Exploring television consumption of second generation adolescents from Moroccan origin in Flanders, Belgium.

This explorative descriptive study ties within a recent phase in Cultural Studies and Diaspora Studies that focuses on the complexity of identities of ethnic minority adolescents and starts from a premise that considers television consumption as an active and signifying process (De Bruin, 2005). Previous research about media consumption often ignores and opposes ethnic minority youth to ‘Flemish majority youth’ sustaining an essentialist ‘us versus the others’ dichotomy. However, is their media consumption actually different? Drawing upon earlier theorising on television consumption of minorities, we explore television consumption patterns of second generation teenagers in secondary school (age 14-20) with Moroccan ancestors in Antwerp. By means of a quantitative survey, it is our purpose to explore and describe television use, consumption and preferences of these youngsters. Since several studies have shown that gender is a more important determining factor in this research context than ethno cultural position (Devroe, et al, 2005, pp. 99-100), we focus on significant gender differences within the group of respondents. By focussing on within-group heterogeneity instead of on between-group, we avoid essentialising our research population. We can conclude that television consumption patterns of second generation teenagers from Moroccan background articulate their inclusion into the mainstream television discourse, and gender differences become apparent. Other remarkable tendencies are the high attractiveness of Flemish fiction, especially Flemish telenovelas and domestic soaps and the controversial reality dating programme ‘Temptation Island’