These neo-colonial discourses constantly remind the CIN audience of their original social positions, making it more difficult for them to shed their pre-migration positionalities, and placing limits on the diasporic subjectivities that West Indians in general and Jamaicans in particular can imagine and develop in the U.S. By proffering programming that showcases this signifier of the (white and brown) Jamaican upper class, CIN perpetuates the class divisions fostered under colonial rule, which continue to plague contemporary Jamaican society. The prevalence of this lilt throughout the network not only privileges the speech of the Jamaican elite in the diaspora- explicitly importing and reinforcing the social discourses of Jamaica in the diasporic space- but it also underscores larger colonial hierarchies. All the programs are broadcasted in English that bears the particular phonological characteristics of educated, upper-class urbanite Jamaicans. Specifically, it presents programming that underscores the socio-linguistic power structure of Jamaica. In addition to its operational structure, the content of CIN is also problematic. In this sense then, CIN has abdicated its role in constructing informed citizens and empowering communities. This market imperative of CIN diminishes the network’s ability to truly address the diversity of the West Indies, and limits its potential to act as a platform for advocacy for the community. ![]() Through promises of connecting viewers to their cultural heritage, CIN entices West Indians on the east coast of the U.S., and secure “eye balls” which it then offers to advertisers in exchange for sponsorship. The explicit, self-defined purpose of CIN, as presented in its promotional material, is to create a market for companies. Second, CIN’s practices reflect an economic neoliberal agenda that prioritizes profit. In fact, even as the network attempts to ameliorate the “symbolic annihilation” of West Indians in the U.S., it perpetrates its own eradication of the Caribbean and West Indies by focusing almost exclusively on Jamaica. The prominence of Jamaican televisual fare on this “Caribbean” network reproduces and sustains the “Jamaican-ization” of the Caribbean so prevalent in the global imagination it reinforces the idea that there is little distinction among the countries and that the islands embrace a singular belief in the Jamaican mantra of “one love.” Rather than helping to problematize and deconstruct this singular image of the Caribbean and the West Indies, CIN instead becomes a part of the media that reinforces it. Despite its claim to Caribbean programming, as suggested by its name, most CIN programming is created by and addresses Jamaicans. However, the network simultaneously enacts its own hierarchies, and perpetuates the essentialization and commodification of peoples from the region.įirst, CIN simplifies and flattens the Caribbean. Admittedly, CIN is an empowering factor for West Indian immigrants as it fosters a mediated space in which one of their languages and accompanying sensibilities are privileged and celebrated. it disseminates information that can help these immigrants to reimage or sustain themselves and their place in the cultural and socio-political milieu of their new home. ![]() As a dominant diasporic media, CIN not only entertains, but provides the texts, scripts and discourses that potentially shape the way West Indians conceive of and present themselves in the U.S. ![]() ![]() The Caribbean International Network (CIN) prides itself on being the only television service that specifically targets West Indian communities situated on the east coast of the United States. This post is part of a partnership with the International Journal of Cultural Studies where authors of newly published articles extend their arguments here on Antenna.
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