Page - 77 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Petra Herczeg | Migrants and Ethnic Minorities in Austria 77 One particular example is the reporting on the deportation of Marcus Omofuma. The tragic death of Marcus Omofuma led to much coverage in the press: “After being tied up and gagged with adhesive tape by the police, Mr. Omofuma died in an airplane during his deportation from Austria. In the Neue Kronen Zeitung, his name was always abbreviated as ‘Marcus O.’ – a form that is used for alleged perpetrators suggesting that he was a criminal. Already earlier, Africans had been systematically depicted as drug traffickers in the Neue Kronen Zeitung.” (Joskowicz, EUMC 2002, 321-322) The tabloid press and surveys on the potential ‘risks’ of migration have often warned of a “mass immigration” from eastern and central eastern European countries, which, however, has not become a reality. 3.2 The Image of Ethnic Minorities and of Migrants In the comparative survey mentioned above, a survey on the development of Austrians’ attitudes towards so-called “new” and “old minorities” in the period between 1984 and 1998, Weiss discovered that the continuity of stereotypes and attitudes towards the “old” minorities was “impressive”. Even “traditional” minorities such as Slovenes, Croats and Jews did not manage to acquire a better image and remained on nearly the same level as 14 years before. What was new was that the ethnic groups that had only recently arrived were assessed in much more negative ways (Weiss 2000, 34f). Only in one respect did acceptance increase: the Austrian population became more tolerant towards a better legal status regulating equal social security and length of residence. On the whole, acceptance of the rights of the semi-autonomous minorities actually decreased somewhat (Weiss 2000, 35). This might be related to a majority opinion that Austrian ethnic minorities have been assimilated and thus are only expected to demonstrate their ethnicity in relation to certain cultural and folkloristic aspects. Under the assumption that migrants are integrated into society if they have access to social life as “access to work, education, habitation, health, justice, politics, mass media and religion...”(Bommes 2007, 3), it is clear that migrants and ethnic minorities are perceived as not striving for integration if they demand their rights or call attention to politicians’ or the general public’s disregard for their problems. The majority sees participation in public life only as a process of adaptation. In debates in the media and elsewhere, distinctions between terms such as “assimilation”, “integration” or “segregation” are largely ignored. In 2004, one significant result of a survey undertaken by the GfK Austria Market Research GmbH on the attitudes of the Austrian population towards