Page - 33 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Rainer Geißler/Sonja Weber-Menges | Media Reception and Ideas on Media Integration 33 opportunity, the necessity of a minimum form of acculturation, but also tolerance toward legitimate ethnic particularities in accordance with the principle of ‘unity within diversity’ (see above) are the guidelines for reporting and commentaries. Furthermore, the representation of ethnic minorities also embodies the ethnic dimension of media pluralism. The mass media impart relevant knowledge of the varying groups that live and cooperate with one another to the respective other groups. Since the Germans – for language-related reasons – only rarely make use of ethno-media, the majority media are practically their sole media resource for information on the nature and problems of the ethnic minorities. Conversely, the ethnic minorities are only then able to participate in social and political affairs in Germany in an informed and knowledgeable way if they relatively regularly use German media in order to learn about and understand German current affairs and their contexts. One stimulus to regular media consumption is already provided by the circumstance that the ethnic minorities recognize their own interests and problems in the coverage of the majority media. The characteristics of media content that is integrative in an intercultural way can also be expressed negatively: Germanocentric media that only allow ethnic minorities inadequate coverage, that ignore their mental dispositions and their problems, or in whose reporting discrimination and ethnic negativism predominate (e.g., ‘foreigners’ as groups that are primarily a source of problems for the German population) contradict the model of intercultural integration. Still, this does not mean that problems with migration and integration in the accommodating society should be taboo. On the contrary, such problems are – much like problems concerning relationships between the sexes or between the generations – a part of the pluralistic public discourse. But they should not dominate this discourse. For non-assimilated minorities, ethno-media are a necessary complement to the German majority media. Their main target groups are the bicultural, often bilingual segments of the ethnic minorities whose desires for contact with their original culture and language and for information on the specific situation and specific problems of their ethnic group in the larger society cannot be adequately satisfied by the German mass media. In light of the ethnic diversity and the increasing internal socio-cultural differentiation of the individual ethnic groups, meeting such requirements is beyond the capabilities of the German