Page - 45 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

45 Heinz Bonfadelli Media Use by Ethnic Minority Youth in Switzerland 1. Introduction Migration is a well-known phenomenon all over the world. Although people have always been moving, migration flows have reached a new quantitative and qualitative dimension since the 19th and 20th centuries. Europe, above all Western Europe, has become one of the targets of larger flows of immigration, especially since World War II. In Switzerland, for example, every third resident belongs to an ethnic minority or has an immigrant background, i.e. is a descendant of at least one parent from a country other than Switzerland. Migration developments and the resulting coexistence of different ethnic groups involve conflicts like racism and inequalities on a structural as well as a social level. Such conflicts in multicultural settings have triggered debates on the integrative function that different spheres of society should fulfill. The modern mass media play a far-reaching and complex role in today’s multicultural society. They may be of relevance to the social integration of ethnic minorities in that they are, for example, an important source of information about politics, culture, and everyday life in society. Mass media can provide day-to-day news and convey social norms and values, thus offering members of ethnic minorities the opportunity to participate in the (national) society of the host country by creating a common knowledge base and a basis for interpersonal communication. But they can also contribute to segregation in many ways, for instance, by stressing negative images and stereotypes of immigrant groups (Schudson 1994; Cottle 2000). Young people, whether of migrant background or not, use local and national, but also global media representations and symbols of popular culture (Lull 2001) on an individual level. They identify with or distinguish themselves from such representations and symbols; or they use them to construct multifaceted forms of hybrid identities actively and in creative ways (e.g. Barker 1997; Ogan 2001; Nilan/ Feixa 2006). Communication research started taking more interest in the field of ethnic minorities and mass media during the 1970s. Research issues are usually tackled from different academic disciplines in an interdisciplinary setting. Depending on the approach chosen, the studies investigate different aspects. One line of research concentrates on media content (Poole 2000; Hafez 2000; Esser 2000; ter Wal 2004; Müller 2005a; Nacos/Torres-Reyna 2007; Hafez/Richter 2007;