OTTAWA December 17, 2013: The results of the 2012 OMMI survey on multicultural media in Ottawa are in. Marking the end of its first research phase, the Ottawa Multicultural Media Initiative (OMMI) has released two reports and two posters highlighting selected survey findings.
“Which types of multicultural media are consumed by members of Ottawa’s Chinese, Spanish speaking Latin American, Somali, and South Asian communities? Why and to what end do members of these communities consume multicultural media? The reports and posters provide insight into these questions, and more,” explained Dr. Ahmed.
The two reports, 2012 OMMI Survey: Selected Findings, and Ottawa Multicultural Media Use Profiles: Ottawa’s Chinese, Latin American, Somali and South Asian Communities, provide baseline knowledge about multicultural media usage, preferences, and motives amongst the four ethno-cultural communities and provide important insights into multicultural media usage in Ottawa – a first study of its kind in the city.
The poster, Multicultural Media in Practice: A Look at Four Ethno-Cultural Communities in Ottawa, highlights survey findings on where members of the four ethno-cultural communities access information about City of Ottawa services. “The poster serves to highlight one of our key findings, namely that a significant portion of the Chinese and Spanish speaking Latin American community turn to multicultural media for information on City services,” explained Ms. Carrière.
The poster, Spatial Distribution and Relative Concentration of Chinese, Latin American, Somali, and South Asian Communities in Ottawa, was presented by OMMI Research Assistant, Ms. Jing Feng, on November 28, 2013, at OMMI’s research dissemination event, Multicultural Media in Ottawa: Selected OMMI Survey Findings. The poster maps the four ethno-cultural communities
in Ottawa and highlights their mother tongue languages, skills in official languages, and multicultural media usage.
These OMMI reports and posters can be downloaded, free of charge, from the OMMI website: http://artsites.uottawa.ca/ommi/en/ommi-reports/
As Dr. Ahmed explained, the OMMI survey data yielded a rich corpus of comparative information that the OMMI research team will continue to analyze in order to shed light on the untapped potential of multicultural media for newcomers’ well-being and integration and Ottawa’s economic prosperity. Peer-reviewed articles providing more in-depth analysis of the survey data will be shared on the OMMI website as these become available.
Multicultural media producers present at the report launch expressed enthusiasm for the research and were eager to add their voices to the Initiative. The OMMI looks forward to engaging with multicultural media producers and consumers in phase two; continuing to foster multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral collaborations and discussions; and using this research project as a platform to build informed policy and action initiatives capable of fostering long-term immigrant integration.
About Ottawa Multicultural Media Initiative
Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Ottawa Multicultural Media Initiative (OMMI) is a multi-researcher, multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral partnership that links the University of Ottawa and the City of Ottawa to a network of multicultural media producers, leading multicultural media scholars and practitioners, representatives of the city’s Chinese, Spanish speaking Latin American, Somali, and South Asian communities, and other local stakeholders. The Initiative, a first in Ottawa, aims to improve collective knowledge of media consumption and production in Ottawa’s Chinese, Spanish speaking Latin American, Somali, and South Asian communities.
