Satellite dishes define migrant neighbourhoods in Berlin such as Kreuzberg and Neukölln. They mostly receive broadcasts in Turkish and Kurdish. We have heard some people – including German Turks – opine that access to these broadcasts ghettoises migrants.

However, sociologists suggest otherwise. Asu Aksoy and Kevin Robbins write that “as (migrants) select different channels and programmes to watch, these audiences use television to actively think about their own identities: their identities between places.”

Meanwhile, Kira Kosnick finds that commercial stations such as Berlin-based Turkish-language Metropol FM help “construct the Turkish presence in Berlin as ordinary, as part of the city and its rhythms, as part of a population of city residents with a migration history ..”

For us, satellite dishes were as much part of our Berlin landscape as Turkish and Kurdish faces, languages, dress, food, music and festivals. ω