This thesis addresses the process representing Ireland and Irishness in the digital diaspora press. It examines the production of diaspora journalism in the hybrid media environment through the lens of the circuit of cultural production, establishing journalistic and cultural influences on the process of representing Irishness.
Diaspora journalism has important implications for recreating ethnic identity among the deterritorialised Irish audience, but little is understood about what aspects of Irish culture diaspora news media represent or to what extent these representations can be regarded as homogeneous across different hostlands.
This research establishes that there are regional differences in both what stories about Ireland are reproduced in the diaspora press and how Irishness is represented. It identifies a range of material, organisational and cultural factors from journalism that shape what diaspora newsrooms can produce as well as how news is presented and distributed. Additionally it identifies how historically situated hybrid identities of the Irish diaspora communities influence the editorial agenda and shape the various representations of Irishness.
The focus of analysis is on Irish digital diasporic news organisations, comparing how news titles in Ireland and in the diasporic press in the USA, UK and Australia mediated Irish identity over six months in 2016. It interviews diaspora editors to understand the contexts on which diaspora journalism is produced and the thinking behind news selection and presentation. It compares the volume of news flows of the most pervasive categories and topics in different regions, highlighting similarities and difference in the regional editorial agendas. And a framing analysis of cases reveals differences in how Irish current affairs are framed in each region and how Irishness identified is represented.
This paper highlights the importance of diaspora news media’s role in shaping ethnic identities as they respond and represent homeland current affairs. It reveals tensions among different Irish diasporic news media and the homeland, in particular, over how the transnational ethnic group should be conceptualised and represented as well as challenges to traditionalist views of the homeland and re-imaginings difficult or traumatic aspects of homeland history.