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This study constructs and tests the building of social capital and integration among Turkish minorities (n = 967) residing in three countries with different integration policy realities according to the Migrant Integration Policy Index for Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. Through online and offline surveys, the study examines the extent to which bridging and bonding social capital, the dominant language of media use, and the socio-demographic characteristics of respondents affect their degree of integration. The results show that the degree of integration increases with a sense of belonging to a faith, length of stay in Europe, exposure to European mainstream media, and through bridging with natives in the host society. Integration levels decrease, however, with the retention of Turkish citizenship. The degree of integration among the Turkish diaspora varies widely across the three countries under study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the mainstream media coverage on Germany’s integration debate between 2009 and 2014, while detecting main debate actors, topics, discourses, key events and their relations to one another. Media representations of Muslims, integration, immigration, multiculturalism and creation of otherness are scrutinized, considering different political alignments of mainstream newspapers. Furthermore, the Sarrazin debate is contextualized within recent events such as right-wing populism and anti-Islamization movements. A quantitative content analysis revealed pragmatism and culturalism as the leading discourses in one-third of all left and right leaning newspapers, while integration, immigration and populist language in politics were the most discussed topics. Mainly, events and actors related to the Sarrazin debate were mentioned. We argue that the Sarrazin debate has encouraged a variety of actors to speak out in favor or against Muslims. Our findings suggest a personal network analysis combined with qualitative research, in order to identify more actors, ties and network alliances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]