Page - 231 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Round Table Discussion | Worst Case and Best Practice 231 Augie Fleras That brings us back to the first question – the notion of what we can do to make minorities feel at home, what the media can do to make minorities feel at home. And of course, the notion of journalists of colour, of credibility and accessability strikes me as one useful practice. It would be nice to push it a step further and have gatekeepers and editors who take the news and reformat it in a way that reflects the realities of diversity – that’s still another hurdle that needs to be taken. It strikes me that, with few exceptions, the panel has monopolized the conversation – so perhaps if anyone from the audience ... From the audience I feel, you cannot feel at home in a class society when you are belonging to the lowest class. And that doesn’t depend on the media. So a comparison between Canada and France seems very inappropriate because you have to think that this is also the heritage of colonialism France has to deal with now. It is also a problem of hopes, maybe illusions, of people who are coming to France. You have the whole Mediterranean which is full of people who want to come to Europe with a lot of hopes. And the people in the countries where they want to go to, don’t want to fulfill any hope because they fear they have too much problems on their own. And in this field you cannot blame the media. You can describe the situation, but I fear that the media are more a mirror of society than able to change it. Rainer Geißler I agree. I will explain it with an observation from Germany. I explained before that in Germany the elites, and also the population, are changing their opinion, becoming more open to immigration and integration. And we can see that there are only a few studies which compare the situation in 2006 to the 1990s for instance. A student in Siegen made a comparison of the local newspapers and looked: are they also more open to immigrants and immigration? And the negativity is not totally gone, but they are more open. That means that newspapers reflect the change of opinion of the elites and the population. Policies change, and the newspapers change with them. And also the discussion about journalists with a migrant background – that’s totally new, and without this change of opinion, I would say, that wouldn’t have happened. Media reflect the changes or situations within the society and within politics.