Broadcasting Irish emigration in an era of global mobility

Abstract

This article examines how pre-existing Irish migratory cultural logics have been re-tooled in the post-Celtic Tiger period as a form of adaptation to the new imperatives of global capitalism. In this analysis, we show that just as Julien Mercille has discovered in regard to the Irish press and its role in normalizing and promoting neoliberal responses to the economic crisis, representations of the new emigration in the Irish broadcasting environment traverse a narrow spectrum that runs from optimism to resignation. Reality genres heavily tout the values of enterprise and resilience as well as the material affordances that are seen to accrue from emigration, while dramas are more customarily committed to the emotional management of experiences of loss and separation. Structural inquiry into national economic programmes and priorities is customarily excluded in such an environment, although it may be seen that more vernacular forms such as YouTube videos and a low-level but consistent preoccupation with the experiences and concerns of the returned migrant in the Irish press suggest public interest in unsettled questions about the permeability of Irish society and what it means to be located within or dislocated from it.

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