Page - 52 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Heinz Bonfadelli | Media Use of Ethnic Minority Youth 52 identities as a result of a new global media culture. For example, young people in different countries conceive of themselves and behave as “hip hoppers” in contrast to “heavy metal” fans through their identification with certain global media symbols (see Lull 2001). Shared concerns and belief systems on a worldwide level also help to form transnational global identities based on similarity, as, for instance, with globalization critics, environmentalist movements, or fundamentalist religious groups. DIFFERENCE SIMILARITY Locally Bounded 1. Distinct traditions, kept separately in time and space. Turkish or Swiss identity. 2. Separate traditions are juxtaposed in time and space. Hybrid identity as Turkish and Swiss and appropriate switch from one to the other in certain situations. 3. Assimilation into the new culture and absorption of new values and norms. Parents are Turkish, but child’s self-image is Swiss. Translocal Shifting 4. New global forms of identity based on distinct taste/style cultures like “hip hop” or “heavy metal”. 5. New forms of identity based on shared concerns like “anti-global” movement Table 3: New Forms of Cultural Identities (adapted from Barker 1997: 616) 3. A Swiss Survey of Media Use by Adolescents: Research Issues and Research Design So far, research on the media use of ethnic minorities in Switzerland has been rare. The only relatively comprehensive survey about media use of immigrants was conducted in 1995 by the research unit of the Public Broadcasting Corporation SRG (Anker/Ermutlu/Steinmann 1995). With several research projects, the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich (IPMZ) is engaged in filling this knowledge gap. One project that began in 2003 and was recently completed is concerned with the function of media in constructing social identity in a multicultural setting. It focuses on a comparison of two groups, adolescents from the indigenous Swiss population and those of migrant background (Bonfadelli/ Bucher 2006; Bucher/Bonfadelli 2007). Some of the findings from this research will be presented below. Other projects were concerned with analyzing media representations of Islam in Swiss newspapers (Bonfadelli 2007).