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CHAPTER FIVE MEDIA AND IMMIGRANTS’ ADAPTATION IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE This book has focused on the transition of the immigrants’ “self” and the roles fulfilled by the mass media in this process among two immigrant communities : Jews and Germans from the former Soviet Union, who immigrated during the 1990s to Israel and Germany, respectively. Thus, apart from a striking similarity in period of immigration and country of origin, both communities match the definition of returning Diaspora, rendering comparison between them a rare opportunity for research. Furthermore, a parallel comparison between Russian-speaking returnees in Israel and Germany afforded an interesting occasion for examining the immigrants’ media uses in two different structural and cultural contexts, identifying the similar roles played by the media for different immigrant communities, as well as the unique roles created by the particular circumstances of the receiving societies and the sociodemographic and cultural characteristics of the immigrants themselves. In this manner, the present chapter intends to fill the gap evident in previous studies that focused exclusively on immigrants’ media usage and its influence on their cultural adaptation , ignoring political, ideological, and cultural factors conditioning both media consumption and integration into the host society. First and foremost, the findings showed that FSU immigrants in the two countries used the mass media in a completely different way. Returning immigrants in Germany were characterized by assimilative media consumption , limiting themselves nearly exclusively to consumption of Germanlanguage media, whereas the Russian-speaking returnees in Israel made extensive use of Russian-language media and only limited use of media in Hebrew. As shown below, this striking divergence originates in differences in the respective Russian-language media maps of the two countries, disparity in integration 141 142 COMING HOME policies, public tolerance toward cultural diversity between the returning Diaspora and the host population, as well as in sociodemographic and cultural characteristics of ex-Soviet Jews and Germans. We have already noted that the Russian-language media map in Germany is rather underdeveloped. Germany has no daily newspapers in Russian and most of its Russian-language periodicals are monthlies. Moreover, the country has no Russian-language radio stations and poses certain technical and legal obstacles to reception of television channels broadcasting from the FSU. These features enforce an a priori limitation on the immigrants’ choices of media, forcing many of them to consume German media immediately on their arrival. In comparison, the Russian-language media map in Israel is significantly richer and includes various daily and weekly newspapers and magazines , two radio stations, four television channels broadcasting from the FSU, and an Israeli television channel in Russian. Easy access to rich and varied Russian-language media allows immigrants to consume media in their mother tongue as soon as they arrive in Israel, liberating them from an urgent need to adapt to media in a majority language. The differences between the two Russian-language media maps effectively match the cultural differences between the respective immigrant communities . Germans in the Soviet Union were characterized by relatively weak ties to the Russian language and culture; some of them, especially people aged sixty and above, regarded the German language as their mother tongue and preserved the ancient German dialect and folklore. Consequently, on arriving in Germany, many immigrants, particularly the elderly, found it most natural to switch to exclusive consumption of German-language media. In contrast to the Russian-speaking returnees in Germany, their compatriots in Israel perceived Russian cultural roots as an inseparable part of their cultural identity. Hence, the Russian-speaking Jews’ affinity for their culture of origin explains their strong need for Russian-language media, especially for cultural and entertainment programs on the Russian television channels, preferred by far to a similar selection on the Israeli channels. In this regard, it is interesting to note that although Jewish immigrants from the FSU in Germany were not included in the current research, findings from interviews conducted in Germany showed that the Russian Jews’ media consumption was rather similar to that of their co-ethnics who immigrated to Israel, that is, intensive use of Russian-language media and a tendency to speak Russian instead of the host language. Therefore, it may be claimed that media consumption patterns applying to Jewish immigrants from the FSU in Israel may well be characteristic of Russian-speaking Jews who immigrated to other countries as well. In addition, differences in integration policies between Israel and Germany play an important role in shaping media consumption patterns among the two immigrant communities. Germany’s...

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