The German non-proft organization Mediendienst Integration is a platform suporting journalists and media professionals when reporting on migration and integration. M|K|I has evaluated how it suceeds with its activities.
Foto: Screenshot of Mediendienst Integration's website
Research on reporting migration has revealed that media coverage of migration and integration in Germany and across Europe often comes in a negative tone, neglects minorities' voices and is targeted by hate speech in Social Media in a particularly strong way.
In Germany, the non-profit organization Mediendienst Integration (Migration Media Service) aims at improving this coverage. It is an information platform for journalists and media professionals on migration, integration, and asylum that offers facts and figures, publishes background reports and brings together journalists and experts in the field.
Almost ten years after it was founded, Mediendienst Integration asked Medien | Kompetenz | International to evaluate its activities and extract recommendations for future activities. A triangulation of content analysis, focus groups and expert interviews shows that activities succeed in improving media coverage on migration by basing it on facts and research results as well as introducing new perspectives with a lasting effect.
Still, there is a long way to go for many media organizations, particularly with resepect to selecting topics beyond a predominantely negative framing of migration or to structural changes that better allow the inclusion of migrants' perspectives in the media discourse.