Ordinariness
having totted up their own war dead, the Allies
saw it as no business of theirs to count those of
the ‘enemy’, whether they were combatants or
innocent civilians. Ultimately, Orientalism is
about valuing some ‘bodies’ over others.
In August 2005, when the Israeli army expelled
illegally settled Israelis from the Gaza Strip,
massive publicity in the Western media focused
on the heart-rending sight of residents forced
from their homes. It was pointed out by some
observers that no comparable attention had
been paid to the expulsion of Palestinians and
their families driven from their homes, often
without warning, and with no compensation,
over a number of years. It could equally be
pointed out, taking news values into account,
that the extra newsworthiness of the story arose
from the surprising or the unexpected – clear-
ance of Israelis by Israelis.
Orientation See spatial behaviour.
Other According to Edward Said in Orientalism
(Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978), Western
cultural identity is often defi ned in relation to
the ‘Other’ that is people from the ‘Orient’ and
especially India and the Middle East. He called
this perspective Orientalism, a perspective that
defi nes the West as all that the ‘Orient’ is not:
superior, developed, modern, universalistic,
rational and powerful. Th is perspective thrives
on stereotypical opinions about the ‘Other’. Th e
concept is widely used not just to comment on
representations of the ‘Orient’, but also of those
seen as the ‘Other’ within Western societies.
David Morley and Kevin Robins in Spaces of
Identity (Routledge, 1995) argue that the recent
trends of globalization and migration have
resulted in a considerable number of those once
seen as the ‘Other’ now living within Western
societies. This change has brought with it
challenges to the ethnocentric assumptions of
‘Orientalism’.
In more general terms the ‘Other’ may be
perceived simply as those who are not like
us – a person, group, community, ethnic group,
gender or nation – and who are defi ned by their
diff erence from us; yet who by that diff erence
contribute to our concept of self. ‘Other’ in
general media use represents, by and large,
those we disapprove of, dislike, fear; and the
popular media use of ‘Other’ works in binary
fashion (see wedom, theydom). In everyday
communication, ‘Other’ plays a key role in
jokes – Irish jokes, Scottish jokes, etc. – each one
relying for its eff ect upon a consensus about
the negative qulaities of the butt of that joke (see
ethnophaulisms).survive shifts in the technological and economic
environment. Th e doughnut consists of a core
surrounded by bounded space. It is ‘an inside-out
doughnut, one with the hole on the outside and
the dough in the middle’; a ‘conceptual dough-
nut, one for thinking with, not eating’. Th e core
contains ‘necessary jobs and necessary people’.
Th ese full-time employees often organize the
activities of the bounded space that contains
many other people working for the organization
as fl exible workers tied to the organization by
flexible and often short-term contracts. Thus
organizations will become much smaller in terms
of the number of people they employ directly;
consequently it is likely that more people will be
self-employed or freelance workers. Within the
television industry, for example, this method of
working is now well established (see casualiza-
tion; producer choice).
Lucy Kung in Strategic Management in the
Media (Sage, 2008) examines a range of cultures
and sub-cultures found within the media indus-
try. She argues, for example, that the successful
introduction of BBC News Online can in part be
explained by the fact that the project resonated
with ‘Pan-BBC cultural assumptions’ such as the
importance of meeting the needs of licence-fee
payers and remaining a ‘dominant media player
in the UK’.
▶Annet Aris and Jacques Bughin, Managing Media
Companies: Harnessing Creative Value (Wiley, 2009).
Ordinariness See demotic turn; reality tv.
Orientalism Concept posed by Edward Said
describing the stereotypical image of Asia held
by those in European cultures. Representation
of the Orient arises from ethnocentric atti-
tudes with an imperialist ancestry, and results
in a projected image of Asia and Asians as being
exotic (‘the lure of the Orient’), indolent, untrust-
worthy and devious; in short a misrepresenta-
tion by Western commentators and analysts, of
other. In Orientalism (Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1978), Said raises the question whether
anything can be truly or objectively represented.
See also Said’s Culture and Imperialism (Chatto
& Windus, 1993).
Th e potency of the term has been reinforced
by New Millennium events such as the war
on (‘Arab’) terrorism conducted by the US in
Afghanistan and, following 9/11 in 2001, the
invasion of Iraq in 2003 by US and British forces.
Th is was seen by many critics as underscored by
Orientalist attitudes manifested by an ignorance
of the complexities of Arab culture and a seeming
indiff erence to the remonstrations of the Arab
world. A chilling example of this came when,