Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Global Muslim Audiences’ Polysemic Reading Of “My Name Is Khan”: Toward An Emergent Multiculturalism, Priya Kapoor

International & Global Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this study, we learn how audiences make sense of a non-dominant text that is conveying a nonWestern story about the Global War on Terror (GWOT). The audiences affective narratives affirm Deuze’s argument that media is not separate from our lived experience; we live in media rather than with media. This study was conducted on an urban campus in the Pacific North-West, with film audiences of over fifty Saudi Arabian, Baharanian, Iranian, Iraqi, Yemeni, and other Arab and non-Arab Muslims. Multiple screenings of Hindi language film, My Name is Khan, shows that it speaks to a global, transcultural, primarily Muslim …