AEMI

194 AEMI JOURNAL 2015 2016
which is neither straightforward nor
unanimous and whose definition is
often dependent on a given country’s
social context and immigration history.
In this article we prefer to define
ethnic media as that, ‘produced by and
for a) immigrants, b) racial, ethnic and
linguistic minorities as well as c) indigenous
populations living across different
countries,’ (Matsaganis, Katz and Ball-
Rockeach, 2011). Ethnic media can help
to understand a minority’s or community’s
social, economic and cultural background
(Matsaganis et al., 2011) as well
as act as countervailing representation
to the potentially negative depictions in
mainstream media (Titley, 2008); they
also create a self representation and fulfill
the dual role of providing a space for
the expression of language and culture
and act as a resource to facilitate settling
in a new country. Other potential
strengths of ethnic media are the way in
which they can support various forms
of engagement with the host society,
through actions that we will be seeing
bellow, and its capacity for mediating
and empowering a group’s participation
in the public sphere (Georgiou, 2006;
Cascão, 2013).
The range of Portuguese language
ethnic media in Luxembourg includes
radio stations like Radio Latina, with
a programme mainly aimed at the Portuguese
speaking community, websites
such as bomdia.lu, and in print the two
newspapers Contacto (founded in 1970)
and Correio (founded in 1999). All of
the above media are addressed not only
at the Portuguese nationals but also immigrants
from former Portuguese colonies
in Africa such as Cape Verde and
Guinea Bissau as well as Brazilians.
Contacto was founded in 1970 by a
Luxembourger, Lucien Huss, and a Portuguese,
Carlos Pina, both working then
at the Catholic Mission, an association
that provided guidance and assistance
upon the arrival of immigrants to Luxembourg.
Their first co-signed editorial
left no doubt about the newspaper’s
goals: it was there to ‘build bridges’ 4 .
In its first years, informing its readers
about the political situation in Portugal
was at the core of its editorial mission,
understandable in light of the political
turmoil Portugal was undergoing at the
time. This tendency to focus on Portugal’s
daily affairs changed in the 1980’s,
when Luxembourgish affairs began to
be given equal coverage, making the
newspaper become more transnational.
However, the core focus of Contacto
continued to be primarily and essentially
anything affecting the interests of
the local Portuguese speaking community.
It is currently the preferred media
outlet for Portuguese in Luxembourg,
with audience levels reaching 55,400
readers per week, i.e. 12 per cent of the
total Luxembourg population. 5
Theoretical Framework: Interculturalism,
Integration and Intercultural
Media Integration
Before introducing the key concept of
intercultural media integration (Geiβler
and Weber-Menges, 2009), it is useful
to first examine the political concept
of interculturalism and the ways it approaches
cultural diversity in contemporary
societies. Interculturalism directs us
to particular national contexts and different
stands taken politically on immigration
issues and assumptions on what
integration should entail. In Europe,