The Effectiveness of Narrowcasting

Week 7 - 21st August 2012
 


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  Continued from the preceding blog, for diasporic people or exile, because of they are living outside from the homeland where its national culture has already unbreakably embedded in their identity, thus a need for satisfy their nostalgia and not to be disconnectedness with their homeland. The emerged networked, digital and mediated space of cyberspace provides an easy and efficient way for diasporic communities to maintain connection with the homeland. The media such as narrowcasting television and online video (e.g. YouTube or Vimeo) are good examples.

  Naficy (2003) divided narrowcasting into three categories of television, in which I would like to talk about transnational and diaspora television. “Transnational television consists primarily of media imported into the USA or of programs produced by USA and multinational or transnational media concerns”; and “Diaspora television is made in the host country by liminars and exiles as a response to and in tandem with their own transitional and/or provisional status” (Naficy, 2003, pp.51-52).

  The only narrowcasting television I familiar with and fits to definition of transnational and diaspora television, in Australia, is TVBJ, the only satellite television channel in Australia offering audience all TVB programs in Cantonese.

TVB, Television Broadcasts Limited is the second over-the-air commercial television station in Hong Kong. TVBJ emerged in Australia since July 2000. TVBJ mainly broadcasts programs produced by TVB in Hong Kong, including news, drama series, entertainments and informative programs etc. In which, those drama series are all “made in Hong Kong” and broadcast simultaneous with Hong Kong. Besides, TVBJ also produces and broadcasts local news and informational programs such as Australian News, PublicForum etc. which all produced at Australia.



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  I guess what make narrowcasting television effective are they are broadcasted in foreign languages which limits audience reach and helps the diasporic people or exile to negotiate “a sense of order in the life of its viewers by producing a series of systematic patterns of narration, signification and consumption that set up continually fulfilled or postponed expectations” (Naficy, 2003, p.53).

  Or maybe an alternative reason for the effectiveness of such narrowcasting television can be it attracts consumer, benefit to earn profit. As I don’t have a television at home, so the only chance that I can watch TVBJ is when I go to a Hong Kong style’s restaurant for a meal.

 

Reference:
Naficy, H 2003,'Narrowcasting in diaspora: Middle Eastern television in Los Angeles', in KH Karim (ed.), The media of diaspora, Routledge, London, pp. 51-62.