Page - 48 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Heinz Bonfadelli | Media Use of Ethnic Minority Youth 48 strongly combined with mistrust towards the political system of the new country. According to this scheme, the “cultural exile”-type of user bonds with the culture of the country of origin and trusts the political institutions of the new country. In contrast to this classification of “separatist” users, “biculturalism” means that both media of the host country and those of the country of origin are used. The result is a reflective in-between position that manifests itself in a critical stance towards the culture and media of the homeland and of the new country. Finally, the “assimilation”-type is similar to the “adaptor” type in Table 1: These people show a high consumption of majority media and have developed positive attitudes towards the culture and political system of their host country, perceiving it now as their new home country. USER TYPE MEDIA ORIENTATION ORIENTATION TOWARDS CULTURE AND POLITICS 1. Political Exile Cultural, political bonding to home country and mistrust in politics of new country 2. Cultural Exile Cultural bonding to home country but trust in political system of new country 3. Diaspora Dominant use of minority media from country of origin Pragmatic use of media from home country and political trust in new country 4. Biculturalism Mixed use of minority media from home country and majority media from host country Reflective and critical stance on country and media of origin but on new country as well 5. Assimi- lation Dominant use of majority media from host country Positive attitudes to culture and political system of new country Table 2: Typology of Media Use by Migrants (based on Hafez 2002) Besides these differentiations concerning media use as dependent variables, there has also been some theoretical development related to the independent variables influencing media behavior. Whereas earlier studies considered ethnicity to be the most influential causal factor and compared ethnic minority groups with the main population of a country, more recent studies (e.g. Weiß/Trebbe 2001) argue in a more differentiated way, analyze the mediating influence of social factors like everyday situation, language skills and extent of integration, socioeconomic status, education or gender, and attempt to incorporate these factors into more advanced theoretical models (see Figure 2).