Diasporic Media and Public 'Sphericules'

The research team which authored Floating Lives: The Media and Asian Diasporas (Cunningham & Sinclair, 2000) mapped the mediascapes of Asian diasporic communities against the background of the theoretical and policy territory of understanding media use in contemporary, culturally plural societies such as Australia. In this chapter, we will explore, to a greater degree than was possible in Floating Lives, the nature of the public 'sphericules' formed around diasporic media as a specific form of public communication, by engaging with public sphere debates and assessing the contribution that the research conducted for Floating Lives might make to those debates.