural and political awareness. In a way, it seemed that their large portion of political capital was
transformed and converted to cultural-informational capital. This was evident from their
active and dynamic usage of various media sources, which seemed to be present in their
every day life. They made subjective analyses of conditions relating to present-day Iran, as
well as a considerable portion of public issues in Norway. In their analyses, the respondents
very often questioned the media representations in both Iran and Norway. Hassan (41
years) recounted that he was always looking for particular issues in the media, and at the
time of interview he was quite interested in the dispute on the Iranian nuclear program. He
was carefully following the news in both Iran and Norway, and demonstrated an oppositional standing towards the issue in Iranian and Norwegian media:
Through the media, the Iranian Government gives the issue a national aspect so
they win public support. Last night they talked about enriching uranium and at
the same time they showed people on the street celebrating. Now, it is important
for me how they try to sell this idea to people, that they enrich uranium for the
love of their country.
Thus the nuclear issue was not simple news for Hassan, but rather some raw material in
his analysis of the ruling political and media condition in Iran. In fact, Hassan questioned
18
the notion of «Iranianess» that the Iranian regime employs in mobilizing the nation on the
nuclear issue. He wanted to know how the regime sold the idea of Iranianess. In addition,
the majority of the respondents also demonstrated an oppositional stand towards the Norwegian media and their representation of the issue. Bahar (33 years) criticized the media
for being biased and creating xenophobia in Norwegian society, for instance regarding the
focus on the nuclear issue:
The nuclear issue in Iran is a dilemma for me. My life in Norway is already [before
the Iranian nuclear issue] difficult as it is. You see, I am in this situation [exile in
Norway] because of the regime in Iran. This was the Iranian regime that caused
my move from Iran and caused my current experience in this society. And the society here is the reason that I say why Iran can’t have access to nuclear energy, while
I hate the regime in Iran. That is my dilemma.
For Bahar, the focus on the Iranian nuclear issue may be seen as providing raw material in
her identity negotiations involving the past and the present. According to her, her life was
marked with experiences from the past which were also involved in gaining new experiences in the Norwegian society. She did not cherish the Iranian regime, but at the same time,
she considered that the position in Norwegian society influenced her evaluation of the Iranian nuclear aims. She could neither identify herself with the current regime in Iran, nor
with the media representation of the issue, which in turn, according to her, may have influenced her identification and positioning in the Norwegian society. Thus, it was her Iranianess, as an identity marker, which she negotiated in relation to media consumption and
the interplay of the past and present.
The cases of Afsaneh, Morteza, Hassan, and Bahar, all illustrate dynamic multitude
media consumption with considerable focus on media as a source of information regarding
both their country of origin and country of residence. However, the respondents’ media consumption may be merely a tool for measuring their «integration» or «adaptation» into Norwegian society, as in terms of their social relations they varied greatly regarding their
participation or integration in what is seen as ordinary Norwegian everyday life. Hassan, for
instance, had no Norwegian friends, while Bahar, despite describing her uneasy life, on the
surface seemed quite adapted to life in Norway. On the contrary, what was common to these
respondents is that despite having shared a common past they demonstrated an ability to
identify and position themselves in quite individual ways. They also seemed to demonstrate
a reflexive position in evaluating their life contexts. This position was well described by Afsaneh when asked about the impact of media representations on her life in Norway:
I am not confused. I have my original identity. After all, if we want to live here or
in other societies, we [Iranians] have good things, which I can try to keep, and at
the same time I can pick up some good things from this society. I can not say that
I have forgotten everything from the past, and only because I live here I would
accept everything from this society. And I have tried to pass it to my kids as well.
19
The quotation above may illustrate that Afsaneh adopted a reflexive approach when evaluating her position within Norwegian society. This art of mixing in order to reflect on the
present life while involving the past is traceable in respondents’ multitude media consumption. However, in-depth interviews indicated other media consumption approaches. For
instance, Bahram’s (54 years) pattern of media consumption did not indicate a transnational
approach, that is, an approach characterized by mobile, diverse, and multifaceted media use.
When asked about other forms of media he consumed, Bahram noted that his media consumption was rather limited to Iranian media. He also linked this usage to his social life,
emphasizing how he and friends had the same pattern of media usage. Bahram’s approach
indicates a low degree of diversity and multi-consumption, yet very few of the study subjects
had such approach in their media consumption. What was very striking about those with
the same approach as Bahram was the tendency to watch a lot of Persian-speaking TV at
home. For Bahram, Iranian TV represented his primary source of information and entertainment. He expressed his «dependency» on Iranian TV, and maintained that his life
would have been much more difficult without having Iranian TV at home. When asked to
describe the media he consumed in his pursuit for information on Iran, he answered:
They [Norwegians] want to show themselves that they are better than us; they
want to tell their youngsters that look! With all oil and income, they live in
poverty, but we can take care of you here, remember that. Don’t expect more than
what you get.
This suggests how Bahram positioned himself within Norwegian society. He expressed his
feeling of marginalization, of being misunderstood and misplaced in society. Bahram’s attitude towards Norwegian society also indicated a marked national sentiment towards Iran.
This relates to the question of Iranianess, and how this entity is perceived and represented
in the Norwegian sociocultural context. Bahram did not feel a sense of belonging to Norway, despite having lived in Norway for more than 20 years. He had no relations with Norwegians, and possessed very limited knowledge about public issues in the society in which
he lived. He traveled to Iran three or four times each year and, as he expressed, the trips
were very important in management of his everyday life in Norway. The main reason for
him to be in Norway was that he had two daughters living in Norway, and he felt that he
simply could not leave them there.
While some informants made great efforts to gain access to information on Iran, accessing various sources in various languages, others depended entirely upon one media source.
Lale (28 years), for instance, consumed primarily Norwegian media, and demonstrated
little interest in monitoring Iran-related information:
In the morning I listen to Norwegian radio. If I don’t go to work I watch God morgen Norge [a Norwegian entertainment TV program]. Sometimes at work I go to
Iranian Web pages, and when I get home, the TV is on until I sleep. I watch
mostly films or TV series on Norwegian TV channels. I normally don’t search for
20
Iranian stuff. Not that I am indifferent regarding Iran, but I think that I am here,
my life is here, and it doesn’t make any difference for me what Ahmadinejad [Iranian President] has said, for instance.
Lale’s media consumption approach was unidimensional in the sense that Norwegian
media seemed to be her main source of media consumption. In addition, she appeared to
have less interest in gathering information compared to the majority of the informants, as
illustrated earlier. The entertainment aspect of media, however, seemed to be very important to Lale, with exclusively Norwegian media forming the source of entertainment.
Some of our interview respondents followed a similar pattern to Pari (33years), who
drew a clear division between Norwegian and Iranian media in the sense that Norwegian
media was recognized as the source of information, and was consumed accordingly, while
Iranian Web pages were consumed more for entertainment purposes. When asked if she
accessed Iranian Web pages, Pari responded as follows:
P: There are some Iranian sites I go to.
SA: Like?
P: Taktaz. Taktaz is a very good portal you can use to go to other pages as well. Sometimes I click on news overheads about Iran and read. I listen to music. There is also
something called «sarnevesht» [destiny] which I find interesting. My sister likes it. I
read interviews with Iranian actors if they are interesting. Some pictures of them I like
to see.
While Lale indicated that Iranian-Norwegian media consumption did not only indicate a
transnational, multi-consuming quality for her, Pari indicated a transnational use where
Iranian and Norwegian media were used as different sources for different purposes. Lale
and Pari both came to Norway by means of family reunification (one had married an Iranian, and one was reunited with her family in Norway); neither demonstrated a strong
desire to be updated regarding the situation in Iran.
The qualitative cases mentioned above indicate a diversity of media habits and preferences among our Iranian-Norwegian respondents beyond what was visible in the survey
data. Furthermore, the interviews indicated how the variety of media consumption may be
related to the social contexts of the respondents. Our informants had different approaches
regarding their media consumption, as well as of the types and content of media from Iran
and Norway. The differing strategies and approaches often seemed to be in accordance
with the way they positioned themselves in relation to the past and the present. These strategies and positionings indicated a certain complexity concerning media consumption patterns that deserved to be examined in more detail. This has been pursued in Alghasi
(2009).
21
Discussion
The findings in this article challenge the either/or perception of media consumption by
immigrants. By using a dual methodological approach, we have shown a diversity of patterns with regard to the transnational aspects of media consumption by Iranian-Norwegians living in diasporic Norway. In the first section of this study, an analysis of the survey
results from our 181 Iranian-Norwegian informants confirmed that there was a multitude
of consumption patterns of both Iranian and Norwegian media. Norwegian TV had a primary role in everyday life, but Iranian TV was also present. As indicated by the number of
Iranian websites listed as most important, both websites from country of birth and websites from the country of settlement were a part of everyday awareness. We suggest that
many of these patterns represented a state of being two places at once. These findings are
in line with Sreberny (2000, p. 189), who has employed the «not only, but also» approach
in describing media consumption among Iranian-British. This approach acknowledges the
multi-choice quality of Iranian media consumption, and is suggested by Sreberny to be a
useful resource in the construction of hybrid and transnational identities among Iranians
in London.
Our study indicates that TV and the Internet are important media in Iranian-Norwegians’ transnational media practices. A large group of our informants constantly switched
between Iranian and Norwegian TV channels and Web pages. Some informants maintained links with Iran primarily through the Internet, while some consumed Iranian TV
more frequently.
While the data from Table 4 also support a strong «not only, but also» approach concerning Iranian-Norwegian media consumption, other strategies such as unidimensional,
one-sided, media consumption were also traceable. Informants applying this latter strategy
tended to rely upon either Iranian or Norwegian media, but frequently not both. We also
traced a «neither-nor» approach as an additional concept; for instance, several of our informants showed no interest in consuming either Iranian or Norwegian TV. This was an indication of a different positions applied towards the past and the present, the home and the
society of settlement (Georgiou, 2007; Titely, 2008).
Much of our data reaffirms Sreberny’s «not only, but also» approach. However, the
results from our survey data and interview analyses indicated a multitude of approaches to
media consumption, which resulted in a complex pattern of multi-consumption that could
not be reduced to a single approach. Our dual methods framework provided some useful
insights in the light of the results reported from single-method studies. First, conclusions
concerning the one-sided rejection or embrace of media from either country of residence
or country of origin, as found in Eckhardt’s either/or perspective, which may have been
attributed to a celebration of difference and diversity, might in fact be due to selection bias.
Had we chosen to analyse the responses from a limited selection of the informants in our
study, we might have concluded that Iranians living in diasporic Norway overwhelmingly
chose one strategy or another. Instead, we found that our informants employed a variety of
adaptations in terms of their media consumption. In this sense, the adoption of a strategy
reflected an individual’s unique management of his or her diasporic identity within a trans22
national setting. By using a dual methods approach, we were able to trace a complexity of
individual adaptations within one immigrant group that would otherwise have not been
apparent.
This study shows how in-depth interviews can shed light on individual adaptations in
a unique way that is unattainable by relying solely on quantitative data, namely, that convertability of resources often seems to be dependent on individuals. As our interview data
suggested, individual habits, habitus, and resources were too rich and variously managed
to be reduced to survey questions and answers. For further research, however, we have
shown that by asking questions not just about either group adaptations or individual adaptations, but both, it might be possible to highlight social phenomena in a way that moves
beyond the limits of relying upon a singular methodological approach.
Eckhardt (1996), for instance, has emphasized the great interest among various diasporic groups in Germany in following news from their countries of origin. Gillespie (1995)
underlined the importance of TV news from one’s country of origin among South Asians
in Southall, and the important role that the news plays in strengthening the relationship
between youths and their parents. Weibull & Wadbring (1998) found indications of a
strong desire within diasporic groups for gaining access to information, particularly information that was linked to their countries of origin. We found similar patterns in our study.
Despite having diverse approaches regarding media consumption, our data indicate that
our informants often maintained ties to Iran and seemed to be eager to know more about
Iran. However, individual informants’ approaches varied.
In understanding the relation between the country of birth and the country of origin,
Portes& Guarnizo, and Landolt (1999) see the transnational individual as dependent on
regular and sustained cross-border contacts. Within this context, there is a conventional
division between country of origin (there) and country of residence (here). For scholars,
however, here and there are seen as a combined entity that emerges in migrants’ communication practices (Waldinger & Fitzgerald, 2004, p. 1180). The majority of informants in
our study had political past and were highly analytical regarding their own media consumption and the purpose of this consumption. In this sense, their focus was on the informational aspect of media rather than on entertainment. They used the Internet frequently
to access information on Iran-related issues. This medium, therefore, blurred the here and
there distinction and created the opportunity for the informants to consume media across
borders based on individual needs and preferences.
For many of the informants, the ties to Iran in the Norwegian context were not necessarily limited to maintaining linkages to Iran as a geographic entity, but also consisted of
maintaining symbolic ties to Iran by cultivating a strong sense of Iranianess. This focus on
Iranianess was clearly at work in the everyday lives of the Iranian-Norwegian informants,
and in the ways that they consumed media.
Ultimately, the complexity of Iranian-Norwegian media consumption, as shown by
our data, suggests that we may not claim a uniformity in eagerness and interest by IranianNorwegians in maintaining ties with Iran. Some of our informants actively resisted anything that had to do with the Iranian regime, some even going so far as to avoid Iranian Web
23
pages in order not to appear to be legitimizing the Iranian regime. Future studies might
address in more detail the particular social practices relating to Iranian-Norwegian media
consumption.
Notes
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
The survey material also included questions on consumption of international media. However, compared to Norwegian and Iranian media, only a few informants reported broad consumption of international media in the survey,
hence these results are not shown. However, this stands in contrast to what we found in some of the in-depth interviews, and consequently we chose to not focus on consumption of international media.
The assumption was that Iranian-Norwegians might be sceptical towards receiving letters inviting them to join the
project or to answer a questionnaire. Moreover, there was no Iranian-Norwegian organisation of importance
through which we could contact the target group. Therefore, we established contact with individuals that we assumed could be counted as part of diverse and small Iranian-Norwegian communities from in various locations within the city of Oslo.
The questionnaire was in Norwegian and Persian and the informants could choose to answer in the language they
wished.
It should also be noted that self-reported education generally tends to be higher than is evident from registered
data. This was the case for the data on the Iranian population.
Results are available from the authors on request.
International Web pages are categorized together with blank responses. This was done because very few respondents reported accessing international Web pages.
Tables of frequency are available on request.
References
Alghasi, S. (2009). Iranian-Norwegian media consumption: Identity and positioning.
Nordicom Review 30(1), 67–82.
Ang, I. (1990) «Culture and communication: Towards an ethnographic critique of media
consumption in the transnational media system.» European Journal of Communication
5(2–3), 239–260.
Appaduri, A., & Breckendrige, C. (1989). On moving targets. Public Culture 2, i–iv.
Blumler, J.G., & Katz, E. (1974). The uses of mass communication. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Bourdieu, P. (1990). Social space and symbolic power. In In other words: Essays towards a
reflexive sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1999). On television. New York: The New Press
Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L.J.D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press. [The Norwegian version is used in the article: Bourdieu,
P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1995). Den kritiske ettertanken. Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget.]
Christiansen, C.C. (2004). News media consumption among immigrants in Europe. The
relevance of diaspora. Ethnicities 4(2), 185–207.
24
Eckhardt, J. (1996). Nutzung und Bewertung von Radio- und Fernsehsendungen für
Ausländer [Use and Evaluation of Radio and Television Programmes for Foreigners].
Mediaperspektiven 8, 451–461.
Eide, E. (2002). «Down there» and «up here». «Europe’s others» in Norwegian feature stories.
Oslo: Unipub.
Eriksen, T.H. (2007). Nationalism and the Internet. Nations and Nationalism 13(1), 1–
17.
Georgiou, M. (2007). Transnational crossroads for media and diaspora: Three challenges
for research. In O. Guedes-Bailey, M. Georgiou, & R. Hardranath (eds.), Transnational lived and the media: Reimagining diasporas. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Gillespie, M. (1995). Television ethnicity and cultural change. London: Routledge.
Gillespie, M. (2000). Transnational communications and diaspora communities. In S.
Cottle (ed.), Ethnic minorities and media (pp. 164–178). Buckingham: Open University Press.
Ghorashi, H. (2003). Ways to survive, battles to win: Iranian women exiles in the Netherlands and United States. New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Glick Schiller, N., Basch, L., & Blanc-Szanton, C. (1992). Towards a definition of transnationalism. Introductory remarks and research questions. Annals of the New York
Academy of Sciences 645(1): Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race,
Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism, ix–xiv.
Graham, M., & Khsoravi, S. (2002). Reordering public and private in Iranian cyberspace:
Identity, politics, and mobilization. Identities 9(2), 219–246.
Henriksen, K. (2007). Fakta om 18 innvandrergrupper i Norge. Rapport 29/2007. Oslo:
Statistisk sentralbyrå.
Høst, S. (1998). Daglig mediebruk. Oslo: Pax Forlag.
Höijer, B. (1999). To be an audience. In P. Alasuutari (ed.), Rethinking the media audience
(pp. 179–194). London: Sage.
Kvale, S. (1983). The qualitative research interview: A phenomenological and hermeneutical mode of understanding. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 14(2), 171–196.
McQuail, D. (1987). Mass communication theory: An introduction (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
Portes, A. (1998). Globalisation from below: The rise of transnational communities. ESRC
Transnational Communities Programme Working Paper No. 1.
Portes, A., Guarnizo, L.E., & Landolt, P. (1999). The study of transnationalism: Pitfalls
and promise of and emergent research field. Ethnic and Racial Studies 22(2), 217–237.
Rheingold, H. (2000). The virtual community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier (revised ed.). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Roald, A. S. (2001). The immigrants’ extended ear to their homelands: The influences of
Arab-satellite channels on the integration process of muslims in Sweden. Paper presented
at Medierne, minoritetene, og det multikulturelle samfund. Magleås (Copenhagen)
seminar. Organised by the research programme Globale Media Cultures, University
of Copenhagen.
25
Severin, W.J., & Tankard, J.W. (1997). Communications theories: Origins, methods, and
uses in the mass media. New York: Longman Publishers.
Sinclair, J. (2000). Chinese cosmopolitanism and media use. In S. Cunningham & J. Sinclair (eds.), Floating lives: The media and Asian diasporas (pp. 35–90). St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press.
Skog, O. (2004). Å forklare sosiale fenomener (2nd ed.). Oslo: Gyldendal Akademisk.
Sreberny, A. (2000). Media and diasporic consciousness: An exploration among Iranians
in London. In Cottle, S. (ed.), Ethnic minorities and media. (pp. 179–196). Buckingham: Open University Press.
Srebreny, A. (2005) Not only but also: «Mixedness and media». Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31(3), 443–459.
Titley, G. (2008). Researching media transnationalism in ‘multicultural’ Ireland: An exploratory discussion of Polish media practices. Translocations: The Irish Migration,
Race and Social Transformation Review 3(1), pp. 29–49.
Tsagarousianou, R. (2001). A space where one feels at home: Media consumption practices among London’s South East Asian and Greek Cypriot communities. In R. King &
N. Wood (eds.), Media and migration: Constructions of mobility and difference (pp.
158–172). London: Routledge.
Vaage, O. F. (2005). Mediebarometeret 2005; mer internett-bruk og boklesing 20(2).
Vertovec, S. (2001). Transnationalism and identity. Journal of Ethic and Migration Studies
27(4), 573–582.
Vertovec, S. (2004). Cheap calls: The social glue of migrant transnationalism. Global
Networks 4(2), 219–224.
Waldinger, R., & Fitzgerald, D. (2004). Transnationalism in question. American Journal
of Sociology 109(5), 1177–1195.
Weibull, L., & Wadbring, I. (1998). De nya svenskarna möter svenska massmedier. [The
New Swedes Meet the Swedish Mass Media]. In L. Nilsson (ed.), Region i omvandling.
SOM-rapport 23, SOM-undersökingen Västsverige 1998. Gothenburg: University of
Gothenburg.
Ytreberg, E., & Ericson, S. (eds.). (2000). Fjernsyn mellom høy og lav kultur. In the series
Kulturstudier, bind 22. Bergen: Høyskoleforlaget, Kristiansand.
26

Transnational media consumption among Iranian

Transcription

Similar documents

Presentation

NTVA Review 2014

The Iranian Revolution

WHOLEY NORWEGIAN SALMON FILLETS 1

2007 Program - Noor Iranian Film Festival

www.AMBiran.com

experts - Hunter College

in Norway and Europe - Verband Schweizer Medien

News of Norway

Energirådet Fornybar energi - store muligheter i