Page - 32 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Rainer Geißler/Sonja Weber-Menges | Media Reception and Ideas on Media Integration 32 1.2.3 Intercultural Media Integration In the assimilative model, the ethnic media and public spheres are missing; in the segregationist model, the majority and the minorities and their respective media and public spheres are isolated from one another. In contrast, in the intercultural, integrative model, the majority and the minorities are intermeshed; intercultural communication takes place. The specific characteristics of this model relate to media production, their content, and their use. - Production. At first glance, the situation in mass media production seems very similar to that of the assimilative model: an appropriate, if possible, proportional participation (with respect to the percentage of ethnic groups in the entire population) of ethnic minorities in German majority media. Yet, the proportional representation in the intercultural model implies a totally different fundamental conception of the socio- cultural integration of migrants and of their role in the mass media. Here, representatives of ethnic minorities are not socio-culturally assimilated; instead, they represent the ethnic groups with certain specific problems and interests. Structurally, their situation can be compared to that of representatives of the two sexes in their societal roles. They help to bring about a pluralistic, democratic public sphere, and, in doing so, they contribute specific information and specific knowledge about their ethnic groups and their problems. They personify an important part of the multi-dimensional, democratic pluralism in the German media system: its ethnic dimension, which ranks at the same level as other dimensions, such as those of pressure groups, the sexes, age groups, or religious organizations. In this model, ethno-media also exist in addition to the ethnically pluralistic German media. Migrants with knowledge of the accommodating society produce such media themselves or at least participate in their production in order to ensure that the content is designed in a way that promotes intercultural integration. - Content. First of all, the representation of ethnic minorities in the majority mass media is oriented to the role the German media play in promoting active acceptance. To increase an awareness of the inter- dependence between the majority and the minorities, they provide ex- planations for the necessity of immigration, for the demographic and economic significance and benefits of migrants, but also for Germany’s international obligations to admit refugees for humanitarian reasons. At the same time, they draw attention to the necessary intercultural inte- gration and to integration at the level of social structures. Equal