Home





>> overview research

Migration and diversity

Every day about 80% of Germans and migrants living in Germany watch television. In 98% of households with an ethnic background there is at least one television set. The fact that, as a result, the immigrants are also exposed to German broadcasters has been demonstrated, for example, by the ARD/ZDF study “Media and Migrants” (2007). But how do children, youths, and adults with ethnic background use these programmes? What do the viewers derive from individual programmes? What contribution to integration – in the sense of the social inclusion of migrants – can television achieve? Migration and integration are one aspect of the larger complex of issues comprising “diversity”, that is, the ethnic, cultural, and social pluralism in society and the media. The question of how diversity is represented on television is also explored in an international perspective.
Literature: cf. (inter alia) TelevIZIon 23/2010/E “Diversity in Children’s TV”, TelevIZIon 21/2008/1 “Medien und Migration” (only available in German)

Different and the Same
A Few Reminders for Children‘s TV Producers on the Diversity of Children
more ...


Teens and (male) homosexuality – Reception study on two quality TV programmes (2010)
One dimension of human diversity is diversity in sexual orientation. Although sexual attraction is an intimate issue, quality TV should bring it up in programmes for older children, because same-sex attraction develops like heterosexual attraction during puberty, starting between the ages of 10 and 13. A reception study conducted by the IZI with 13- to 17-year-old teenagers asks how these teens relate to depictions of homosexual male peers. We showed two non-fictional programmes, Danny’s Parade (Netherlands) and Gay Pride (Ireland), which ran at the PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL festivals 2008 and 2010 in the age category 12-15, and discussed them with 100 pupils in Germany (Munich, Berlin, Hannover). We also collected opinions about the programmes from openly gay and lesbian youth and young men who attended a gay and lesbian youth centre in Munich.
Project management: Dr. Elke Schlote, Matthias Schreiner, M.A. (IZI)
Literature: Publication in the international issue of TelevIZIon 2010, “Diversity in Children’s TV“


Sexualised western culture meets traditional culture: how pre-adolescent girls with an ethnic background in the USA negotiate the tensions between dominant culture and family tradition (2009-2010)
The study aims to pursue this question using a mix of qualitative methods, including interviews with children and parents and analyses of children's drawings. The girl's own views – which are frequently heard only on the margins of the discussion about media, culture, and society – are given a central role.
Project management: Prof. Dr. Rebecca C. Hains and Prof. Dr. Judi Puritz Cook (Salem State College, USA).
Literature: Publication in the international issue of TelevIZIon 2010, “Diversity in Children’s TV“


What they really think about it: how young people handle educational and edutainment contents on European, Chinese, and Australian television in Web 2.0 (2009)

Media analysis of popular Web 2.0 social networking platforms, in conjunction with the formation of dedicated discussion groups, is used to identify 12- to 15-year-olds' self-concept and self-images. These self-representations, which are disseminated beyond local borders, are analysed on the one hand in relation to the diversity they exhibit (ethnicity, gender, origin, nationality), and on the other in relation to educational television programmes, in order to discover how far the representations resemble each other.
Project management: Prof. Dr. Stephanie Hemelryk Donald (University of Sydney).
Literature: Publication in the international issue of TelevIZIon 2010, “Diversity in Children’s TV“


Diversity in main and supporting cast? The representation of cultural diversity in German children’s TV (2009)

This media analysis of fictional children’s, youth and family television programmes locally produced in Germany is concerned with the questions: How diverse is German children’s TV? What exactly is diversity in characters, beyond a “different” appearance? What options are used for making characters diverse, and what constitutes “good” representations of characters, settings and plots? For our theoretical framework we draw on the concept of “natio-ethno-cultural background” coined by the German migration pedagogue Paul Mecheril.
Literature: Publication in the international issue of TelevIZIon 2010, “Diversity in Children’s TV“


Co-viewing in families with a Turkish migration background (2008)
At the heart of this study are two questions: what families with a Turkish migration background watch together on television, and what reasons are given for viewing television in the family or not. For this purpose, besides interviews conducted with families in the Munich area, film recordings were made of the reception of their “family programmes”.
Project management: Elke Schlote and Nurgül Dogan (IZI)
Literature: Dr. Elke Schlote and Nurgül Dogan: "Weil da alle zusammen sind". Gemeinsames Fernsehen in türkischstämmigen Familien. In: TelevIZIon, 22/2009/1, pp. 50-53 (only available in German). Elke Schlote/Elisabeth Ziesel: Wie Familien mit Migrationshintergrund Fernsehen nutzen - und wie sie ihre Medienkompetenz entwickeln können. Buchartikel in: Lauffer, Jürgen; Röllecke, Renate (Hrsg.): Dieter Baacke Preis. Handbuch 5: Jugend - Medien - Kultur. München: Kopaed 2010, S. 65-71. (only available in German)


Typically German/typically Turkish: young people and the comic dismantling of stereotypes (2007)

This IZI reception study in the “Media and migration” research programme aims to show how the comic shattering of stereotypes surrounding German and Turkish characters in two current family comedy series (Türkisch für Anfänger, Alle lieben Jimmy) is read by 14- to 16-year-olds with and without an ethnic background.
Project management: : Elke Schlote and Anne Spieswinkel (IZI).
more ...
Literature
:  Elke Schlote/Anne Spieswinkel: Typisch deutsch, typisch türkisch – ist das komisch? Wie Jugendliche mit humorvoll gebrochenen Klischees in deutsch-türkischen Familienserien umgehen. In: TelevIZIon, 21/2008/1, pp. 39-44 (only available in German).


Little heroes: favourite television characters of 8- to 12-year-old children with an ethnic background (2007)
This study addresses the question of which television characters are most popular with 8- to 12-year-old children with an ethnic background. For this purpose, in 2007, 125 children with an ethnic background were interviewed by researchers from the University of Cologne. The 8- to 12-year-olds, just like their contemporaries of German origin, cite a multitude of television characters from German children's programmes as their favourites.
Project management: Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Roth and Henrike Terhart (University of Cologne)
Literature: Henrike Terhart and Hans-Joachim Roth, »Wenn ich das auf Arabisch gucke, kann ich das mit keinem besprechen«: Die TV-Lieblingsfiguren der 8- bis 12-Jährigen mit Migrationshintergrund. In: TelevIZIon, 21/2008/1, S. 18-22 (only available in German).


Deutsch Klasse: what are qualities of a TV language learning series? (2006)

What do viewers expect from educational television? They do not want to be taught! – this is one of the findings of the European IZI conference on educational TV programmes (Meyer 1997, p. 20). What implications does this have for educational TV programmes aimed at adults?
Project management: Elke Schlote (IZI)
more ...
Literature: Elke Schlote: »Die Frau hat geredet, mit allen Eltern an der Schule« – Wie Migrantinnen zwei Frauen-Figuren und ihre Gender-Rollen lesen. In: TelevIZIon, 19/2006/1, pp. 54-57 (only available in German).
Elke Schlote: Die Sprachlernsoap DEUTSCH KLASSE – Wie eine TV-Serie funktioniert, die auf Unterhaltung und Unterricht setzt. In: Hugger, Kai-Uwe, Hoffmann, Dagmar (Ed.): Medienbildung in der Migrationsgesellschaft. Beiträge zur medienpädagogischen Theorie und Praxis (Schriften zur Medienpädagogik 39). Bielefeld 2006, pp. 110-117.


How do people from different cultures perceive the same film? – readings of the feature film Wild East (2005)

Taking as its point of departure Stuart Hall's “encoding-decoding” model, this qualitative study investigates whether the cultural origin of a person influences their own individual reading of a media text.
Project management: Dr. Maya Götz and Astrid Riedel (IZI).

page up