To what extent does the consumption of National and International Media relate to the development of National, Foreign and Global Identities and how is the development affected by Intercultural Competence?

Cross-cultural research has already widely identified various factors that flow into the development of national cultural identities. Media have thus been continuously identified as one crucial factor that can shape cultural ingroup identities. This means that media are considered as one main driver for cultural transfer which do influence national cultural ingroup sentiments. In short, media consumption can shape national cultural identities. This was already widely confirmed among individuals who do live in their national home culture and among immigrants who adapt to their new home national culture. In short, when individuals consume media from their home national culture (National Media Consumption), they also identify stronger with their home national culture which is referred to the concept of National Identity. This was also approved among immigrants who identify easier to their new home national culture when they consume their new home national cultures’ media. Predominant research has, however, not gone beyond the provided scope as given thesis aimed to fill a crucial gap. Past research has only measured such relations among individuals that are physically surrounded by the national culture the media content also originates from, implying that the social cultural context was always given next to the media consumption. The conducted study thus set a focus on another target group as the investigated sample lived in their home national culture but still practiced International Media Consumption. In addition, the study identified various types of International Media Consumption in order to measure the impact on identity more accordingly. The concept of International Media Consumption was thus split into Foreign as well as Global Media Consumption since different outcomes and personal dimensions were expected that indicate different consumption motives. Based on this, one main goal was consequently to measure Foreign Identity adaptation when Foreign Media Consumption is practiced. Another crucial goal was to confirm that Global Identities positively relate to Global Media Consumption. Given hypotheses thus implied that ingroup identification with a distinctive national culture or superordinate ingroups was possible by solely consuming international media content. The cultural social environment was therefore eliminated. Moreover, the concept of Intercultural Competence was also applied in order to measure its impact on expected relations. In short, the conducted study aimed to prove that the cultural impact of media is strong enough to relate positively to such identity outcomes, indicating that a social environment is not needed to adapt an ingroup identity while also measuring the impact of Intercultural Competence. The following research question emerged from these revelations: To what extent does the consumption of National and International Media relate to the development of National, Foreign and Global Identities and how is the development affected by Intercultural Competence? A self-administered online survey was applied in order to reach all research goals. The results revealed that a positive relation between media consumption and identity ingroup sentiments were only existent when the individual was socially embedded in the corresponding environment. It could consequently be concluded that the cultural influence of media is not relating to the adaption of national cultural or superordinate identities when the social context is not provided.