Page - 30 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Rainer Geißler/Sonja Weber-Menges | Media Reception and Ideas on Media Integration 30 term has become a politically highly emotive word (cf. Mintzel 1997). Thus, this term would lead to misunderstandings, especially since only a small num- ber of Germans are familiar with the principles of Canadian multiculturalism. On the other hand, the prefix ‘inter-’ expresses better what the concept actually intends: living together, having common ground, and engaging in ex- change. The prefix ‘multi-’ can, indeed, be associated with ‘simple juxta- position’ or ‘parallel’. 1.2 What is Media Integration? Intercultural Media Integration: a Middle Course between Media Assimilation and Media Segregation The results of these general reflections on the topic of integration are now to be more directly related to problems involved in issues of media and migration. To this end, we have developed a concept of media integration, which we define as follows: the integration of ethnic minorities into the media system and into a public sphere produced and sustained by the mass media. The observations made below take into account the fact that in Germany – as in other societies attractive for immigrants – there is an ethnically pluralistic media system and an ethnically pluralistic public sphere. In other words, in addition to the predominant German mainstream mass media (majority media), which are primarily produced by Germans in the German language, there are ethno-media that are produced by the ethnic minorities themselves and are usually in their own language, only rarely in German or bilingual. With recourse to the typology developed above, it would now seem appropriate to differentiate three types of media integration or non-integration: media segregation and assimilative media integration (media assimilation) as the two external poles, and intercultural media integration as a middle course between the two extremes. These three ‘ideal types’ are to be characterized briefly in what follows. 1.2.1 Media Segregation Media segregation is the opposite of media integration. It occurs whenever ethnic minorities primarily consume ethno-media and in this way allow ethnic segments of a public sphere to exist that are isolated from the accommodating society and its dominant public sphere. Often, the ethno-media are produced in the countries of origin and for the indigenous population. If they are produced in the accommodating society, they are to a great extent or even