Social Media Use and Social Integration of Ethnic Minorities in Germany: A New Interdisciplinary Framework

Abstract

Faced with an increasingly diverse society, Germany is challenged with the integration of different ethnic minorities. Previous studies have shown that mass media can play a crucial role in the integration process. However, what has not been extensively researched in this context yet are social media in particular. What is missing in research is a conceptual framework to better understand the interplay between social media use and integration. Therefore, this paper focuses on social media use and the integration of ethnic minorities into German society from a conceptual perspective. What is proposed here is a new interdisciplinary conceptual framework which clearly distinguishes between integration that happens in society ("offline") and integration that happens in virtual communities ("online").The aim of this paper is to expand integration research to social media use as well as to offer a new interdisciplinary conceptual framework for further empirical research.

Keywords

• social media use
• social integration
• ethnic minorities