Media and Minorities

Integration in the Media  191
of scientific understanding should explain how, and with what intentions,
science, journalism, and politics interact.
– Whether scientific understanding can be communicated sufficiently to give
policy a scientific basis remains to be seen. Thus, the question arises: How
can scientific research put politics within the scope of evidence-sensitive
transfer projects?
– In Germany, there is still a long way to go before social-scientific research
becomes the basis of evidence-based decision making. Part of the problem
is increasing specialization in the social sciences.
– Increasing competition and time pressure force journalists, especially in
the new audiovisual media and on the Internet, erroneously to present
new and spectacular studies as illustrations of the state of scientific knowledge.
Journalists do not usually report on conflicts in scientific evidence as
normal and expected. Instead, they create and stage public controversies.
They portray scientists as fighting among themselves. The background
to research and the economic and political interests that motivate remain
opaque to the public.
Discussion of these themes can stimulate the communication of scientific understanding
and help it to enter into the public discourse on immigration and
integration. Business leaders, politicians, scientists, and journalists should not
pit themselves against one another, as frequently happens in Germany. Instead,
they can use their different expertises to stimulate each other’s thinking.
Quality science journalism can promote this form of communication. It
can help reverse the trend toward increasing disintegration in immigration
societies and have a lasting effect on integration.
References
Print Sources
Allport, Gordon W. The Nature of Prejudice. New York: Perseus Books, 1954.
Anderson, Elizabeth. The Imperative of Integration. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.
Archer, Margaret. “Social Integration and System Integration.” Sociology 30 (1996): 679–699.
Atkins, Joseph B. Covering for the Bosses: Labor and the Southern Press. Jackson: University
Press of Mississippi, 2008.
Bade, Klaus J. Gewalt und Kritik. Sarrazin-Debatte, “Islamkritik” und Terror in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft.
Schwalbach: Wochenschau Verlag, 2014.
Bastow, Simon, et al. The Impact of the Social Sciences: How Academics and Their Research
Make a Difference. Los Angeles and London: Sage, 2014.
Beelmann, Andreas. “Möglichkeiten und Grenzen systematischer Evidenzakkumulation durch
Forschungssynthese in der Bildungsforschung.” In Von der Forschung zur evidenz basierten
© 2016, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen
ISBN Print: 9783525300886 — ISBN E-Book: 9783666300882