Modes of Engagement Among Diasporic Audiences of Asian New Zealand Film

Abstract

The formation of a diasporic community within a host society may be signalled through community members’ creative contributions in the realm of cultural production. The ways in which diasporic audiences engage with diasporic cultural texts potentially offers social and cultural trajectories of their understandings of themselves as they negotiate their new environment. This article examines these trajectories, focusing on the ways New Zealand audiences of Asian descent engage with Asian diasporic films. It addresses three key questions: How do audiences’ referential reflections on diasporic films intersect with and contribute to their diasporic journeys and perceptions of themselves in New Zealand society? What kinds of values and beliefs do diasporic audiences feel are important to affirm and negotiate, both within representations of diasporic communities and in their New Zealand-based lives? And what roles do diasporic films play in this ongoing negotiation process?

Notes

¹ The official ideology in New Zealand is biculturalism. Therefore, here, multiculturalism refers to “cultural diversity” or the multicultural situation, and not to multiculturalism as an ideology or policy.

² Couldry (2006) identifies knowledge as one key focus of media research.

³ The primary concern of this study—as presented in the three research questions—is the reception of the text and not the context of viewing.

⁴ Using interviewing methods and convenience sampling techniques is a common approach in reception studies (see Bertrand & Hughes, 2005; Weerakody, 2008; Hansen & David, 2013).

⁵ Looking at the examples of audience responses to the film Ar Risalah, which have been incorporated in Smets’ article (2012) for another set of arguments rather than discussion of modes of engagement, we find evidence and instances of adopting a referential mode of engagement by the viewers in his study. However, there is no mention of the referential mode in the last few pages of the article where an application of CMR is presented.

⁶ Permanent residency is a legal status that individual needs to acquire in New Zealand.