Overview

Hybridity, the interaction of people and media from different cultures, is a communication-based phenomenon. Drawing on original research from Lebanon to Mexico and analyzing the use of the term in cultural and postcolonial studies (as well as the popular and business media), Marwan Kraidy offers readers a history of the idea and a set of prescriptions for its future use. Kraidy analyzes the use of the concept of cultural mixture from the first century AD to its present application in the academy and the commercial press. The case studies build an argument for understanding the importance of the dynamics of communication, power, and political-economy as well as culture, in situations of hybridity. Suggesting that such an approach will serve as a useful way to examine how media work in international context, he concludes the book by proposing a new method for studying cultural mixture: critical transculturalism.

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9781592131433

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Reviews

The book logically progresses through a series of theoretical arguments and supporting rationale to arrive at a body of work that deserves our time and attention...While the author focuses on media and globalization, this reviewer is struck by the applications of this sociocultural study in other aspects of human learning as well. Multicultural Review I know of no other work currently published which addresses these issues with quite Kraidy's sweep, or using the Lebanese and Mexican case-studies, or which offers a critical discourse analysis of currently bruited discourses on the subject emanating from public intellectuals (e.g. Paschal Zachary), or seeks to trace the historical utilization of hybridity as a sociological metaphor...this book will be a very valuable and lucid addition to contemporary debates. John Downing Kraidy does an incredible job of pulling together and synthesizing a tremendous volume of literature that crosses multiple disciplines. This book will be very useful for anyone interested in entering the academic landscape of hybridity. By deftly laying out various discussions about hybridity, he is able to place his own view of hybridity into this terrain. His contribution makes important connections between 'political economy' and 'cultural studies' as opposed to positioning them along different trajectories... I really enjoyed reading it and it has really sparked my interest in hybridity again. I suspect it would do the same for others. Thomas Nakayama, Temple University Kraidy presents an original and engaging text on the complex concept of hybridity that provides the best analyses of the literature on the concept, competing conceptions and debates, and ways that it functions in different discourses and theories. The International Journal of Communication

Author Information

Marwan M. Kraidy is Assistant Professor of International Communication at the School of International Service, American University. He is co-editor of Global Media Studies: Ethnographic Perspectives.

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