ABSTRACT
TV offers powerful representations of both Indian and British culture for the youth of Southall who, though British citizens, do not always feel themselves to be part of the British nation and, though of Indian heritage and Punjabi background, are often less than willing to embrace all aspects of their cultural heritage. One of this book’s key arguments is that the juxtaposition of culturally diverse TV programmes and films in Punjabi homes stimulates crosscultural, contrastive analyses of media texts, and that this heightens an awareness of cultural differences, intensifies the negotiation of cultural identities and encourages the expression of aspirations towards cultural change. In short, the consumption of an increasingly transnational range of TV and films is catalysing and accelerating processes of cultural change among London Punjabi families. But it will also be argued that Punjabi cultural ‘traditions’ are just as likely to be reaffirmed and reinvented as to be challenged and subverted by TV arid video viewing experiences.
