Taking Root: Media, Community, and Belonging in Ottawa

Abstract

This thesis employs a post-anarchist influenced lens and develops a collective capacity framework in order to explore how the media consumption and production practices of the Chinese Canadian, Latin American, and Somali Canadian communities in Ottawa, Canada, can strengthen these communities’ ability to facilitate the process by which immigrants become community members and form a sense of belonging in Ottawa. The thesis explores both how ethno-cultural media can help newcomers to form a sense of belonging and become part of a local ethno-cultural community, as well as how such media can help members of minority ethno-cultural communities become part of the broader local community and to form a sense of belonging in Ottawa, and Canada more broadly. Throughout, the thesis identifies and explores the differences that emerge between the three communities in order to gain better insight into the potential benefits of ethno-cultural media. In order to explore and to answer these questions, the thesis employs quantitative and qualitative methods. It relies on analysis of secondary literature, raw data from the OMMI 2012 Survey, raw content coding of local Chinese and Spanish language media carried out as part of the Ottawa Multicultural Media Initiative, and primary research consisting of content coding of a Somali Canadian television program. The main contribution of this thesis lies in offering a new lens through which to assess the integrative potential of ethno-cultural media. Approaching the question from a bottom-up, relationship-centred perspective has yielded different findings than those generally reported in Canadian ethno-cultural media research. Although there were significant differences in terms of media use and media production between the three communities, the findings revealed that all three used ethno-cultural media in ways that had the potential to help them in the process of settling down and taking root in a new city, and of helping them to form a sense of belonging.