Social Media and Interethnic Contact

Social Media and Interethnic Contact: An analysis of social media use by second generation migrant youth

Dekker, Rianne (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam)
Belabas, Warda
Scholten, Peter

2013-05-16

It is often asserted that ethnic minorities have a marginalized position in the city. Interethnic contact theory argues that due to spatial segregation, minorities’ access to interethnic contact is limited and they have less access to social resources. Social media have the potential to overcome spatial boundaries and provide new opportunities for bonding and bridging social capital.We studied what implications social media have for interethnic contact and the integration and empowerment of minority groups. Some scholars argue that social media provide new social network infrastructures with access to bridging interethnic social capital. Others contend that social media will only strengthen intra-ethnic and transnational relations and facilitate virtual parallel lives in the host country, solidifying minorities’ marginalized position. We studied the role of social media in inter-ethnic contact, intra-ethnic contact and transnational contact and the consequences of this for the position of minority groups in the city. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 59 second generation migrant adolescents in Rotterdam from a variety of ethnic groups. They have proven to be avid social media users while at the same time being subject of the integration debate. We found no evidence that social media are facilitating interethnic contact that was previously unattainable due to spatial or social boundaries. In cases where new interethnic contact was established, they were rarely continued offline. We did find that social media support interethnic solidarity by providing insight in other people’s opinions and ways of life. Furthermore, intra-ethnic and transnational uses of social media are not hindering social media use that is oriented on the country of residence. We therefore conclude that there is a need to put earlier research on ethnic social media venues in perspective. Even though social media facilitate intra-ethnic and transnational contact, there is no evidence of virtual segregation based on ethnicity.

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:cce55f3d-9e9f-475d-801b-b695d38c5f58

Conference proceedings

conference paper

(c) 2013 the authors