Media Diasporactivism and Diasporapathy in the News Community

Abstract

The present study focuses on the thematization of the new Romanian diaspora’s experiences through the spectacular mechanisms of the media and on the subsequent production of active moral feelings, which intensify critical expressions and justificatory demands within various audiences – designated by the concept of “news community”. Generically, the term “diasporapathy” is used to characterize putative members of a diaspora who do not respond to the appeals of “diasporactivists”. This study is based on an anti-essentialist methodology (S. Fish, R. Brubaker, B. Anderson) and on L. Boltanski, L. Thevenot and L. Chouliaraki’s model of analyzing “distant” moral interpellations and the transfer of moral causes into “news speech”. In speech interactions – in the sample drawn from internet discussion forums – we observe how this diasporic experience is used as a category of practice in order to articulate new claims and projects, apart from activating the “ideal diaspora” versus “diasporapathetic” behaviors in order to remake an ideal Romanianness within the new European area.