Mediterranean Heritage in Transit (original) (raw)

2016, In Mediterranean Heritage in transit – (mis-)representations via English

In the world of the media, which is responsible for shaping viewers’ conceptions of social reality, clichéd portrayals have led to the creation of fixed ‘Imagined Communities’ (Anderson 1983, Kramsch 1998) that are exploited especially in the pervasive, multimodal communication of advertising. Actually, according to the ‘dissociation model’ (Devine 1989), the audience uncritically activates stereotypical thoughts when faced with a member of a stereotyped group. Particularly in television commercials and print ads, the perceptual expectations of the audience seem to be not only met but also reinforced – as our study will highlight. Television commercials (TVcomms) have become a significant part of the American narrative and part of the cultural landscape. Indeed, through the (commercial) media lens, the notion of ‘national identities’ is generated frequently through a dynamic interplay of symbols, myths, clichés, and conventional anachronistic behavioural models, which are more easily communicated. A case in point are Americans of Italian heritage who are frequently represented through anachronistic behavioural models such as an ethnocentric sense of family, a fixation on food (Cinotto 2013), and Mafia-themed scenarios (Cavaliere 2012), thus perpetuating a-priori etiquettes, which often convey derogatory meanings that can alter audience attitudes towards this minority group and their identities. More specifically, in American television food commercials, Italian American women have been depicted in the role of family cook – either as caring mothers or as overweight grandmothers – thus playing a pivotal role in a family life typically revolving around food preparation and consumption. Drawing on selected TVcomms, we investigated from a multimodal discourse analysis perspective (van Leeuwen 2008, 2013; Kress and van Leeuwen 2001, 2006) the (mis-)representation in US advertising of such Italian American women and its diachronic evolution. More specifically, our analysis highlighted how nation-based stereotypes are re-mediated through a process of metaphoric resemiotisation, which appears to be a successful social practice and a fundamental component of advertising strategies. The visual and verbal communication modes of these strategies were a major focus of this study.