FOLKLORE, FADO AND RADIO
FOLKLORE, FADO AND RADIO

MEDIATING PORTUGUESE IDENTITIES IN PARIS

Summary/Abstract: The role of media in diasporic experiences is central to understand the identity construction of migrant communities in relation to the uses of their expressive culture, shaped by a connection to the motherland. This article addresses the case of Radio ALFA, a radio station targeted at the Portuguese community in the Paris region, and focuses on the ways in which Radio ALFA imagines this community through both its programming grid and the discourses of its main interlocutors. The heterogeneous and dynamic community conception of this medium is central in understanding the role of expressive mediated cultural practices such as Fado or Folklore in the construction of a more fluid identity. The use of such expressive practices in the broadcastings are central to Radio ALFA’s survival strategies, constantly (re)defining the very notion of “Portuguese community” in trying to reach different audiences that include both first-generation migrants and luso-descendants. In this linkage between community, motherland and host country through radio, a rather dynamic process emerges which nurtures a better understanding of the relation between media, music and migration in this specific context.

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