GMJ: Mediterranean Edition 3(1) Spring 2008 24 The Message of Transnational Media: Changing Notions of ‘Threat’ and Opportunities for Cultural Diversity Gökçen Karanfil Abstract This article is intended to be an intervention into broader theoretical discussions on globalisation, transnationalisation, cultural politics of identity, and the role of transnational media within these contexts. Its focus is on the ways in which transnational media are deployed by diasporic subjects to open unprecedented pathways on which new transcultural identity projects evolve. An analysis of the Turkish- Australian population as a case study is employed to illustrate the dynamics of these formations that stem from the meeting of deteritorialised populations with moving images. The article highlights the influential role of Turkish satellite television in the cultural transformation of the Turkish diaspora in Australia. More generally, the focus is on the changing cultural and life experiences of diasporic populations in late modernity. Keywords: Turkey, Media, Transnational, Diaspora, Nationalism, Television, Globalization, Australia The modern world is developing through a new stage in which the interaction between global and local interests is gathering momentum. Customary barriers – imagined as cultures, communities, nations or even geography – that previously restricted exchanges between different social groups have become porous. The developments of the new global order which assist the movements of people, ideas and things – through technology as much as politics – are pushing the boundaries of traditional identity formations. At the centre of this process lies the tension between cultural homogenisation and cultural diversity. One particular perspective on globalisation announces the demise of the nation-state, the rise of Western cultural imperialism and the replacement of national culture with the global. As declared by a number of theorists, today we are also talking of a different kind of globalisation. At the core of these alternative theories of globalisation has been the notion of cultural diversity as opposed to cultural imperialism. The changes in international media flows and human mobility have been highlighted as the juggernauts of a newly forming world order that transcends national, cultural, communal and even geographic boundaries. While this shift in theorising globalisation has been an ongoing process for at least two decades, the conceptualisation of globalisation as a threat to the conventional nation-state does not seem to have changed. However, today we are talking of a different kind of threat albeit still posed by globalisation. The ‘threat’ is not expressed so much as cultural imperialism or western cultural domination: rather, it has gradually been replaced by ethnic, religious conflict and a threat to the conventional nation states and national consciousnesses whose primary reference is to a unified, monolithic national culture and identity. Transnational media flows are situated at the centre of these claims. In this article, I argue that what transnational media offers is an unprecedented disordering of conventional national, ethnic, religious identifications. My contention is that this disordering is a productive one in the sense that transnational media works beyond the nation and their stories transcend the micro-references of ethnicity, race, religion, and nationalism. Throughout the article, I elaborate on the role of transnational media in general and satellite television in particular as key actors in contemporary processes of globalisation and transnationalisation within which important, new, diasporic existences are forged. The other crucial actors in this process are diasporic groups and individuals. The two core foci of this article are, thus, contemporary media flows and mobile populations. I attempt to situate these two foci within the broader context of the contemporary global condition. In the final section of the paper, I elaborate on the impact of transnational media on the migratory experiences of Turkish-Australians, highlighting the provisions of this phenomenon for unprecedented identity projects.