ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Floating Lives, the nature of the public 'sphericules' formed around diasporic media as a specific form of public communication. There is explanatory payoff in pursuing the specificity of the ethno-specific public sphericule in comparison to other emergent public spheres. Ethno-specific public sphericules are not congruent with international taste cultures borne by a homogenising global media culture. The spaces for ethno-specific public communication are mediacentric, and this affords new configurations of the information-entertainment dualism. There are severe constraints on public political discourse amongst refugee-based communities like the Vietnamese. Vietnamese-American youth culture is exploring the limits of hybrid identities through the radical intermixing of musical styles. Manas Ray's analysis of the Fiji Indian public sphericule in Floating Lives is structured around a comparison with the expatriate Bengalis. The politics of popular culture are fought out across the communal fractions and across the generations.
