Cover not available
Part of
Migration and Media: Discourses about identities in crisis
Edited by Lorella Viola and Andreas Musolff
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 81] 2019
► pp. 317–338

Chapter 13
Discourses of immigration and integration in German newspaper comments

This chapter employs a critical, constructivist theoretical perspective to address how online commenters on articles in the liberal newspaper Die Zeit characterize immigrants, integration, and German identity. While the formerly dominant ethnonational ideology about German identity is now in the minority, there is nonetheless a strong tendency to categorize and characterize immigrant background residents according to ethnonational and religious criteria. A hierarchy of immigrants has emerged, with a discourse that positions Muslims in general, and Turks in particular, as the unintegrated Other. Because Germanness is defined in opposition to Muslim practices, integration for such residents is impossible. However, the presence of competing discourses is significant; through voices that point out discrimination and view integration as a two-way process, social change may be enacted.
Keywords: immigration, integration, ethnonational ideologies, German identity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background: German immigration, citizenship policy, and integration
    • 2.1Terms: A rose by any other name
  • 3.Theoretical background
  • 4.Data and methodology
  • 5.Integration in Germany: Themes
    • 5.1Dissatisfaction with the state of integration in Germany
    • 5.2Whose responsibility?
    • 5.3What is integration?
    • 5.4Good immigrants and bad
    • 5.5Refugees
    • 5.6What does it mean to be German, anyway?
  • 6.Discussion
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 7 March 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.81.14ful
References (30)
References
Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (revised edition). London: Verso.Google Scholar
Antonsich, Marco. 2012. “Exploring the Demands of Assimilation Among White Ethnic Majorities in Western Europe.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 38 (1): 59–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baxter, Judith. 2010. “Discourse-Analytic Approaches to Text and Talk.” In Research Methods in Linguistics, edited by Lia Litosseliti, 117–137. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Bundesministerium des Inneren, Migration und Integration Asyl und Flüchtlingsschutz. 2017. [URL]. Last accessed on 25th April 2018.
Dietz, Barbara. 2006. “Aussiedler in Germany: From Smooth Adaptation to Tough Integration.” In Paths of Integration: Migrants in Western Europe (1880–2004), edited by Leo Lucassen, David Feldman, and Jochen Oltmer, 116–136. Amsterdam: IMISCOE Research, Amsterdam University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ehrkamp, Patricia. 2006. “‘We Turks are no Germans’: Assimilation Discourses and the Dialectical Construction of Identities in Germany.” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 38 (9): 1673–1692. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ersanilli, Evelyn, and Ruud Koopmans. 2010. “Rewarding Integration? Citizenship Regulations and the Socio-cultural Integration of Immigrants in the Netherlands, France and Germany.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 36 (5): 773–791. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 2013. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Flubacher, Mi-Cha, and Shirely Yeung. 2016. “Discourses of Integration: Language, Skills, and the Politics of Difference.” Multilingua 35 (6): 599–616. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fuller, Janet M. 2013. “Made in Berlin: Bilingualism and Identity among Immigrant and German-Background Children.” In Multilingual Identities: New Global Perspectives, edited by Inke Du Bois, and Nicole Baumgarten, 35–50. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Fuller, Janet M. 2018. ‘Ein Biodeutscher wie ich’: Discourses of National Belonging in German Newspaper Comments.” Paper presented April 10, Sociolinguistics Series, Leiden University.Google Scholar
Gee, James P. 1992. The Social Mind: Language, Ideology and Social Practice. New York: Bergin & Garvey.Google Scholar
Hansen-Thomas, Holly. 2007. “Language Ideology, Citizenship, and Identity: The Case of Modern Germany.” Journal of Language and Politics 6 (2): 249–264. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kaya, Asiye. 2013. “Introduction: (Re) Considering the Last Fifty Years of Migration and Current Immigration Policies in Germany.” German Politics and Society. ( Special Issue: The Fiftieth Anniversary of Migration from Turkey to Germany) 31 (2): 1. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Korteweg, Anna, and Gökçe Yurdakul. 2009. “Islam, Gender, and Immigrant Integration: Boundary Drawing in Discourses on Honour Killing in the Netherlands and Germany.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 32 (2): 218–238. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miller-Idriss, Cynthia. 2006. "Everyday understandings of citizenship in Germany." Citizenship Studies 10(5): 541-570. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pautz, Hartwig. 2005. “The Politics of Identity in Germany: The Leitkultur Debate.” Race & Class 46 (4): 39–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pulinx, Reinhilde, and Piet Van Avermaet. 2015. "Integration in Flanders (Belgium)–Citizenship as achievement: How intertwined are ‘citizenship’and ‘integration’in Flemish language policies?." Journal of Language and Politics 14 (3): 335-358. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scarvaglieri, Claudio, and Claudia Zech. 2013. “Ganz normale Jugendliche, allerdings meist mit Migrationshintergrund’: Eine funktional-semantische Analyse von Migrationshintergrund.” Zeitschrift für Angewandte Linguistik 58 (1): 201–227. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scheffer, Ulrike. 2017. “Flüchtlinge in Italien: Integration nach deutschem Vorbild.” Zeit Online, Politik, 2 January 2017.Google Scholar
Schenk, Arnfrid. 2017. “Lamya Kaddor: Ich werde nicht die Klappe halten”. Zeit Online, Gesellschaft, 12 January 2017.Google Scholar
Statistisches Bundesamt. 2017. “Migration & Integration.” [URL]. Last accessed on 25th April 2018.
Stevenson, Patrick, and Livia Schanze. 2009. “Language, Migration and Citizenship in Germany: Discourses on Integration and Belonging.” In Language Testing, Migration and Citizenship: Cross-national Perspectives on Integration Regimes, edited by Guus Extra, Massimiliano Spotti, Piet Van Avermaet, 99–103. London/New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
United Nations. 2015 “International Migrant Stock 2015: Graphs”. [URL]. Last accessed on 25th April 2018. DOI logo
Williams, Daniel. 2013. “Germanness or Rights? Second Generation Young Adults and Citizenship in Contemporary Germany.” German Politics and Society 31 (2): 30–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Williams, Helen. 2014. “Changing the National Narrative: Evolution in Citizenship and Integration in Germany, 2000–10.” Journal of Contemporary History 49 (1): 54–74. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilpert, Czarina. 2013. “Identity Issues in the History of the Postwar Migration from Turkey to Germany.” German Politics and Society 31 (2): 108–131. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth. 2002. “Fragmented Identities: Redefining and Recontextualizing National Identity.” In Politics as Text and Talk: Analytic Approaches to Political Discourse, edited by Paul Chilton, and Christina Schäffner, 143–172. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2015. “Critical Discourse Analysis, Discourse-Historical Approach.” In The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction, 3 Volume Set, edited. by Karen Tracy, Karen, Cornelia Ilie, and Todd Sandel, Vol. 1, 1–14. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zeit Online. 2017. ‚Nationale Identität: Sprache ist wichtiger als Herkunft’. Die Zeit, Gesellschaft, 1 February 2017.Google Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Kropp, Selma & Wolfgang Minatti
2024.  Whither Willkommenskultur ? National identity discourses and the arrival of refugees in Germany in 2015/16 . Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 50:20 ► pp. 5288 ff. DOI logo
Möllering, Martina & Eva Schmidt
2022. The case of Mesut Özil: A symbol of (non-) integration? An analysis of German print media discourses on integration. Discourse & Communication 16:3 ► pp. 326 ff. DOI logo
Fuller, Janet M.
2021. Chapter 5. “Organically German”?. In Language Variation – European Perspectives VIII [Studies in Language Variation, 25], ► pp. 112 ff. DOI logo
Fuller, Janet M.
2024. Media discourses of migration: A focus on Europe. Language and Linguistics Compass 18:4 DOI logo
Hase, Johanna
2021. Repetition, adaptation, institutionalization—How the narratives of political communities change. Ethnicities 21:4 ► pp. 684 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 14 november 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.