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.