OSP: Paul Gilroy - Diasporic identity

OSP: Paul Gilroy - Diasporic identity

There are several important theories we need to learn and apply to our Online, Social and Participatory media unit.

These include Clay Shirky's End of Audience theories, Stuart Hall's work on representation and reality and Paul Gilroy's postcolonial theory of black diasporic identity.

Notes from the lesson

Stuart Hall: representation and reality

Stuart Hall suggests individuals each have their own conceptual map – effectively what we use to decode and understand media texts.

Building on this, Hall outlines three approaches to understanding the relationship between reality and representations: 

Reflective approach: the media simply mirrors (or reflects) the real world. This is a limited approach that minimalises the power or complexity of the media.

Intentional approach: the producer of the text constructs the world as they see it and the audience accepts those values encoded in the text. This is effectively the dominant or preferred reading (reception theory) and leaves no room for the negotiated or oppositional reading.

The constructivist approach: this was Hall’s preferred approach and closely matches reception theory with preferred and oppositional readings. This suggests concepts and signs do have some shared meanings but they are not all inherent and can be interpreted by the audience in a number of ways (dependent on their own ‘conceptual map’).

Paul Gilroy: black diasporic identity

We first explored Paul Gilroy’s theories of black diasporic identity when studying music video.

This is the idea that black identity is informed by diaspora – literally the ‘scattering of people’ across the world. He suggests this creates a “liquidity of culture” that means black identity is formed by journeys across seas, not the solid ground of a home country or culture.

Importantly, Gilroy sees this identity as impossible to reverse – there can be no return to the place of origin as the experience of slavery and displacement can never be “rewound”.

Gilroy: black British identity

The Voice newspaper was formed in 1982 to create a voice for the black British community. Gilroy wrote of the dominant representation of black Britons at that time as “external and estranged from the imagined community that is the nation”.

Gilroy suggests diaspora challenges national ideologies and creates “cultural tension”. This tension helps to create the diasporic identity but often comes with negative experiences such as exclusion and marginalisation. 

More succinctly, Gilroy sums this up as the white racist’s question to BAME people: “Why don’t you just go home?”

BBC controversy

Gilroy wrote about this in the 1970s and 1980s but it's been in the news much more recently. The BBC found itself embroiled in a controversy regarding BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty's response to Donald Trump suggesting congresswomen should 'go home' to the countries in which they or their parents were born. The original clip and full article can be found below:





Paul Gilroy and Russell Brand

In 2017, Paul Gilroy took part in Russell Brand’s Under The Skin podcast, exploring ideas and modern culture. Watch the following two extracts and consider how Gilroy’s ideas reflect recent events and media culture.

Extract 1: 17.50 – 25.45
Extract 2: 44.30 – 48.08

Paul Gilroy - blog task

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet 170: Gilroy – Ethnicity and Postcolonial Theory. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets

Read the Factsheet and complete the following questions/tasks:

1) How does Gilroy suggest racial identities are constructed?
He has consistently argued that racial identities are historically constructed – formed by colonisation, slavery, nationalist philosophies and consumer capitalism.

2) What does Gilroy suggest regarding the causes and history of racism?
Gilroy states that racial difference and racial identities are the product of racial oppression. Racial identities are caused by historical conflicts that have brought different groups into opposition.

3) What is ethnic absolutism and why is Gilroy opposed to it?
Absolutism considers separate ethnic compartments are absolute which are invisible & tightly bonded together. Compromising your ethnic group would, for an ethnic absolutist, be against natural order and risk the future existence of that ethnic group.

4) How does Gilroy view diasporic identity?
Gilroy sees black identities as a product of movement – the African diasporic identity is based on ROUTES taken throughout history, and not the ROOTS of origin.

5) What did Gilroy suggest was the dominant representation of black Britons in the 1980s (when the Voice newspaper was first launched)?
the dominant representation of black Britons was as “external and estranged from the imagined community that is the nation.” As such, to accept the role of slavery into the cultural identities of Britain would be to challenge the negative stereotype of black Britons at the time, and reverse the “external and estranged” relationship with the nation.

6) Gilroy argues diaspora challenges national ideologies. What are some of the negative effects of this?
Diaspora challenges national ideologies, through the commitment and loyalty to the origin nation or place.

7) Complete the first activity on page 3: How might diasporic communities use the media to stay connected to their cultural identity? E.g. digital media - offer specific examples.

ActivityConsider the different ways that a diaspora might maintain their community and connections using different media platforms. Find some examples where communities from across the globe are still connected to their cultural identities through their use of media. Start with digital media, for example Twitter’s role in quashing the #1millionshirts campaign or reaction to Kony 2012 (see Factsheet 99).

Facebook and social networking is presented as a tool for the creation of a ‘better world’ and this too reinforces Western interests and perspectives. 

8) Why does Gilroy suggest slavery is important in diasporic identity?
Gilroy also argues the importance of slavery to modernity and capitalism. The modern world was built upon a normalised view of slavery, particularly plantation slavery. Slavery was only rejected when it was revealed as incompatible with enlightened rationality and capitalist production.

9) How might representations in the media reinforce the idea of ‘double consciousness’ for black people in the UK or US?
Double consciousness provides more ways of understanding the world, but it places a great strain on black Americans as they consistently feel they are looking at themselves through the eyes of others; there is a ‘two-ness’ within the identity of the black American which is unreconciled. Black people are outside modernity as they have been deigned freedom and full citizenship; it was ‘proved’ by supposedly rational race scientists that black people were less evolutionally developed than Europeans.

10) Finally, complete the second activity on page 3: Watch the trailer for Hidden Figures and discuss how the film attempts to challenge ‘double consciousness’ and the stereotypical representation of black American women.
They are empowering the role of black women in films. This film allows black female roles to be challenged in a lot of ways.

This is your half-term homework - due in your first exam lesson after half-term.

Make sure you've also got the last sections of your Teen Vogue case study complete plus your regular stories from Teen Vogue and The Voice:

Teen Vogue - audience and representation
Teen Vogue - industry and social media
Teen Vogue and The Voice - weekly story focus