Muslims in the West: Media as an Integration Strategy

Abstract

West European countries face social problems linked to immigration issues. The most exposed community of immigrants comes from the Muslim world, bringing to the West its own religious and social tradition. Such issues, however, are not unilateral. The immigrated Muslim community has to find solution to the same problem, which is usually seen from a different point of view. Media plays an important role in solving integration issues and EU member states have adopted television and radio as an integral part of European integration strategy. National governments nevertheless comply with the EU recommendations only until a certain degree. On the other hand, although on a smaller scale, the immigrated Muslim communities have started to use the same means to strengthen weakened ties between members of the Ummah in hijra and to confirm proper identity in the minority position. While the States use mostly public national media, Muslim communities try to get access at least to the local televisions or radios. Such initiatives aim mostly at successful integration without assimilation into secular Western society. However, many actors impede reaching this goal – also in the same field of media, like transnational Islamic television providers transmitting via satellite from different European cities or private TV program producers reflecting deliberately in their shots outdated Western prejudices toward Islam.