Media consumption and self-identification: Hungarian and Slovak case study

Abstract

The media impact on the process of ethnic identification, particularly with regard to how ethnic minority individuals reflect upon their ethnic origin, is the focus of this article. We analyse the relationships media consumption has with the identity-reflection process using biographical narratives of individuals from two ethnic minority communities in Eastern European countries: Slovaks in Hungary and Hungarians in Slovakia, focusing on how media consumption channels ethnic self-identification of minority individuals in terms of their affinity with their country of origin, their country of residence, and with Europe as a whole. Ethnic minorities in these two countries have been intensely affected by political changes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We include analysis of some quantitative data and biographical narratives of ethnic minority individuals from the ENRI-EAST project, with close analysis of six biographical cases.