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KURDS Kurdish Identity, Discourse, and New Media, by Jaffer Sheyholislami. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. 252 pages. $85.
The new communication media (satellite television and the internet specifically) have increasingly affected global political and economic dynamics from democratization to terrorism and from economic development to conflict resolution. Jaffer Sheyholislami - born in Kurdistan-Iran and currently an assistant professor at the School of Linguistics and Language Studies at Carleton University in Canada - examines the ways Kurds have been using satellite television and the internet to construct their multiple identities as well as a pan-Kurdish identity. To order and inform his data and findings, the author uses the interdisciplinary approach of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), a framework "for studying media discourse [that] consists of three interrelated dimensions: text, discourse practices, and sociocultural practices" (pp. 14-15). "CDA is useful in combining theories of nationalism and national identities, discourse and media, the three main areas with which this study is concerned" (p. 41), and is "a research approach aimed at making transparent the discourses and ideology of the powerful in order to create discourse awareness among the oppressed" (p. 184).
Following his jargon-laden and overly technical introduction, the author devotes his second chapter to theory and method to illustrate how national identities are discursive constructs, examine the significance of communication technologies in identity construction, and explore sociocultural contexts that...