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Heinz Bonfadelli | Media Use of Ethnic Minority Youth
63
the world of football or music in order to define their own style, by
means of which they express themselves. Media play an important part
for them, both for keeping in touch with peers and relatives or for
discussing news from the world of sports or show business.
- Migrant youths often do not fully belong to both the Swiss culture and
the culture of origin. They develop the deepest roots in the place where
they live and in relationships to a broad – sometimes international –
network of relatives, friends and peers. In such a situation, a political aim
of straightforward assimilation is highly counterproductive.
- Contrary to the widely held belief that young people of migrant
background live in a kind of “parallel society” and/or “media ghetto”,
our study indicates that migrant youths are not a homogeneous group, but are
characterized by a diversity of individual personalities, social
backgrounds and manifold patterns of media use. As a consequence,
policy measures, school projects or media coverage should take this
existing social and cultural diversity more into account.
- Yet, there is mutual influence as well. Young people of both Swiss and
migrant backgrounds share many media and cultural preferences typical
of people their age – above all, globalized youth-oriented television and
music programs, youth magazines and internet sites.
- Young people of migration background (and their parents, too) have
high aspirations regarding their chances of education and future
occupation. These claims and efforts remain in conflict with the existing
educational inequalities of children from other countries of origin and
with other mother tongues. Despite these ‘hurdles’, the majority of
young people of migrant background is surprisingly satisfied.
6. Conclusions
Our multidisciplinary research project attempted to achieve several objectives
concerning theory, methods and data, and is intended to be of practical
relevance for various fields, such as the social sciences, school and family
education as well as journalistic practice.
On a theoretical level, the project tried to enrich the theoretical foundations of a
culturally oriented migration theory by linking concepts of media use with the
perspective of a globalized community of young immigrant media users. Using
concepts like “hybrid identities”, we referred to socialization theory and
Media – Migration – Integration
European and North American Perspectives
- Title
- Media – Migration – Integration
- Subtitle
- European and North American Perspectives
- Authors
- Rainer Geissler
- Horst Pöttker
- Publisher
- transcript Verlag
- Date
- 2009
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-8376-1032-1
- Size
- 15.0 x 22.4 cm
- Pages
- 250
- Keywords
- Integration, Media, Migration, Europe, North America, Sociology of Media, Sociology
- Category
- Medien