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Heinz Bonfadelli | Media Use of Ethnic Minority Youth
50
Immigrants still using their homeland media in their language of origin are
regarded as not integrated and labeled as separatists in the typology of Adoni
et al. (2002) and are still considered bonded to the culture of origin.
This general assumption of the mass media’s positive integration function
for migrants has at least been further differentiated or even put to question by
various middle-range theories that attempt to explain the possible effects of
mass communication in general or, in particular, in the migration context in
detail, and that have been empirically tested (Bonfadelli 2004). Both agenda-
setting theory and the media-framing perspective postulate that media coverage
focusing on controversial or negative incidents or key events like 9/11 in New
York in 2001 or the attacks by skinheads and neo-Nazis on asylum centers in
Hoyerswerda (17.9.1991) can represent migrants as a problem or threat to
society and influence the public agenda in this way (Brosius/Eps 1993;
Scheufele/Brosius 1999). This applies especially when migrants are framed
negatively and in a stereotyped way, as many content analyses demonstrate
(Greenberg et al. 2002, on the German media see Müller 2005a). Another
problem are the long-term media effects of the widespread and constant use of
metaphors and phrases with negative connotations like “the boat is full” and “floods of
refugees” or “Islamic terrorism” etc. that delegitimize the minority groups
themselves (Poole 2000; Schiffer 2005). Critical discourse analysts like Teun
van Dijk (1991) postulate increasing racism in society as a result of such media
content.
Cultivation theory takes as its starting point the results of such content
analyses and claims that television cultivates stereotyped images of minority
groups in the long term, especially in the minds of so-called ‘heavy viewers’
(Gerbner et al. 2002). These ‘mainstream’ perceptions of social reality can even
lead to an increased fear concerning minority groups. Nevertheless, it should
be remembered that debates on national identity in Europe or America are not
new or unique and that foreigners or minority groups in general have always
been regarded suspiciously by the dominant majority groups, even without the
influence of media coverage (e.g. Huntington 2004).
Furthermore, since most empirical surveys are not longitudinal, but,
instead, based on just one point in time, there is a methodological problem involved
in demonstrating causality between media use and media effects as dependent
variables. From the uses and gratifications perspective, the supposed media
effects like social integration can also be interpreted as independent variables.
In other words, it is not clear whether better social integration is really the
result of media use or if preferred use of domestic media is the result of a
higher level of social integration.
Media – Migration – Integration
European and North American Perspectives
- Titel
- Media – Migration – Integration
- Untertitel
- European and North American Perspectives
- Autoren
- Rainer Geissler
- Horst Pöttker
- Verlag
- transcript Verlag
- Datum
- 2009
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-8376-1032-1
- Abmessungen
- 15.0 x 22.4 cm
- Seiten
- 250
- Schlagwörter
- Integration, Media, Migration, Europe, North America, Sociology of Media, Sociology
- Kategorie
- Medien