Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 January 2021
Summary
Do contemporary movements of migration and the ever-increasing abundance of audiovisual media correspond to or even cause shifts in the definition of both the bourgeois nuclear family and the tribal extended family? In this book we will investigate the transfigured role of the family both as the mediator and as the mediated in a transnational world in which intercultural values are negotiated through mass media like film and television, as well as through particularistic media like home movies and videos. “Shooting the family” has a double meaning. On the one hand, we claim that the family is under pressure and being altered by the forces of globalization and migration (the family that is “shot to pieces”). On the other hand, family matters of all kinds, pertaining both to reinforcements and radical reconfigurations of traditional family values, are increasingly constructed and refigured in a mediated form: the “reel family” (as in the “visual family shot”) has become an important medium for intercultural affairs.
This book originated in the Department of Media and Culture of the University of Amsterdam. As a group of media scholars with a special interest in intercultural exchanges related to transnational media culture, we discovered that the concept of the family had not been very elaborately analyzed in this respect. Although both the Western nuclear family and the non-Western extended family is under pressure (from internal struggles and divorces and from external causes like migration that tear families apart), no extended study has related the concept of the family in an intercultural perspective to media use and media theory. This striking absence in intercultural media theory led to the idea of writing this book.
From the beginning, we also had the idea of relating these theoretical notions to certain media practices. We were therefore very happy that the center for migration and image culture, Imagine IC (Imagine Identity and Culture) in Amsterdam was immediately interested in collaborating with us on this theme. Imagine IC has programmed a set of screenings, talks, audiovisual assignments, etc., to complement the “Shooting the Family” project. The book and the events present a dialogue between media theory and practice that discusses intercultural values related to family matters.
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- Information
- Shooting the FamilyTransnational Media and Intercultural Values, pp. 7 - 22Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2005
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