Communication, Culture & Critique ISSN 1753-9129 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Studying Ethnic Minorities’ Media Uses: Comparative Conceptual and Methodological Reflections Alexander Dhoest 1 , Marta Cola 2 , Manuel Mauri Brusa 3 , & Dafna Lemish 4 1 Communication Studies, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, 2000, Belgium 2 Institute of Media and Journalism, Universit ` a della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, 6900, Switzerland 3 Institute for Public Communication, Universit ` a della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, 6900, Switzerland 4 Department of Radio-TV, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, 62901, USA This paper discusses conceptual and methodological issues in the study of ethnic minorities’ media uses. It does so by drawing on research experiences in different national contexts (Israel, Switzerland, and Belgium), looking for similarities but also differences related to the specific national contexts as well as the research designs and the ethnic groups involved. Starting from a broad reflection on ethnicity, the paper subsequently tackles issues such as the operational definition of ethnicity in ethnic labels, qualitative sampling procedures, language use, and problems of translation, as well as personal research experiences. By comparing national contexts and research experiences, we find recurring issues with specific national inflections, making us more aware of the specificity of ethnic matters in different contexts. doi:10.1111/j.1753-9137.2012.01124.x Given the growing migration waves worldwide and the challenges that cultural diversity pose to the nation state, this paper reflects on ethnic minorities’ media uses, focusing on some fundamental conceptual and methodological questions. How to conceptualize ethnicity in empirical media research, without essentializing it as given and fixed? How to take into account the complexity and hybridity of contemporary social categorizations and identifications? And how to deal with the particular methodological and practical difficulties related to the research on ethnic minority media use? In short, how to think and study ethnic diversity in empirical media studies? As researchers from different national and cultural contexts, in this paper we bring together our research experiences concerning ethnically diverse audiences in Belgium, Switzerland, and Israel. We present some of our findings, reflecting in particular on the definition and operationalization of categories like ‘‘ethnicity’’ and Corresponding author: Alexander Dhoest; e-mail: alexander.dhoest@ua.ac.be 372 Communication, Culture & Critique 5 (2012) 372–391  2012 International Communication Association