New Zealand migrants, polymedia and the ambivalences of staying in touch

This article uses the concepts of polymedia and accentuated ambivalence to analyse the results of an interview study with New Zealand migrants in Australia. The participants in the study exploited the polymedia environment they have access to in relation to three areas of interest: consuming media representations of New Zealand, staying connected with people they have left behind and engaging with special interests such as music and sports from New Zealand. The article argues that in order to comprehend contemporary migrant audiences, scholars need to take into account the entire range of media that migrants have at their disposal. An expansion of the concepts of polymedia and accentuated ambivalence can facilitate this perspective. Polymedia theory is a vital tool for the analysis of how migrants manage their affective relationships with places and people through media consumption