Cultural Diversity and Global Media: The Mediation of Difference (2010). Siapera, Eugenia Ames, Iowa: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 222.
A thorough, complete introduction to the major theorists and theories on the complex relationship between mass media and multiculturalism couldn’t be more timely—and Eugenia Siapera provides such a textbook. This is an authoritative reference tool that posits global media as an institutional practice of representation, then sets out to explore key debates and approaches to understanding how they participate in the production and circulation of meaning. “Representation is found at the heart of mediation,” writes Siapera, so “without representation neither production nor consumption would have any meaning” (p. 111). By examining processes of media production, representation, and consumption as they engage with cultural diversity, she explains that “cultural diversity in this particular historical juncture must be seen as mediated, that is, traversing processes of the production, circulation, representation and reception/consumption of meaning that characterize late modern, technologically evolved societies” (p. 75).
Cultural Diversity and Global Media begins with a methodical introduction to the author’s proposition of “(re)thinking cultural diversity and the media” by introducing “the crises of multiculturalism” (p. 1) and “the mediation of cultural diversity” (p. 5), proceeding to describe the structure of her textbook and, by extension, the authors, disciplines, and approaches she will rely on to cover ‘multicultural’ ground. In presenting the crises of multiculturalism, she draws an interesting and useful parallel between the provocative Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek and Paul Gilroy, one of Britain’s leading black academics. While “Žižek’s point is that multiculturalism, and its intellectual supporters, hide the true nature of globalized capitalism and deflect any struggles around it” (p. 3), Gilroy speaks of “a kind of post-imperial melancholia” (p. 4). She refers to “the sum of the various cultural differences in all their unruly complexity, their antagonisms, and their conviviality” and asks, “Who is right?” (p. 5). “Should we follow calls for renewal, or dismiss multiculturalism as passé?” (p. 5). Most significantly, the impossibility of answering this recurring question points to “the ongoing debate,” which “shows the continued relevance of multiculturalism” (p. 5). To this end, the author fittingly proposes to address “the need to keep on thinking and reformulating our ideas of cultural diversity, togetherness, identity, and difference” (p. 5), and her book certainly does its share in contributing to the fulfillment of this need.
From chapters 2-4, Siapera provides a comparative overview of the diverse types of multiculturalism around the world, examining how different countries negotiate different historical, political, and social-cultural contexts formally (“policies”) and informally (“practices”). “This variation in policies and practices reflects ongoing tensions both within nations as well as between nations and the pressures of globalization” (p. 9).
The fifth chapter addresses the relationship between media and cultural diversity by drawing on fundamental critical approaches to media studies: socio-psychological (Carl Hovland, Paul Lazarsfeld, Elihu Katz), medium theory (Marshall McLuhan), political-economic (Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky), socio-cultural (Stuart Hall, Antonio Gramsci), mediation (Jesús Martín-Barbero, Roger Silverstone). In so doing, Siapera provides a brilliant treatise that summarizes the differing methods in the field of media studies, and their specific application to the questions of cultural diversity. The book should be required reading for any undergraduate class aiming to provide a comprehensive grasp of this material: complex concepts are made clear and accessible, contexts and methods are compared and contrasted, points of departure for further understanding are provided.
Chapter 6 discusses the production of cultural diversity, and chapter 7 examines these arguments by looking at minority or diasporic media. Siapera concludes that “the production of cultural diversity is differently shaped by political economic and organization factors as well as by conscious and reflexive efforts to remove barriers for participation of cultural minori- ties in media production” (p. 11). According to the author, this would imply that “if there were more minority media professionals, then mediated cultural diversity would end up being fairer and more accurate” (p. 11). Therefore, she offers elucidating discussions of several arguments and positions, which attempt to tackle the basic question of minority media: “Do they make a positive contribution to multicultural democracies, or do they actually contribute to the fragmentation of the public sphere, resulting in further ghettoization and the break-up of society?” (p. 11).
Implying that these media must be “examined on a case by case basis” (p. 11) the author devotes the next three chapters to outlining, summarizing, and debating theories and regimes of representation. Once again, Siapera provides a superb introduction to differing critical approaches to understanding cultural diversity and global media—this time with the vast and complex field of cultural studies. From stereotyping (Walter Lippmann) to framing (Erving Goffman) to critical discourse analysis (Teun Van Dijk) to semiology (Roland Barthes) to discursive formations (Michel Foucault) to performatives (John Austin, Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler), Siapera provides easy access, and context, to a number of concepts and their authors working within cultural studies (and also sociology and anthropology), from Edward Said’s Orientalism to Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus.
The book extends this discussion by implementing the term “regimes of representation” in its next two chapters, on media audiences and online mediation. Chapters 9 and 10 “present a snapshot of representations of ethnic and cultural difference in the media, with a view to making clear the coexistence of several types of representation” (p. 131). Siapera cautions that this coexistence, far from harmonious, is “a deliberate attempt to question any views of a historical progression from racist to non-racist representations” (p. 131). Finally, chapter 11 “concludes the cycle of mediation” after spelling out “the various ways in which people receive, consume and use mediated cultural diversity” (p. 12). The conclusive chapter 12 provides an adequate examination of the relationship between the Internet and cultural diversity in its early days (Manuel Castells), but it is somewhat disappointing, in terms of quality and thoroughness, compared to the rest of the book—which offers an outstanding literature review of core theoretical debates around cultural diversity and global media under the lens of media and cultural studies. Whether revisiting these concepts or encountering them for the first time, Cultural Diversity and Global Media provides the maps and legends to traverse the vast domain of multiculturalism and its critiques.
INGRID BEJERMAN
McGill University