e-Engagement against violence. Tools for media and citizenship education

This publication has been produced with the financial support of the DAPHNE Programme ofthe European Union. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the e–EAVpartnership and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Commission.

e–Engagement against violence

Tools for media and citizenship education

edited by

Maria Ranieri

contributions byPaul de Theux

Francesco FabbroSophie Jehel

Denitza KamenovaSteven A. King

Gabriella LazaridisAnne–Claire Orban de Xivry

Ildiko OtovaMojca Pajnik

Maria RanieriBirgit Sauer

Iztok Šori

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Contents

IntroductionMaria Ranieri, Birgit Sauer

Part IResearch and studies

Young people and the politics of discrimination in EuropeSteven A. King, Gabriella Lazaridis

Populist communicative strategies. Fostering “the web ofexclusion” in European societiesMojca Pajnik, Iztok Šori

Engaging Young People against Discrimination. An actionresearch study in the field of media and citizenship educa-tionMaria Ranieri, Francesco Fabbro

Media education goes online. A virtual learning environ-ment for teachers’ training against discriminationPaul de Theux, Anne–Claire Orban de Xivry

Part IILearning scenarios

Learning scenario . From gender stereotyping to report-ing diversity in the news media

Learning scenario . Challenging ethnic prejudices throughparticipatory journalism

e–Engagement against violence

Learning scenario . Questioning stereotypes through thedecoding of audio–visual fiction

Learning scenario . Designing video clips to denouncediscrimination

Learning scenario . Analysing representations in videogames to tackle discrimination

Learning scenario . Playing against discrimination

Learning scenario . Making sense of political communi-cation and questioning new racism

Learning scenario . Campaigning against discriminationto promote equality

Learning scenario . Online media activism as a strategyto promote democracy and human rights

Learning scenario . Voicing students’ rights through ane–Charter

ConclusionSophie Jehel, Denitza Kamenova, Ildiko Otova

References

Contributors

ISBN 978-88-548-8125-9DOI 10.4399/97888548812591pp. 7–15 (January 2015)

Introduction

M R, B S

Over the last years, due to globalisation and migration processes,neoliberal transformations of welfare states and shrinking labourmarkets populist parties and movements have emerged in a num-ber of European countries. Also, constellations labelled as “postdemocracy” (Colin Crouch) such as decline in trust in traditionalpolitical parties and party de–alignment have fostered the popularityof “anti–system parties” and populist movements (Albertazzi andMcDonnell, ; Canovan, ; Rydgren, ; Mammone, Godinand Jenkins, and ; Mudde, ; Wodak, KhorsaviNik andMral, ). The same context has provoked new forms of racismand discrimination. Indeed, in the last years, European countrieshave witnessed a growing number of hate crimes towards immi-grants and minorities, including hate speech, physical attacks on andmurders of people with a different skin–colour, or from ethnic andreligious minorities such as Roma and Sinti or Muslims. In particu-lar, new media platforms and social networking sites have been seenby right–wing populist organisations as a driver to promote hatespeech towards the “other” and new forms of proselytism. Race,gender, disabilities and sexual orientation have been alternativelyused as a basis to discriminate against the “other”, and media havebeen used as sounding boards.

In this context, the European Project e–EAV (e–EngagementAgainst Violence), supported by the DAPHNE–programme – and involving seven European Countries (Austria, Belgium,Bulgaria, France, Italy, Slovenia and the United Kingdom), aimed atcontrasting new right–wing populism and discrimination transmittedthrough digital media and social networks by promoting youngpeople’s awareness of violent media contents and empowering themthrough civic engagement, particularly through e–engagement based

. Project’s website: www.engagementproject.eu

http://www.engagementproject.eu

Maria Ranieri, Birgit Sauer

on media/digital literacy. The e–EAV project investigated specificissues guided by the following questions:

— Q. How can populism be defined? What are the new formsof populism emerging through the web and how are theyaddressing young people in the European context? What arethe specific characteristics of right–wing populism?

— Q. How are stereotypes about the “other” constructed throughthe use of digital media? What are the rhetoric and the com-munication strategies adopted by populist parties and organ-isations to draw attention and consensus, especially amongyoung people?

— Q. How to deconstruct populist hate speech towards the“other” and raise young people’s and minorities’ awareness?How to promote young people’s voice and their participatoryskills? What role can media education play in the process ofraising awareness against discrimination?

— Q. How to train teachers and educators about media andcitizenship education? What type of tools can be providedto support them in developing educational practices aimedat deconstructing discriminatory rhetoric and empoweringyoung people against discriminatory othering?

Literature on populism (see e.g. Canovan, ; Taguieff, ; Al-bertazzi and McDonnell, ; Wodak, KhorsaviNik and Mral, ),studies on media, the Internet and populism (see e.g. Mazzoleni etal. ; Caiani and Parenti, ), and research in the field of mediaeducation (see e.g. Banaji and Buckingham, ; Buckingham, ;Hobbs, ) provide the theoretical background to investigate thequestions mentioned above. The research design and the researchstrategies and tools of the studies of this book are based on thisliterature. More specifically, the research project was divided intofour main phases corresponding to four Workstreams (WS), i.e. )mapping populism in Europe (WS); ) analysing populist commu-nicative strategies (WS); ) e–engagement for participation (WS);and ) teachers and educators’ training about media literacy andracism/populism (WS).

Introduction

Phase . Mapping populism in Europe (WS)

The first phase of the project running from January to October was dedicated to mapping populism in Europe and providinga picture of the main populist and racist organisations operating inseven European countries (Q). Specific objectives were:

— to conduct a literature review of studies on populism in Eu-rope and hate speeches towards the “other” in order to definea theoretical framework to analyse the multiple causes andthe specificities of the populist trends in today’s Europe (char-acteristics, political culture, ideology and typologies);

— to examine European trends and dynamics to identify or-ganisations promoting racism, discrimination, intolerance,xenophobia and violence towards minorities;

— to analyse and contextualise hate speeches that have been theobject of media attention and public debates;

— to explore the impact of populist rhetoric on young peopleand investigate how populism succeeds in involving them.

To achieve these objectives the project partners discussed andagreed on a definition of populism and conducted research in theparticipating countries on right–wing organisations as well as onexisting research in the fields of media and citizenship education. Inaddition, two right–wing populist political parties for each countrywere selected in order to investigate their relationship with youngpeople through interviews. Among the criteria adopted to identifythe organisations, there were ) pronounced focus on youth underage with programmes (including sport, education, entertainment)addressing them; ) aptitude to reproduce “other” in discriminatoryway etc.; ) strong presence in the digital environment.

Common guidelines were provided to analyse the literature andto conduct interviews with members of the selected political organ-isations. On the one hand, our research of literature focused on )different definitions of populism in the national literature, ) spe-cific structural factors in explaining the rise and success of populismacross different historical periods, ) typologies of populism iden-tified through the study of different cases, and ) populist featureshighlighted across different examples. On the other hand, the in-terviews examined the motivations of young people to join these


political movements, the role young people are playing within thesegroups and the types of political messages young people are exposedto or identify with as members of such groups.

The results of the first part of the study (e.g. definitions of pop-ulism, theoretical underpinning of media education and civic educa-tion etc.) and of the interviews provided the theoretical and empiricalbackground for the subsequent phases.

Phase . Analysing populist communicative strategies (WS)

The second phase of the project running from April to March was devoted to analysis of populist discourses spread throughthe web by political organisations especially addressing young people(Q). Specific objectives were:

— to understand the role of new media, particularly social net-work sites as platforms for mobilisation of populist organisa-tions;

— to explore the communication strategies adopted by populistorganisations and militant youth on a local, national, andtransnational level in using new media, particularly the In-ternet, to spread their violent messages and anti–other hatespeeches;

— to investigate the features of various online media (e.g. web-sites, social media, social networks sites, forums and virtualcommunities) in order to understand how populist organi-sations use them for undemocratic, racist or intolerant pur-poses, and to connect to each other;

— to conduct content analysis of websites’ violent messages andrhetoric;

— to understand the generation of populist groups on socialnetworks sites and analyse the interactions amongst theirparticipants.

To reach these objectives the project partners conducted nationalstudies on digital media, political participation and young people. Thenational studies approached digital media (ICTs) at the intersection ofthe real and the virtual/the offline and the online continuum. Theyconsidered literature that discusses various tools/platforms online:the web environment, social media (web pages, Facebook, Twitter,

Introduction

Wiki, etc.), blogs, Video (You tube, Vimeo, etc.). The online andmultimedia texts produced by the political organisations identifiedin the first phase, were selected for qualitative analysis. The methodof Critical Frame Analysis (Verloo, ) was adopted to analysetexts highlighting the (underlying) norms, beliefs and perceptions,which are embedded in those texts. Visual materials were examinedthrough the denotation–connotation approach (Barthes, ) aimedat understanding what meanings particular visual material convey.

This analysis of the literature and of the online media discoursesof political organisations for young people identified a number ofissues that deserve the attention of the educational community, espe-cially the community of researchers and educators working in thefield of media and citizenship education. These issues became themain object of learning and training in phases and .

Phase . E–engagement for participation (WS)

The third phase running from October to October aimedat first deconstructing populist stereotypes relating to race, gender,disabilities and sexual orientation. The second aim of this project stagewas to empower a new generation, particularly young people who arevictims of discrimination, through e–engagement with an emphasis onmedia and citizenship education (Q). Specific objectives were:

— to contrast new populism and racism transmitted throughdigital media and social networks among young people;

— to deconstruct populist stereotypes relating to race, gender,disabilities and sexual orientation using media education meth-ods of analysis;

— to raise young people’s awareness through educational in-terventions and digital storytelling and voice appropriationtechniques;

— to develop young people’s media skills and participatory be-haviour. The focus was on e–participation, e–collaborationand e–citizenship;

— to promote young people’s participation and civic engagementthrough digital media and social networks (e–engagement).

To accomplish these objectives media education modules againstdiscrimination were designed and developed by focusing both on media


analysis and production. The main topics were: information receptionand Information reception and production, Audio–visual Fiction andIdeologies, Video games and Citizenship, Political Communicationand Propaganda, and Online Activism & Networking. As a generalapproach, each activity starts with mobilising students’ previous knowl-edge on the topic, pursues with exercises based on inquiry, case study,collaborative learning, project work etc., and ends with debriefing andself–evaluation.

The modules were tested in the seven partner countries involvingalmost students and about teachers and educators. An action–research approach was adopted to engage teachers and students in aneducational process of changing media practices towards diversity andimproving their skills for civic engagement and citizenship. A series ofqualitative tools (questionnaire, focus groups, interviews, observations,etc.) to assess pre–existing views, take notes on the process, and evaluatethe final outcomes were used to investigate the impact of the educa-tional intervention. Data were analysed through ex–post categories anda number of areas of critical interest were identified for future researchand developments.

Phase . Teachers and educators’ training about media literacy and racism/po-pulism (WS)

The fourth phase running from January to December intended to train teachers and educators about media and citizenshipeducation to contrast discrimination and amplify the project’s results(Q). In addition, as a final outcome, the project intended to developand promote a virtual community made up of young people andadults to fight against media violence and hate speech towards the“other”. Specific objectives were:

— to promote teachers and educators’ awareness about themechanisms occurring between media, populism and dis-crimination;

— to develop teachers’ media literacy skills in order to makethem able to analyse violent media messages, deconstructstereotypes and support media creation activities;

— to increase teachers and educators’ participation in the designand implementation of educational strategies against violencein the new digital media;

Introduction

— to train multiplier actors to amplify the impact of the projectand expand the dissemination of its results;

— to build a community of e–engaged teachers, educators andyoung people to monitor discrimination on the web and pro-mote participation.

To achieve these objective an online learning platform was de-signed and implemented to train teachers and educators aroundEurope. Five media education modules were developed reflectingthe same topics dealt with by young people. More than teachersregistered on the platform and more than teachers actively par-ticipated in the training process. A survey was carried out to engagepilot users in the design of the online community and question-naires were administered to gain teachers’ feedback on the contentsprovided and the platform. Results from both the survey and thequestionnaires provided the partnership with several suggestions toimprove the project’s products and develop future research.

This book

This book presents and discusses the research products and resultsof the activities carried out within the e–EAV project. It is structuredin two sections. The first section is dedicated to the research resultsof the four phases and includes four chapters.

Chapter , titled Young people and the politics of discrimination inEurope, introduces the topic of populism in contemporary Europeansociety and explores how right–wing populist political parties andmovements are addressing young people.

Chapter , titled Populist communicative strategies: fostering “the web ofexclusion” in European societies, presents the research studies on onlinepopulist discourses carried out in the seven countries in order to un-derstand how populist groups represent their politics online throughwebsites and social media, particularly referring to othering strategies.

Chapter , titled Engaging Young People against Discrimination. Anaction research study in the field of media and citizenship education,presents the methodological approach that inspired the design anddevelopment of media education modules addressing young peopleon topics related to discrimination and analyses the results of thetesting of the modules in the seven European countries.

Chapter , titled Media education goes online. A virtual learning envi-


ronment for teachers’ training against discrimination, explains how thee–learning platform to train teachers and educators about media andcitizenship education was designed and implemented and reportsteachers’ feedback on the learning experience.

The second section of the book aims to provide teachers andeducators with a guide on how to use the learning material devel-oped within the e–EAV project. It includes ten learning scenariosabout media and citizenship education. The intended target groupsare teachers and educators willing to develop innovative media edu-cation practices challenging discrimination. They are based on theeducational materials that were developed within phases and ofthe e–EAV project. The modules produced in the project includeten units each, that can be combined according to different learningpaths. Here each learning scenario refers to four units per modulesuggesting a particular way to mix the educational contents. Foreach scenario the following elements are provided: an Introductionwhich explains the pedagogical rationale; a Theoretical backgroundwhich introduces the basic concepts that the teacher should knowto implement the activities; a section titled Learning activities whereall the tasks the students should confront with are described; someExamples of exercises directly drawn from the e–EAV units; and afinal section Conclusions, which offers recommendations and hintsto teachers on crucial factors to bear in mind when implementingthe scenarios. These suggestions are based on the comments of theteachers and researchers who actually tested the e–EAV modules.

The Belgian and the Italian teams contributed to the developmentof the learning scenarios. All e–EAV modules are available online at:http://e-engagementagainstviolence.eu/index/students.html.

Credits

The e–EAV project was funded by the European Commissionwithin the Daphne Programme –. It was promoted bythe Department of Education and Psychology of the University ofFlorence (Florence, Italy). Other partners were: University of Vi-enna (Austria), Media Animation (Belgium), CERMES (Bulgaria),Université Paris VIII (France), Peace Institute (Slovenia), Universityof Leicester (UK).

Maria Ranieri was the Scientific Coordinator and Stefano Cuomowas the project manager of the project.

http://e-engagementagainstviolence.eu/index/students.html

Introduction

Steven A. King and Gabriella Lazaridis led WS, Mojca Pajnik wasthe leader of WS, Maria Ranieri coordinated WS, Paul de Theuxand Anne–Claire Orban de Xivry led WS and Birgit Sauer guidedWS.

Researchers who participated and contributed to the project were:

∗ for the Austrian team: Stefanie Mayer;∗ for the Belgian team: Michel Berhin, Daniel Bonvoisin, Yves

Collard, Martin Culot, Catherine Geeroms, Cécile Goffart,Patrick Verniers;∗ for the British team: Benjamin Lee;∗ for the Bulgarian team: Anna Krasteva, Denitza Kamenova,

Vanya Ivanova, Ildiko Otova, Evelina Staykova;∗ for the French team: Annie Benveniste, Sophie Jehel, Christophe

Magis, Etienne Pingaud;∗ for the Italian team: Gianfranco Bandini, Emiliano Batignani,

Giovanna Campani, Francesco Fabbro, Silvia Guetta, FrancescoLeonetti;∗ for the Slovenian team: Veronika Bajt, Mojca Frelih, Iztok Šori.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to all the teachers who participated in the e–EAVproject and their students. Without their contribution, this projectwould not have been possible.

We also thank Francesca Palareti and Elena Palmisano who con-tributed to the development of the educational materials.

P I

RESEARCH AND STUDIES


Young people and the politics ofdiscrimination in Europe

S A. K, G L

. Introduction

This chapter is an analysis of the relationship between a series ofright–wing populist political parties and movements and young(< ) people. It is designed to speak to three aspects of this re-lationship: the motivation for joining populist political movements,the role of young people within these groups and the types of po-litical messages young people are exposed to or identify with asmembers of such groups. These questions are answered throughan analysis of interview material collected by researchers in sevenEuropean countries as part of the e–EAV project. The overarchingaim of this analysis is to provide the necessary background on youngpeople’s relationship to populism to support further work that looksat populist communication directly and addresses populist messagesin educational settings.

Structurally, this chapter begins with an overview of the currentconcerns over the role of populist political groups, specifically right–wing populist groups, in the current European political climate. Itgoes on to discuss the factors that may make young people moreor less likely to engage with populist groups. It then discusses caseselection and methods employed in this analysis. Following this thechapter goes on to address the three key concerns outlined aboveand finally draws some cautious conclusions about the relationshipbetween young people and populist rhetoric. Caution is necessaryas the cases selected, while all recognisably right wing populists(with one exception), are individual enough to prevent anythingbut generalised conclusions. This is not a failure of case selection,but rather a reflection of the diversity present within the generaltemplate of “populism”.

Steven A. King, Gabriella Lazaridis

. The rise of the politics of discrimination in Europe

This research comes at a time of rising anxiety about trends in Euro-pean politics caused mainly by the seeming prevalence of politicalparties and movements that are seen as seeking to exclude or dis-criminate against minority groups. Most recently, the EuropeanElection demonstrated haphazard success for some parties describedas “far right eurosceptic” (Halikiopoulou & Vasilopoulou, , p.). By another reckoning, “far–right” parties have increased theirrepresentation by seats since (Mudde, ). News outletssimilarly reported far–right successes in the European Electionin ominous tones (Independent, ; Huffington Post, ).

However, Cas Mudde, writing in the Washington Post, remindsus that the European Election was not a sudden earthquake inwhich far–right parties burst onto the scene, but the end result of along growth of “third wave” parties that emerged in the post materi-alism of the s (Mudde, ). Pettigrew (, p. ) remarked onthe progress made by “anti–immigration” parties in European Elec-tions between and , as part of what he saw as a response to arising tide of “new minorities” composed of former colonial subjects,guest workers and others that have created a complex inter–group sit-uation within Europe. Rydgren (, p. ) has similarly discussedthe emergence since the s of radical right–wing parties that«promote xenophobia (and sometimes racism), ethno–nationalism,sociocultural authoritarianism, and anti–system populism».

In addition to parties, there has emerged a broad range of extra–Parliamentary groups that do not contest elections, and yet attemptto tap into the same concerns that provided a basis of support forpolitical parties. These include the Identitarian movement active inFrance and Austria, various European defence leagues (part of abroader counter jihad movement) and groups committed to specificregional concerns such VMRO in Bulgaria and movements centredaround opposition to particular elements of “progressive legislation”such as same–sex marriage in the case of the ‘French Spring’ move-ment.

.. Populism

A core challenge that surrounds this phenomenon, however, is defi-nitional — are these parties and movements elements of the same

Young people and the politics of discrimination in Europe

coherent phenomenon? Can they be discussed as a single bloc orgroup? One description that has found some traction in public andacademic debate is populism and this is the point of departure forthis analysis.

Populism is a complex phenomenon and has so far mostly es-caped a single common definition. At the most basic level populismis a phenomenon with a “one–dimensional” view of democracy (Za-slove, , p. ). This is one dimensional in that it privileges theidea of popular sovereignty above all else, including the checks andbalances designed in to civil society. Populists look at the liberal com-ponents of democracies including mediated representation and theprotection of minority rights and see them as unacceptable limits onthe popular will (Zaslove, ). Zaslove (, p. ) describes an“ideal type” of populism in which a people, defined as «. . . non–plural,virtuous, and homogeneous groups that are part of the “everyday”and the “normal” core of the country, or the region in question».The “people” are presented as being in conflict with an “elite” anda “dangerous other” composed of special interests (Zaslove, , p.).

In its early meaning, populism was a phenomenon noted inUS (The People’s Party) and Russian (Narodniks) political move-ments that sought to mobilise agricultural populations (Canovan,; Mudde, ). From these roots, populism has gone on to beseen as an inherent component of political groups in both Europeand Latin America. Most infamously, populist rhetoric has beenidentified as a component in Italian and German fascism as wellseveral Latin American governments. However, populism is not alabel confined only to right wing political parties. It has been usedto describe individual figures such as UK Prime Minster MargaretThatcher (Hayward, , p. ). Indeed, Mudde (, p. ) arguesthat since the s populism has become a prominent feature ofmainstream European political parties, described as a populist “Zeit-geist”. Equally, populism has not always been only a feature of theright–wing with several green and left–wing political movementshave also been described as populist either by virtue of their distrustof established elites or their focus on mass appeal (Mudde, , p.; Gifford, , p. ).

More recently it has become common to discuss the idea ofpopulism as a descriptor for a new wave of radical right–wing par-ties and groups of the sorts described by Pettigrew and Rydrgren


above. These include newly emerging groups, along with reconfig-ured groups formerly identified as fascist such as the Front National(France) and the British National Party. This has not been withoutcontroversy as the authenticity of these transitions is often ques-tioned, with some arguing that parties remain fascist at heart (Copsey,). Going further, Mammone (, p. ) has argued that theterm populism is readily embraced by the parties that is applied to,and that it serves to provide a veneer of “democratic legitimization”to views that are xenophobic and neo–fascist.

Unsurprisingly then, to talk of populism is very often to provokeconfusion in an audience. The term populist has been applied to somany starkly different movements over time that it has very nearlylost all meaning. For example, one study of broadsheet newspapersin the UK found that the term populism was applied to figures asdiverse as Barack Obama and Thaksin Shinawatra (Bale et al., ,p. ). In everyday usage, populism is a pejorative used to attackthose on the opposite side of the political spectrum perceived to beforgoing responsible policy in favour of cynical vote–getters (Baleet al., , p. ). As Taguieff (, p. ) once wrote of populism,«il est arrivé une singulière mésaventure au mot “populisme”: il estdevenu populaire» (trans.: «A misadventure happened to the word“populism”: it became popular».

One common strategy to make sense of populism is to pare backthe concept to its absolute basics and view populism as a templatefor politics rather than ideology in itself. For example, Stanley (,p. ) has put forward the concept of a “thin ideology”, arguing thatwhile populism alone must be paired with a “full” ideology: «. . . its[populism’s] thin nature means that it is unable to stand alone asa practical political ideology: it lacks the capacity to put forward awide–ranging and coherent programme for the solution to crucialpolitical questions».

A similar solution for the study of populism advocated by Kalt-wasser (), is to adopt a minimal definition of populism as some-thing short of a distinctive ideology and more akin to a political styleor hollow ideology able to attach and remake itself in the light oflocal circumstance. Similarly for Rydgren () populism is onlyone aspect of a new party family — the radical right wing — andenables those with agendas that resemble traditional fascism in theirauthoritarianism and ethno–nationalism to locate themselves as thechampions of democracy.


Returning to the basis of this study, ultimately it is the otheringcomponent of populism that is most of interest in the context ofanalysis focusing on discrimination. Zaslove (, p. ), in devel-oping the concept of the “dangerous other”, argued that the subjectof othering varied depending on the orientation of the party. Pop-ulists of the left tended to focus on economic threats such as largecorporations, whilst those on the right scapegoated «immigrants,the unemployed, environmentalists, and feminists» (Zaslove, ,p. ). These roles were not seen as fixed, and Zaslove () ac-knowledged the tendency, particularly for right–wing populists, toseek also to oppose large corporate interests. It is this tendency thatmakes right–wing populism the primary interest of this study. Ratherthan identifying specific organisational or discursive styles of politics,we are interested in parties and movements that seek to identifyscapegoats from amongst minority groups on the grounds of theirconstituting the “dangerous other”.

.. Young people and populism

Of specific concern in this analysis is the role of young people withinpopulist parties and movements, specifically how young people cometo be involved, the roles they play and the political messages theyare exposed to. There are several prominent populist parties andmovements that superficially involve young people. Parties suchas the BNP and FPO maintain a specific youth wing. In addition,groups such as the Identitarian Movement (France, Austria) andvarious Slovenian “patriotic movements” such as Here is Sloveniaalso seemingly place high value on the involvement of young people.However, there is little analysis that concentrates on young peoplein these groups and movements specifically. Equally, there is littleevidence that speaks to the relative success or failures of these groupsin recruiting young people. Where data on electoral support forpopulist parties is available, age is typically not seen as good pre-dictor (Oesch, ; Ford et al., ; Lynch et al., ). Outsideof formal electoral support, however, there is some evidence thatpopulist groups may be gaining traction amongst the young. A studyof the membership of European populist political party and move-ment Facebook pages indicated strong support from those under ,accounting for % of the sample (Bartlett et al., , p. ). This rep-resents a population of over . online supporters of identified


populist movements between the ages of and . This numberwould be influenced by the demographics of Facebook at the timeof the study, and perhaps more importantly the readiness of users toengage with Facebook pages. Additionally, it is not clear the extent towhich online support over a social network translates to real worldsupport either in elections of protest actions.

What is known is that young people have a complex relationshipwith democratic politics. There has been widespread reporting offalling turnout and party involvement amongst young people (Hennet al. ; Kimberlee, ; Sloam, ; Kestila–Kekkonen, ;Henn and Foard, ; Cammaerts et al., ). However, rather thanexplaining this away as apathy, many researchers have pointed outthat academics tend to privilege traditional modes of participationsuch as voting and party membership over less–traditional modeslike protest, boycott or wearing expressive symbols such as badges(Quintilier, ). Bennett et al. () describe two contrasting typesof citizenship: “dutiful” and “self–actualizing”. Younger people werethought to favour a more expressive style of citizenship in whichvoting and party membership were secondary to a focus on lifestyleissues, informal organisational networks and less trust of the mediaand politicians (Bennett et al., ).

These different understandings of what it means to be a citizenhave been explained as products of lifestyle factors such as delays inattaining adult status marked by a family and steady job. Withoutthese ties to political life young people may arguably feel little needto vote (Kimberlee, ). In addition, established party organisationsare not always equipped to handle youth politics and may comeinto conflict with youth branches (Kimberlee, ). Overall, politicsin many European countries is not equipped to appeal to youngpeople and this, rather than apathy, may go some way to explainingthe apparent disconnection of young people: «Most young peopleare not bored with politics, but they often believe that those who“do” politics are neither representing them nor care about them. . . »(Cammaerts et al., , p. ).

A deeper argument also suggests young people hold a differ-ent set of values to those of their parents. Kimberlee () arguesthat younger people hold a new set of political values that are far–removed from the class–based analysis that remains the central or-ganising principle of traditional politics. Previously “post–materialist”values were seen as a product of prosperity and security on the basis


that political values were acquired during youth and remained in-fluential (Inglehart, ). More recently the status of young peoplehas been less secure. Kimberlee () described ongoing processesof deindustrialisation and economic restructuring that contributedto generational differences in political participation. Since the financial crash, high levels of youth unemployment might arguablybe compounding these developments (Tse, ). Although, as Ha-likiopoulou and Vasilopoulou () rightly point out, the most trou-bled economies in Europe did not prove to be fertile grounds forpopulist–type parties. Never the less, it is difficult to escape the ideaof a generation of young people, many of whom are in a precariouseconomic position, who feel badly served by established politicalstructures and are interested in politics that speaks to lifestyle issuessuch as the environment or, crucially in the context of right wingpopulism, identity.

The current situation appears well suited to the possibility ofmobilisation of young people by populist political groupings, eitherthose which are patterned after movements, or even more formalpolitical parties. It is precisely the thin nature of populism that al-lows populist groups to collect disparate grievances and incorporatethem into a one simple argument blaming “them” for a wide rangeof ills. Writing about what he describes as “Neo–Populist Parties”Immerfall (, p. ) described the tendency of populists to collectgrievances: « The younger worker, having trouble landing a job orstaying permanently employed has little in common with the well–heeled pensioner who voters NPP [Neo–Populist party] because oftheir opposition to the left–libertarian agenda ».

In summary, there is no reason to think that younger people willbe more or less attracted to populist groups than other ages. Despitethis, the growth of populist groups suggests that there will be popu-lations of young people embedded in populist groups. Additionally,a large part of the traditional barrier for youth participation, that ofdifferentiated values, seemingly does not apply to populist groupsthat are flexible enough to work around conventional class–basedpolitics and to incorporate lifestyle factors such as “identity” into thepolitical mix.


. Case selection and methods

Case selection was based on the competing demands of maintaininga unified framework for analysis, i.e. the different research teamsneeded to explore similar types of political grouping, whilst at thesame time selections had to make sense in local contexts and accord-ing to local politics. At the same time, the researchers recogniseda level of political diversity in the idea of “populist” parties andmovements that meant an overly proscriptive approach would beinappropriate. Given the interest in discrimination and the repre-sentation of minorities as “dangerous others” (Zaslove, , p. )characteristic of populism on the right of politics, the vast majorityof cases were right–wing populist parties and movements. There wasone exception, the Belgian COMAC (the youth wing of the left–wingPTB). This was included in the study as a result of the difficulties ofengaging with right–wing populist groups in Belgium and also as achance to include an example of populism on the left.

Table . Case study organisations by partner country

Partner Subject Subject

Austria Identitarian Movement Ring freiheitlicher Jugend (RFJ) (FPÖYouth Branch)

Belgium Parti Populaire (PP) COMAC (Young Parti des Tra-vailleurs Belges (PTB))

Bulgaria VMRO (Internal MacedonianRevolutionary Organisation

NIE (National Ideal for Unity)

France Les Identitaires French Spring (Printemps Français)Italy Lega Nord (LN) Casa Pound Italia (CPI)Slovenia Here is Slovenia New Slovenia (Nova Slovenija)United Kingdom The British National Party

(BNP)The Counter–Jihad Nebula (CJN)

The study was based on an analysis of documents and othertexts (including speeches, manifestos, online postings) and semi–structured interviews with members or supporters of populist groups.Where possible younger members of populist groups were inter-viewed, but older members were also included in the sample. Theinterview schedule included questions about political beliefs, edu-cation and social and family life. Semi–structured interviews wereused as the research was designed to support additional research,and as a result the researchers had a good idea which aspects of


participation they were interested in. Equally, the comparative natureof the research and the involvement of multiple research teams alsocreated a need to ensure that results would be in some way compa-rable (Bryman, ). Despite this, semi–structured interviews stilloffered enough flexibility to address interesting situations as theyarose and to represent the often very different local contexts.

Most research teams found interviewees through methods em-bedded in official organisational structures. In some cases organi-sations were key to organising interviews and had a great deal ofcontrol over who researchers had access to (Batignani, Fabbro andRanieri, ). Equally, interviewees were often drawn from specificareas and the number of interview subjects makes it difficult to con-sider the interviewee data collected as representative of an entireorganisation, although this was not a goal of the project. However,a qualitative interview approach allows for and in–depth picture ofthe ideas and worldview held by members and supporters of theseorganisations as well as a deeper insight into organisational factors.As such, this approach was considered to be an excellent fit for theaims of this study.

Contacting populist organisations themselves was difficult insome cases. In the Austrian case, the initial non–response fromthe umbrella organisation of the Identitarian Movement led to re-searchers contacting regional branches and an online magazine, al-though again without success, which led to an increased reliance ofdocument analysis to make up for a lack of interviews. The Italianteam also contended with non–response when attempting to contactCasa Pound Italia (CPI). Consequently, they visited the CPI headquar-ters twice and handed them a letter with the contents of the messagepreviously sent to the press office via email. Even where contactswere successfully made, populist groups were often reluctant toparticipate in the project. In the UK one BNP potential intervieweerefused an interview on the grounds of the UK National Union ofStudents “No Platform” policy towards the BNP. Other researchteams also experienced mixed levels of co–operation from contacts,many of whom would reschedule meetings or cancel at the lastminute. In Italy contact with the Lega Nord went through a hiatus ofthree months and ultimately stalled, resulting in four interviews withthe Lega Nord instead of the planned five. Although much of this re-luctance to participate is likely explicable by the usual time pressuresthat affect interviews, in particular with political elites, in the context


of these groups it is also important to recall the anti–elitist compo-nent of the populist narrative. For many of those research teamsattempted to interview, researchers embody an established orderthat they deeply oppose and as such the reluctance to give interviewsis likely in part ideological. In the majority of cases, research teamswere able to meet or exceed their quota of interviews.

. Why join?

Interviewees were asked about how they had come to join their par-ticular group or movement and in particular about the recruitmentpractices of the organisation. Responses were diverse but a numberof common themes emerged. The most common reason offered forparticipation in a populist group or movement was ideology. Inter-viewees frequently described their agreement with or affinity for thepolicy or cultural values of an organisation.

Interviews with members of the “Here is Slovenia” movementreveal a common interest in historical debates and “patriotic themes”as well as a belief that the educational system was not addressingspecific issues as a result of communist legacy:

It also bothers me that certain older teachers are still hiding a part of thetruth because in the communist regime they couldn’t tell everything to thepupils, let’s say about the post–war killings and other themes, and someteachers are still hiding this even though Tito has been gone for over years. [Here is Slovenia interviewee quoted in Bajt and Pajnik, , p. ]

For activists in the Lega Nord (Italy), ideology also played a largepart in their decision to participate in the organisation. The sharing ofLega Nord’s ideals and values, the identification with the ideas thatLega Nord is pursuing, and in particular the sharing of Lega Nord’smain goal: the defence of “our land” and of “our people” (“our goal”as the respondents say) and the affirmation of “our rights” that canonly be achieved with greater autonomy and independence.

In addition to an ideological affinity, interviewees would oftenrefer to specific events as catalysts for their involvement. In the UK,one interviewee described the appeal of the BNP’s “Tough on Crime”message by recounting the story of a young offender he saw ontelevision who, in his opinion, had received a lenient sentence:


This young, thug–type person, came out of court with. . . giving the middlefinger. I feel particular exception to that. This guy attending court and beingsentenced to whatever. . . just a complete and utter joke, and I thought atthat, I thought then: there is something wrong in this country; there issomething wrong. [BNP interviewee quoted in Lazaridis & Lee, , p. ]

One prominent (and older) activist within the CJN (the subject isbased in the USA) stressed the significance of the / terror attacks:

I turned to blogging (in ) after spending several years following /commenting about Islam on online Discussion forums. I found that themore I learned about the dark side of Islam and the teachings of the quran[sic], the more I got banned from these forums for posting the truth whichwas considered politically incorrect and shocking to readers. [CJN intervie-wee quoted in Lazaridis & Lee, , p. ]

Similarly, in Belgium membership of COMAC was driven by atti-tudes to global events such as the Iraq war, in particular for youngpeople. In Austria, two interviewees from RFJ cited negative per-sonal experiences with non–Austrian youth as impacting on theirengagement. In one case, a conflict arose over the popular song “Iam from Austria” being played in a bar; in the other case our intervie-wee recalled being forbidden to use the German language in publictransport on his way to school and even being exposed to physicalviolence for that reason.

For activists within the French Spring network Catholic beliefsand tradition were pre–eminent, often inherited from families: «Inmy family, the catholic tradition is a main issue» [French Springinterviewee quoted in Benveniste and Pingaud, , p. ].

Interestingly, however, only two of the French interviewees werestrictly observant Catholics, with others attending church only oc-casionally. This suggests that the norms and values represented byCatholicism, as opposed to religiosity, were the unifying aspects inthis instance.

There was less evidence from interviewees of participation drivenby family obligation or concern. In the case of VMRO, family historyconnected to Macedonia was also seen as a key factor by intervie-wees:

One very important reason for my decision to join VMRO is my family’shistory — my grandfather who brought me up is from Bitolya. He foughtfor the liberation of Macedonia during the II World War. He brought me


and my sister up in this tradition and now we have this way of seeing andperceiving things. [VMRO interviewee quoted in Krasteva et al., , p. ]

However, any social benefits of participation came with attendantrisks of alienation from family and friends outside of the group.For example, interviewees from the RFJ reported scepticism fromfamily members about their involvement, but this stopped shortof direct opposition to their involvement (Sauer and Mayer, ,p. ). Interviewees from CPI also said that family members oftenhad very different politics to their own, in one instance indicatingthat their parents voted for the Italian Communist Party. In anothercase, an interviewee from CPI was able to win over their parents totheir cause (Batignani, Fabbro and Ranieri, , p. ). There wasalso some evidence of membership of populist organisations causingfriction amongst friends and with other organisations rather thanfamily. One member of RFJ in Austria reported that belonging tothe group entailed dealing with a great deal of criticism and hadcost at least one friendship. However, this was balanced against newrelationships forged as members of the RFJ (Sauer and Mayer, , p.). Outside the context of the interview, after the recorder had beenswitched off, others admitted that they had experienced pressure.In one case a young member, who had been photographed at anRFJ–event, was allegedly told by his employer to choose betweenhis job and his political activity. In the UK, contributors to the CJNalso reported difficulties with institutions as a result of their politicalbeliefs: «If I went for a normal job now I probably wouldn’t getbecause all you have to do is search my name and it’ll say [name] is aNazi» [CJN interviewee quoted in Lazaridis & Lee, , p. ].

Interviewees were also asked about activities carried out by organ-isations to recruit new members or supporters. In the vast majorityof cases, interviewees were adamant that recruits came to groupson their own. This links strongly with the importance of ideologicalaffinity described above. In groups such as the French Identitaires,and judging by their reaction to attempts to make contact, the Aus-trian Identitarian Movement, part of the appeal seems to be the senseof exclusivity attached to membership. In the French case, recruitswere tested through preliminary meetings with a “tutor” and a train-ing camp lasting up to a week and consisting of both physical trainingand classroom instruction (Benveniste and Pingaud, ). In othercases groups did work to make contact and inspire young people


to join. For example, in the case of VMRO, patriotic or nationalisticteachers were cited as being a component in recruitment strategies(Krasteva et al., ). However, in the majority of cases groups lim-ited themselves to more passive forms of recruitment, for exampleby ensuring that potential recruits had access to supportive literatureand messages. Members of the RFJ reported election campaigns asan opportunity for them to find out more about the organisation(Sauer and Mayer, ). A further example of this kind of passivecampaigning is the “Patriotic Primer” produced by NIE, a groupspun off from the Bulgarian VMRO. This document is meant toinstruct recipients on key events in Bulgarian history (Krasteva et al.,). Members of the Young British National Party, the youth branchof the BNP (since rebranded BNP Youth) reported encountering astreet stall run by party members as being a key event in their path tojoining the party. This event, however, was further supplemented byparty literature and web presences as interviewees reported carryingout their own research into the BNP (Lazaridis & Lee, , p. ).Web presences were also cited as often being influential in recruit-ment as the basis for finding out more information about specificgroups and ideas:

That [the Internet] was really where I learnt my politics — you know real,real politics of today rather than a blue rosette and a red rosette and no onethinking about anything – but yes, that was, that was my political awakeningof reading things like Gates of Vienna obviously and all the books you couldaccess. [CJN interviewee quoted in Lazaridis & Lee, , p. ]

Indeed, some groups were so “do it yourself ” that they hadlittle resembling formalised recruitment strategies. For example, theFrench Spring and the Counter–Jihad Nebula were movements soloosely organised that the very idea of membership was irrelevant(Benveniste and Pingaud, ; Lazaridis & Lee, ). Membershipcould be said to be almost meaningless, with contributors able tomove in and out, commenting on texts, authoring texts (subject toeditorial acceptance) or even establishing their own websites as theypleased.


. The role of youth

The paths to participation in the populist political organisations cho-sen by the researchers were diverse, and so to were the roles ofyoung people and youth wings of organisations within them. Whilstnone of the interviewees explicitly rejected youth participation, therewas often a division between the rhetoric and reality of these organi-sations.

In several cases youth organisations were held up as being centralto the functioning of the organisations. Nowhere was a commitmentto youth politics more evident than in the Identitarian Movements.In France, the Identitaires network put youth mobilisation centre–stage within the movement. A new wave of youth orientated groupshas emerged around the label “Generation Identitaire”, allowingthe movement to compensate for its aging early leaders. Youth isintrinsic to the politics of the Identitiaires, as the “Declaration ofWar” written by Generation Identitaire makes clear: «We have noneed of your politics of youth. Youth is our politics» [Quoted inBenveniste and Pingaud, , p. ].

Similarly, in Austria, young people play a key role in the embry-onic Identitarian Movement. In Bulgaria, VMRO maintains a veryactive youth organisation having strong relations with informal farright groups and football fan clubs. VMRO is also active withinschools and universities and has a clear focus on mobilising youngpeople, with teachers playing a key role alongside peers and familyconnections to Macedonia. However, VMRO does not actively re-cruit young people, feeling that it is important that young peoplecome to the organisation of their own accord (Krasteva et al., , p.). As with VMRO, members joined NIE as young people mobilisedat first by the romanticism in the idea of changing politics, althoughthis reportedly faded with time. Some of the interviewees expresseddeeper concerns over the levels of youth involvement, arguing thatyoung people had grown disengaged by the political process:

Young people do not believe anymore that they can change anything in thepolitical life of this country. –% of the voters are years old and moreand this is scary! [NIE interviewee quoted in Krasteva et al., , p. ]

In Slovenia, HiS is a youth centric organisation and draws atten-tion amongst young people, with a reputation seemingly greater than


that of smaller patriotic groups. New Slovenia also maintains a dedi-cated youth wing, Young Slovenia. The position of the youth branchseems particularly strong within the party structure, as the presidentof the Young Slovenia is also responsible for PR for the wider party.The prominent role of Young Slovenia within New Slovenia is likelyconnected to the party’s exit from parliament after the electionsin which the youth wing were seen as key to maintaining the exis-tence of the party until it was able to re–enter parliament (Šori et al.,, p. ). In Belgium, the far–left COMAC identifies itself explicitlyas a youth organisation attached to the PTB, however some of theinterviewees were reluctant to single out youth as a specific group,believing that they need to defend the interests of all segments insociety (Geeroms et al., , p. ). In Austria, the RFJ is a youthmovement attached to a larger party organisation that contests elec-tions, the FPÖ. Consequently, the role of youth is in contributing tothe wider goal of bringing about an FPÖ–led government.

Other groups seemingly had significant difficulties in maintainingyouth wings beyond rhetorical commitments. In the UK, one inter-viewee and former Young BNP leader suggested that, in contrastwith the surface commitment to a youth movement, many in theparty did not take the Young BNP seriously (Lazaridis & Lee, ).The interviewees were keen to point out the difference betweenmembers and supporters, arguing that support for the Young BNPwas far higher than membership as those who may be sympathetic tothe group were put off joining by negative media attention and fearsof social stigma. Aside from the stigma, there was also a recognitionof the competing demands on the time of younger people: «Theissue would be, youth who have got to find jobs, education, securityand that sort of thing. So we get a lot more support than activism»[BNP interviewee quoted in Lazaridis & Lee, , p. ].

In Belgium, the Parti Populaire was riven with frequent internalconflicts between personalities and few human resources. As a result,there were felt to be few possibilities of actively recruiting youngermembers. The Parti Populaire does not have a specific youth wingand the mobilisation of youth is seen as being informal and based onpersonal networks such as familial relationships. Through the courseof the interviews it was established that the Parti Populaire had ini-tially tried to form a youth wing, but without success (Geeroms etal., , p. ). This was blamed on pressures on young people suchas study as well as competition from leisure activities including the


Internet. In the UK, the CJN attitude to youth participation againoften presents young people as being of central importance to po-litical life, but there was some concern over the ability of youngpeople to engage, particularly from older segments of the CJN. Inother elements of the CJN, however, young people were being moreactively sought: «We’re working hard to try and bring young peopleinto our movement through people like [activist name] organisinguniversities» [CJN interviewee quoted in Lazaridis & Lee, , p. ].

. Politics in Populist Discourses

Finally, interviewees were also asked about the politics of the or-ganisations they had joined, in particular with respect to their atti-tudes towards minority groups. Most of the research teams reportedwidespread anti–establishment sentiment which can be viewed aspolitical othering, in that elites are seen as representing a dangerousout group. This is discussed further below. In addition, many ofthe interviewees expressed a dislike or an opposition to particularminority groups. Each is specific to the national political contextand, although the populist narratives serve as a template, in eachcase the narrative is tailored to fit the political situation. Focusingonly on the othering of minorities, three groups seem to bear thebrunt of populist othering: immigrants, religious minorities andhomosexuals.

.. Othering of minorities

The most common example of othering across all partner coun-tries was related to immigrant groups. Perhaps stemming from theimportance of establishing a single homogenous identity, a people,those who are attempting to join from outside were often singledout for criticism. In several cases, criticism of immigration was quietnuanced. For example, in Italy CPI formulated opposition to multi-culturalism through a precise narrative termed “multi–racist society”.In Slovenia, immigration sparked clear answers from New Slovenia.All of them agreed that immigration should be under strict control,and expressed fears over the scale of immigration and the endanger-ing of European culture by immigrants who bring with them theirreligion, culture and habits. Muslims and people from the Middle


East seem to be the biggest fear of the New Slovenia and are oftenseen as interchangeable with migrants, even though they are rareamong immigrants in Slovenia. At the same time, the intervieweesqualify their remarks emphasising respect towards all religions:

For the New Slovenia, the most significant debate was the one about theMuslims and the mosque and such. I have absolutely nothing against theMuslims, I support their right to practice their religion, but I oppose Slove-nia suddenly rushing towards, in a sense, I’ll put it bluntly, the sharia law.[New Slovenia interviewee quoted in Šori et al., , p. ]

A similar strain of rhetoric can be found in the UK. The BNPstressed its opposition to immigration, although they often stoppedshort of criticising immigrants themselves, preferring to frame im-migration as a failure of established government parties as opposedto malign intentions on behalf of incoming immigrants.

But I think where the main problem lies is, not the people that come here,but the issue would be that we allow this to happen. For them to come hereand it doesn’t help them in any way, it’s much more than what we wouldhelp them in another way. I think there’s all kinds of solutions to that sortof immigration. [BNP interviewee quoted in Lazaridis & Lee, , p. ]

In Belgium too, the PP aims to limit the number of migrantscoming to Belgium, although opinion was often varied with someinterviews seeing immigration as permissible in the context of inte-gration.

Now we’re tired of paying for all these foreigners, immigrants arriving.It should regulate that. If you suppress all social allocations you will see,migrants will not knock on the door and trying to have money in Belgium.It is not normal that us, the workers, we have to pay for those people whodo anything and profit of the society! [PP interviewee quoted in Geeromset al., , p. ]

Rhetoric over immigration was often confused and linked immi-gration to cultural threats with little or no deeper analysis. In thecase of New Slovenia, “immigrant” and “Muslim” were almost seenas being interchangeable in the minds of the subjects. In a number ofadditional cases, Islam has been singled out as especially problematicby populist organisations. The most strident example is the inter-national movement, considered here in the context of the UK, theCounter–Jihad Nebula. The CJN maintains an unequivocal stance


on Islam and near universally, across senior bloggers, organisers andyouth activists, presents Islam and the West as existing in a state ofconflict:

Islam is not going to co–exist with us, they’re not going to integrate withus they are always going to be separate and as their numbers grow, they’regoing to become more and more belligerent. I mean you only have to lookaround the world today to see that not only can Islam not co–exist withother religions and other people, they can’t even co–exist with themselves.[CJN interviewee quoted in Lazaridis & Lee, , p. ]

Remaining in the UK context, the BNP was also often highly crit-ical of Islam, although there were differences in emphasis betweenmembers. One former member of the YBNP saw the solidarity of theMuslim community as something to emulate whilst others decried“Muslim immigration” as “insane”:

It’s insane to have Muslim immigration because you are importing an armythat basically hates you. Islamic hatred of the West, and of the Jew, and of theChristian is really quite unbelievable. [BNP interviewee quoted in Lazaridis& Lee, , p. ]

In Slovenia, Here is Slovenia is noted for producing YouTube con-tent directed against Muslims. Tolerance for Muslims was expressedby some interviewees but with a firm emphasis on integration andthe prioritisation of Christian values and the restriction of Muslimreligious practices:

There’s always been Christian faith here and we want it to also remainforever. If they come here with Islamic faith, let them be, but in generalone must adapt to the people with the majority religion. [HiS intervieweequoted in Bajt and Pajnik , p. ]

In France, the Identitaires were among the first groups to raisequestions about “Islamization” and the cultural incompatibility ofIslam and French values. Noticeably, the competing Front Nationalhave defended some Arab leaders such as Saddam Hussein or Muam-mar Gaddafi. However the Identitarian critique of Islam is subtleand focuses on promoting French values. Identiaire’s opposition ispublicly translated into “acceptable terms” (Benveniste and Pingaud,, p. ). A similar current of opposition to alleged Islamisationfeatures in the Austrian branch of the movement (Sauer and Mayer,


, p. ). Finally, in Belgium accounts from PP members also dis-play a critical opinion of Islam, although to a lesser extent than theCJN. The majority of interviewees were against the wearing of head-scarves and what they saw as the rise of Islamism. Establishmentparties were seen as being “Muslim–compassionate”. PP membersdo accept Muslims if they are “right and integrated” (Geeroms et al.,, p. ).

In other contexts, the hostile other has been defined on racialrather than religious grounds, although both can be considered aspart of a wider concept of identity. The Roma minority has also beensingled out in Bulgaria by VMRO. One young VMRO leader showeda fairly moderate discourse for much of the interview, but whenreferring to Roma he described the “pro–creativity of the gipsies”,going on to argue that:

Strict measures are needed regarding the profession gipsy pro–creativitybecause mainly the poorest make children and give birth to children whoare at a high risk. [. . . ] I have terrible cases — when we were entering suchkind of abandoned edifices and camps in the ghettos there was for examplea woman — at an unknown age, with no ID, which means that she wasnot existing for the State — and she had children. She even didn’t knowtheir names, she couldn’t count till . And she was answering in an Animalplanet–way, it was disgusting. [VMRO interviewee quoted in Krasteva et al.,, p. ]

Another interviewee admitted engaging in physical violence di-rected against a civic official seen as pro–Roma:

I gathered few boys, we turned our national flags upside down and enteredthe municipality by kicking doors. We slammed a few people, but the mayormanaged to escape in the chaos. [VMRO interviewee quoted in Krasteva etal., , p. ]

In addition to focusing on specific religious and ethnic groups,a number of subjects were critical of homosexuality. Often thesenarratives were part of wider accounts concerned with traditionalvalues and on themes around the family. In Slovenia, research teamsfocusing on the Here is Slovenia group reported homophobic at-titudes and an emphasis on prioritising traditional family units insubjects’ accounts. Similar attitudes can be found in established poli-tics as for instance in the official programme of New Slovenia whichfocuses on the promotion of ‘traditional’ family values. In the UK,


several interviewees raised the subject of homosexuality. Whilst theyexpressed negative opinions about homosexuality, in one case evencalling for criminalisation, others were keen to emphasise that ho-mosexuality was not an issue that concerned them overly. In France,the association of homosexual rights with the left has prompted op-position from the Identitaires. The “family” has recently become anissue, partly because of the movement against same–sex weddings.The Identitaires were part of the large Spring demonstrations andfeatured in confrontations with the police. The Identitaires were evendescribed by the Minister of Interior (Manuel Valls) as one cause ofthe troubles. Except for a very few, all the participants seemed tohave internalised the necessity to appear as tolerant and there wasa clear wish to avoid the appearance of homophobia. In most oftheir answers interviewees evoked criteria supposed to show theirinability to be marked as “homophobic” (“I have an uncle who isgay”, “they already have civil union [in French “PACS”] and I supportit”) (Benveniste and Pingaud, , p. ).

In Bulgaria, NIE also raised the issue of homosexuality. Therewere mixed attitudes. One member engaged in a heavily anti–gaynarrative:

There is no aggression nor anti–messages in it. [. . . ] but we can’t confinewhen a small group squeakily and loudly scandalizes the society by brutallyintruding its sexuality and has the pretension of having the right for specialattention [. . . ] just because it is sexually different. [. . . ] this is menacing andconfusing for child’s consciousness and moral, because children cannotunderstand why some men around them are waving pink thong–bikini.[NIE interviewee quoted in Krasteva et al., , p. ]

This strongly open anti–gay discourse is not shared by otherinterviewees. On the contrary, one of them — around his middle–s and also with an important position, when asked about anti–gaybillboards declared:

To be honest I am a little bit ashamed of this billboard. My personal opinionis that we shouldn’t put them. They were looking for provocation andmedia attention, but this isn’t our profile and we shouldn’t have dealt withsuch a thing. [NIE interviewee quoted in Krasteva et al., , p. ]


.. Anti–elitism

One strong finding of the research is the degree to which the groupsand movements chosen connected their criticism of minorities tothe behaviour of political elites and saw them as evidence of misman-agement by a political class detached from the everyday concerns ofthe “ordinary” citizen.

Within the Austrian Identitarian movement, one online postingidentifies left wing/green activists “leftist–green neurotics” as beingcomplicit in the «crazy multiculti–system» (Sauer and Mayer, , p.). Criticism of elites was also evident from interviews with mem-bers of RFJ. Rather than being outside the political system in themanner of the Identitarian Movement, RFJ, as the youth wing of theFPÖ, is more closely tied with conventional politics and electioneer-ing. Many interviewees focused on the political process rather thanits outcomes. In general, interviewees emphasised what they saw asa lack of self–confidence in the Austrian government’s dealings withthe EU and other member states (Sauer and Mayer, , p. ).

In Belgium, the interviewees from left–wing COMAC were uni-versally critical of the current government. Principally they formu-lated their arguments by drawing comparisons with Socialist states.Government corruption was seen as endemic, with intervieweesmaintaining that those in power could not advocate on behalf of the‘ordinary’ people. Such claims were also juxtaposed with ongoingausterity measures in Belgium. Also in Belgium, the Parti Populairebased their critique of the current Parti Socialiste government onclientelism:

If you don’t have the party socialist card’s member, you cannot do anythingor have any public job in my region. [PP interviewee quoted in Geeroms etal., , p. ]

In Slovenia, New Slovenia centres on a clear political other, namelyits own version of the Communist past. Those on the right, includingNew Slovenia often blame the former Communist regime for con-temporary problems. Interviewees pointed to the lack of qualifiedpersonnel in the right political spectrum, non–engagement of theright–wing parties’ sympathisers, “over one million big” Sloveniandiaspora, lack of entrepreneurial spirit, as well as claims that peoplehad become lazy and dependent on the state. The educational system


is still seen as being under the influence of the old regime’s ideologyand mentality, thereby all left wing political parties are considered tobe communist (Šori et al., , p. ).

In France, the Identitaires based a large part of their political phi-losophy on their opposition to what they see as “leftism” (“gauchisme”in French). All of the interviewees report deciding to participate po-litically in reaction to the perceived domination of left–wing activistsin their environments, and especially the universities they studied in:

I was fed up of all the unionists, the Marxist, they always came into theclassrooms and do their speeches, with most of the teachers who supportedthem and no one to dare to tell them to shut up, [Identitaires intervieweequoted in Benveniste and Pingaud, , p. ]

The participants in the French Spring also viewed “leftist thought”as an ideological enemy supposed to have introduced relativismand destroyed the basis of traditional society. Interviewees werepreviously classical right–wing electors:

I have been voted for Gaullist parties for years. [French Spring intervieweequoted in Benveniste and Pingaud, , p. ]

In Italy, the CPI has a staunch opinion on the overall politicalorganisation of Italy. CPI’s politics has been presented by highlightingthe distance from – and opposition to — the policies and the conceptof politics embodied in past and present governments, in particular,the ‘technical government’ of Mario Monti.

According to the interviewees what all these different govern-ments share — along with all those in charge after the end of WorldWar II and all the current parliamentary parties — is to be of ser-vice to supranational powers described as the main “enemy” or“traitors” of European Nations and their peoples (Batignani, Fabbroand Ranieri, , p. ).

In the UK, the BNP interviewees were universally critical of thecurrent crop of political parties, seeing them as working against thecommon political interests and that the BNP provides a genuine alter-native voice. One member specifically linked previous governmentsto mass immigration, arguing that immigration was encouraged forpolitical gain. Criticism was particularly staunch of the centre–leftLabour Party, widely perceived as betraying their commitment tothe “working man”, which has since been taken up by the BNP:


I hate Labour with a passion — with a passion. I don’t even know where tostart. My hate for them goes very, very deep. [BNP interviewee quoted inLazaridis & Lee, , p. ]

In the UK, and internationally, the CJN also expressed stronganti–elite sentiment. Several interviewees saw mass–immigration asa component in wider political manoeuvres. Again, the left, repre-sented by the Labour Party, is seen as particularly problematic withone interviewee in particular accusing the Labour Party of “despisingthe English”:

I think there are two clear motives — first of all on the right hand theconservative movement — they love cheap labour — they love cheap labourbecause of their business interest — business people love it and they are[unintelligible] people in the Conservative party — as for the Labour people— well they despise the English, they despise the whole nation and this is away of destroying it and I think those are the two overriding motives. [CJNinterviewee quoted in Lazaridis & Lee, , p. ]

In other contexts, however, there was less evidence of oppositionto established governments. For example, in Italy, the Lega Nordmembers place at their centre the goal of greater autonomy forthe North, but acknowledge that they lack the political strength toachieve it independently. This leads to a pragmatic approach to otherparties in which the methods used are less important than the overallgoal (Batignani, Fabbro and Ranieri, , p. ). In Bulgaria, VMROexpressed strong dislike for the nationalist Ataka Party, viewing themand their leader as: “drained and morally outdated” (Krasteva et al.,, p. ).

In addition, VMRO was also critical of the other Bulgarian sub-ject, NIE. This is unsurprising as the party split from VMRO. NIE’sactions are seen as “unfair and treasonous”, their youth organisa-tion «realized that they were cheated and manipulated, said that theywere sorry and came back to us» (Krasteva et al., , p. ). NIEinterviewees also expressed an overarching narrative that saw thecurrent state of the country as being variously: “failed”, “corrupted”or “broke” (Krasteva et al., , ). However, as with VMRO, NIEalso attacked political rivals. NIE criticises VMRO, the mother struc-ture from which it split as well as other similar parties in Bulgaria(Krasteva et al., , p. ).


.. Euro–scepticism

The European Union was also a feature in many populist narratives,although it was not exclusively seen in a negative light. Opinionon the European Union amongst the New Slovenia intervieweeswas mixed but generally positive. New Slovenia supports currentEuropean austerity policies and speculation over a Slovenian bailoutat the time of the interviews was dismissed: «Europe doesn’t imposeanything on Slovenia, we will ask for help by ourselves» (MP andPresident of NS, p. ).

One interviewee also saw the EU as a guarantee against Commu-nist ideas in Slovenia:

But as this is hard to achieve, it is better to live in community with nations,who do not have socialism uploaded in their head and do not expect thatthe state will take care of everything. [Representative of an organisationclose to New Slovenia quoted in Šori et al., , p. ]

In the Belgian PP, views on the European Union were diverse.Some members went against party policy and expressed admirationfor, whilst lamenting the governance of, the EU. In contrast, anothersaw the EU as allowing other members to undercut and out–competeBelgian workers:

These people (the foreigners) are favoured and people who are here inBelgium must go unemployed because they do not have their place as it isa Polish that is working instead of Belgians. . . [PP interviewee quoted inGeeroms et al., , p. ]

Other accounts were more negative, however. In Slovenia, al-though it was not discussed a great deal in the interviews, there is aclear concern in the narrative of Here is Slovenia over the power ofeconomic elites (Bajt and Pajnik, , p. ).

None of the Lega Nord interviewees offered a spontaneous opin-ion about the EU, and only gave their views when they were asked.Europe is primarily seen by respondents as a missed opportunity, apolitical space far from citizens where only certain interests are rep-resented. It is viewed as an agent of control with dubious legitimacythat affects the local destinies of people ignoring their needs, witha market–oriented interest rather than a political one. With regardto Europe, CPI argues for a “Europe of the peoples” rather than a


“Europe of the economic oligarchies”. According to respondents, thepresent EU is primarily seen as an instrument of government on thepart of the international financial system.

In the UK, the CJN and the BNP are critical of the EuropeanUnion. In the CJN narrative, and in the mother conspiracy theory —Eurabia — the EU is seen as a key agent in the threatened Islamisationof Europe.

Ordinary citizens are simply cannon fodder, pawns to be sacrificed in theconquest of their glorious, new empire. Mass immigration is used to crushall nation states simultaneously so that the natives have no real alternatives toflee to, and no countries can come to the aid of others against the advancingIslamization. [Fjordman quoted in Lazaridis & Lee, , p. ]

. Conclusions

This analysis has sought, through directly asking young people andsupporters of populist movements, to better understand the rela-tionship between populist political groups and young people. Morespecifically, it has sought to understand why young people havejoined or supported these groups, what function they play withinorganisations and the kinds of political message they encounter oradopt as part of these groups. An in–depth qualitative approach hasrevealed personal and in–depth accounts. Although these accountsspeak little to the overall scale of youth involvement in populism,they do give a glimpse of how these organisations relate to theiryounger members and supporters.

The primary motivation to participate in populist organisationswas ideological. Those we interviewed saw the parties and move-ments they belonged to as representing their beliefs. There wassome further evidence that specific events in people’s lives, eitherpersonal, national or international in scale, might also act as catalystsfor joining such groups. There was also limited evidence for socialand familial support for involvement in some cases, but this was bal-anced by accounts of the social costs of involvement with these typesof groups. Interviewees were frequently worried that involvementwith groups had cost them friendships or would cause difficulty withpotential future employers. There was also only limited evidence forany kinds of aggressive recruitment strategies. Only in one case didnational case studies report the use of sympathetic teachers in order


to encourage membership (VMRO in Bulgaria). In the majority ofother cases recruitment was limited to putting out information andconventional campaigning. There was also a mixed role for youngpeople within populist organisations themselves. In some cases youthinvolvement was seen as central, in others peripheral.

The concern over youth involvement with populist political move-ments was predicated on the role of othering within populist dis-course. The acknowledged tendency of right–wing populists to iso-late and oppose “dangerous others” as threats to the common cit-izenry is a key concern of those writing about populism (Zaslove,, p. ). In hardly any cases did this behaviour manifest in theform of crude supremacy or violence. More often than not, otheringwas far more subtle, depersonalised and linked to other legitimatepolitical concerns, the foremost of which was immigration. In ad-dition, this was very often tied to a powerful dissatisfaction withestablished political leadership and transnational organisations suchas the European Union. Of course, the extent to which these ar-guments themselves were powered by racism and xeno– homo–or Islamophobias is open to question. The recoding of “legitimate”political arguments to reflect innate prejudices is a noted featureof contemporary discrimination. Barker’s analysis of “new racism”suggests that these debates are motivated by theories of human na-ture that privileges national identities and differentiation that differlittle from conventional racism (Barker, , p. ). Conversely, thereduction of everything to a form of prejudice seemingly precludesrational and legitimate debate around sensitive questions such asimmigration.

Overall, there are reasons to be cautious about the relationshipsbetween the groups we spoke to and young people. Although thischapter can only speak to the organisations and subjects chosen ascase studies, clearly, in some case cases, young people were being mo-bilised in service of politics that actively discriminate against minoritygroups. Nevertheless, youth participation was seemingly freely givenand the result of ideological belief rather than either social pressuresor aggressive recruitment strategies. There were reasons to be con-cerned about the position of many of these organisations towardsminority groups, but these were typically depersonalised policy–typecriticisms rather than a stated dislike of a specific group and with avery few exceptions there was no suggestion of violent action as asolution. Typically groups were far harsher in their attitudes towards


established government and institutions. This in itself is cause forconcern. Liberal democracies are, to some extent, founded on theability to speak ill of the government, but in many cases it seemsyoung people are engaging in movements with a deep distrust ofestablished political actors.


Populist communicative strategies

Fostering “the web of exclusion” in European societies

M P, I Š

. Introduction

Across the seven countries involved in the e–EAV project, the pop-ulism of right–wing (extra–) parliamentary political parties and move-ments is hostile towards migrants, Muslims, Roma, gay men andlesbians and other minority groups. The populists’ bet is with the“ordinary people” and their “just morals”, rejecting state institutionsand mass media, and relying instead on a strong leader who winspublic support by fighting the “enemies”. Anti–elitism, anti–leftism,anti–intellectualism, ethnocentrism, or the ideology of social enmity,are central to populism, as is the dichotomous division between “us”and “them”. Inclusion/exclusion, being included “in” and excluded“from” “the people” is naturalized in populist strategies, presentedas a natural cause, and not as a consequence of social, political andstructural processes (Pajnik, ; Pajnik and Kuzmanic, ). Inthe literature there is no consensus whether populism is rather anideology or a political strategy (see Chapter ). In analysing populismin relation to the media, we treat it as a communicative strategy thatmanifests itself as a “thin ideology” that needs to latch onto otherideologies in order to be effective (Canovan, ; Taguieff, ;Stanley, ). This is confirmed through different ideological labels,parties and movements use in their self–representations, for examplepatriotic, nationalist, Christian, conservative, identitarian.

Media, mainstream and digital, are important players in repro-ducing populist messages; the key is in applying the most mobilisingrhetoric that is able to convince enough people for a wider appealof a selected political message. We can argue, with Mazzoleni etal. (), that the institutions of the mass media play an importantrole in the dialectic of democracy versus populism. In The Media

Mojca Pajnik, Iztok Šori

and Neo–Populism Mazzoleni et al. () look into relations between“media populism” and “political populism” and pinpoint a stronginclination of the popular media, such as tabloid newspapers, talkradio, infotainment television news, etc. to provide sympathetic cov-erage of populist parties and movements. Additionally, in the lasttwo decades the Internet has significantly broadened the possibilitiesfor spreading hate speech, and Facebook and YouTube have becomeimportant means for disseminating right–wing extremist ideas. Wecan argue that populism found its medium in new media, the webin particular. Populist leaders are highly present online, they arekeen users of Twitter and writers of blogs. Studies have also shownthat the Internet is a widespread tool for recruitment of supporters(Caiani and Parenti, ). Particularly relevant for right–wing pop-ulist mobilisation, it has therefore become easier to declare oneself amember of a group or movement by no more than a few clicks or“likes”. Fostering a selective perception of discourses, where debatesare mostly held within circles of like–minded people and oppositionto the core stance and values is practically non–existent, a sense ofcollective identity is thus virtually created and promulgated especiallyamong more susceptive young people. It should also be noted thatwith the use of the Internet extreme right–wing organisations canacquire a stronger international presence and connections, contain-ing external links to far right international federations or right–wingorganisations in other countries, exchange ideas and strategies.

This chapter analyses the research studies on populist discoursescarried out under common methodology in seven European coun-tries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Slovenia and theUnited Kingdom as part of e–EAV project and its analysis on framingpopulism. Each research team selected two populist political actorsand analysed their discourses as they appear in different kinds oftexts published online (written texts, audio and video). The aim isto develop an understanding of how populist groups represent theirpolitics online through websites and social media. The study is basedon critical frame analysis to examine written texts; it first and fore-most focuses on detecting and analysing exclusivism as a distinctfeature of “right–wing populism” in Europe (Wodak et al., ).


. Methodology and sample: Critical frame analysis to unravelpopulist strategies and discourses

We have adopted the method of critical frame analysis that is a dis-cursive approach to the study of (underlying) norms, beliefs, andperceptions, which are embedded in texts. The basic element ofthe analysis is a frame. According to Verloo (, p. ) a frame isan «organizing principle that transforms fragmentary or incidentalinformation into a structured and meaningful problem, in whicha solution is implicitly or explicitly included». In other words, eachtext can be analysed in a way to determine which problem(s) it ad-dresses and what is offered as a solution to the problems identified.Therefore our analysis was twofold. The first part of the analysis wasthe “diagnosis”, i.e. identification of the problem(s), and the secondpart the “prognosis” standing for identification of the solution(s).Frames are understood as forms of explanation or as sense–makingcognitive structures, also as intentional shaping of political claims(Bacchi, ). Framing is therefore concerned with the negotiationand (re)construction of reality by social/political actors (Triandafyl-lidou and Fotiou, ) which is understood as strategic framing.For our purposes, the key concept is “strategic framing” of issueproblems, which Bacchi (, p. ) defines as the «conscious andintentional selection of language and concepts to influence politicaldebate and decision–making». This means that the authors of thetext select among competing frames and choose those which theybelieve can be best and most effectively mobilised to pursue theirgoals.

Different approaches to critical frame analysis define or iden-tify different components through which a frame is constructed.We refer to these components as markers (cf. Dombos et al., ).The markers are in fact the answers to the “sensitizing questions”(Verloo and Lombardo, , p. ). For each diagnosis the “activeactor”, “passive actor” and “ideology” has been identified in orderto determine how the framing of a certain problem is constructed.Likewise, the three elements mentioned were identified for the prog-nosis. Once we had collected all the markers, the combination ofthe markers provided us with the frame. After the coding processwas finished, the frames set by country teams were renamed intosub–frames. Sub–frames were then synchronised at the level of theentire database. Then, sub–frames were grouped under a new cate-


gory main frame. Main frames synthesise messages of sub–frames;they consist of sub–frames. Some main frames are larger, more pro-nounced than the others. We refer to these larger frames as (a) majormain frames, these are followed by (b) minor main frames and (c)marginal main frames. The extent of the main frame is defined bythe number of sub–frames constituting it; major main frames consistof a larger number of sub–frames. The combination of all identifiedframes provides us with the discourse (see Fig, for an example ofthe relations between main frames and sub–frames).

Figure . Elements of discourse

Parties and movements included in the study are known forreproducing othering at the intersection of different levels of hatespeech, racism, homophobia, anti–Islam, anti–feminism, etc. Theyalso fulfil the criteria of having a pronounced focus on youth and/orstrong presence in the digital environment. Each country researchteam selected two political parties and/or movements to be includedin the analysis (see Table ).

Each team selected on average texts for each of the two par-ties/movements studied, which were published either on their offi-cial websites, sympathiser’s websites or social media. Altogether (– per country) texts were uploaded in the research database andcoded. Each research team analysed at least pages of original textsor transcripts which were provided in the cases of video or audiorecordings.

Selection of texts included (when possible) type of text and topicsheterogeneity. We were particularly interested in texts addressing a)othering (in regard to gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, religion),b) European Union, c) youth, d) education and e) media. Further,


Table . Parties and movements included in the analysis

AUSTRIA

Identitarian Movement Austria (IMA)/ Youth Freedom Ring (YFR) /Identitäre Bewegung Österreichs (IBÖ) Ring freiheitlicher Jugend (RFJ)

BELGIUM

People’s Party (PP)/ National Democracy (ND) /Parti populaire (PP) Democratie Nationale (DN)

BULGARIA

Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation(IMRO)/

National Ideal for Unity (NIU) /

Вътрешна Македонска Революцион-на Организация (ВМРО)

Национален идеал за единство(HИЕ)

FRANCE

French Spring (FS)/ Identitarians /Le Printemps Français (PS) Les Identitaires

ITALY

Casa Pound Italy (CPI)/ Northern League for the Independence ofCasa Pound Italia (CPI) Padania (NL)/Lega Nord per

l’Indipendenza della Padania (LN)

SLOVENIA

New Slovenia (NS)/ Here is Slovenia (HS) /Nova Slovenija (NS) Tukaj je Slovenija (TS)

UNITED KINGDOM

British National Party (BNP) Counter-Jihad Nebula (CJN)

different types of text were selected: a) news/news feature/researchreport, b) public statement, c) programme/resolution (or parts of ), d)speech (public speech, interview) and e) other (for example, Twitteror other social media posts, etc.) (see Table for an overview).

. Populist diagnosis and prognosis

We limited the number of identified diagnosis and prognosis mainframes for each text to the two most pronounced ones. diagnosismain frames and prognosis main frames were identified, whichshows an expected over reproduction of problems in relation tosolutions by political actors. In the diagnosis part of the analysis, mainframe immigrant threat ( instances) is by far the most pronounced(see Fig. ). It occurs in all seven countries and in texts of out of parties/movements included in the study.


Tab

le.

Adm

inis

trat

ive

info

rmat

ion

onth

ete

xtsc

oded

for

disc

ursiv

efr

ame

anal

ysis

Cou

ntry

Aus

tria

Belg

ium

Bulg

aria

Fran

ceIta

lySl

oven

iaU

KA

llPa

rty/

mov

emen

tIM

AYF

RPP

ND

NIU

IMR

OID

FSN

LC

PIN

SH

SBN

PC

JNΣ

No.

ofte

xts:

Typ

eof

digi

talt

ext:

–ne

ws

–

publ

icst

atem

ent

–

prog

ram

me/

reso

lutio

n

–sp

eech

/int

ervi

ew

–ot

her

T

ype

ofw

ebsi

te:

–offi

cial

web

site

–sy

mpa

this

er’s

web

–

soci

alm

edia

–

othe

r

Topi

c:–

othe

ring

–E

U

–yo

uth

–

educ

atio

n

–m

edia

–

othe

r


The second biggest diagnosis main frame is politicians/governmentnot working for the people ( instances) which is present in texts of parties/movements. By number of instances the diagnosis mainframe Muslims/Islam threat ( instances) which was identified incases of parties/movements occupies the third place. Other diag-nosis main frames are minor or marginal. Among them capitalismand globalisation threat ( instances) has to be emphasised, becauseit was identified in all the countries involved (see Fig. ).

In the prognosis part of the analysis by far the most pronouncedmain frame is anti–migration () which was identified in all casestudies except in the French Spring movement which is politically fo-cused against equal rights of LGBT persons. This is also the only ma-jor prognosis main frame as the frames that follow were identified in instances: ethno–identity (present in texts of parties/movements),political action/participation ( parties/movements) and security andcontrol ( parties/movements) (see Fig. ). We may conclude that thepopulist discourse captured by our analysis is heavily anti–migrationand anti–elite.

Figure . Identified diagnoses main and sub–frames, n =


Figure . Identified prognoses main and sub–frames, n =

Populist discourses visibly define various categories of “the other”that is presented as a “threat”. The most emphasised groups that arerepresented as threats are migrants, Muslims, gay men, lesbians andRoma. Some threats consider contesting ideologies such as left ideol-ogy, liberal ideology, multiculturalism and communism which werealso identified as part of the populist “threat–oriented” discourse. Inthis respect racism and Nazi and Fascist ideology are not framedas a threat, but are disputed. While Identitarian Movement Austriacarefully avoids any dispute of national crimes as such, it voices itsstrong conviction that the past should not influence today’s politicsin any way. Gender issues are also disputed, meaning that there isno clear–cut position of populist parties on gender equality. Theyusually claim to support gender equality, but reject feminism. Otherproblems for populist parties and movements include some estab-lished parties, capitalism and globalisation, elites and demographicdecline. The main populist responses to these threats are discrimina-tive policies, but often also proposals open to interpretation, such asstrengthening the ethno–identity, more security and control, more


patriotism, value (re)orientation and so on. We consider this as animportant discursive strategy, which enables populist parties to avoidaccusation of spreading hate speech. Discourse built on threats is perse a security discourse, which tries to mobilise voters by raising exist-ing fears or inventing new ones. At the same time it is also a victimdiscourse, where minorities endanger the existence and future of“the people”. For this chapter we chose to focus the discussion belowon the three most pronounced topics in our analysis: (anti)migration,(anti)elitism and (anti)Islam.

. Projecting migrants as a threat, promoting anti–migration asa nation’s security

Migration and migrants are by far the most prevalent topic in thetexts from our database. The strongest diagnosis main frame is immi-grant threat (made up of instances), while the strongest prognosisframe is anti–migration ( instances). In addition, other frames(e.g. Muslim/Islam threat, demographic decline threat or politi-cians/government not working for the people) partly touch upon theissue of migration. In the case of the Belgian People’s Party, for ex-ample, migrants are simply equated with Muslims and immigrationwith islamization. All are considered harmful to societal values, edu-cation, constitutional freedom and human dignity which shows thatpopulist parties and movements procure othering discourse withinthe discourse of democracy. But as the variety of sub–frames reveals,migrations and migrants are presented as a threat for a myriad ofreasons. The first and by far the biggest sub–frame cluster treatsmigrants as a threat to identity, nation and culture ( sub–frames).The second is built around the argument that migrants represent athreat to security () and the third to economic position of the localpopulation (). The fourth sub–frame cluster constructs migrants asprivileged and essentially different from the native population ().

Generally, migrants are depicted as a threat to the nation/culture/identity of the “natives”, which confirms findings from previous re-search that ethno–nationalism is one of the core ideologies populismis related to. For example in the discourse of the self–proclaimedpatriotic movement Here is Slovenia, Slovenians are depicted as thosewho are endangered by the cultures of others, specifically by peoplecoming from former Yugoslav republics, as well as Muslims and the


“erased” persons (which often coincides with the “ex–Yugoslav” and“Balkan” pejorative labelling), and by the prospect of immigrationin general. Migrants are similarly framed by the Italian NorthernLeague, but in distinction to Here is Slovenia, ethno–nationalism ispart of the party’s regional independence agenda, i.e. the idea thatregions should be given more power to defend the local population,even against migrants.

A pronounced feature of the diagnosis main frame immigrantthreat, especially in Bulgaria and Belgium, but also elsewhere, issecurity. Here migration is often related to Muslim communities,Islam and Muslim migrants. The potential danger is exemplifiedby conflicts in the Middle East (i.e. Syria), Africa (Maghreb), andthe situation on the island of Lampedusa (Italy). The Internal Mace-donian Revolutionary Organisation for example states that «in therefugee centre at Busmantzi there are at least criminals whoare illegal migrants from Algiers and instead of solving the prob-lem, the government is acting with indifference and incompetence».The immigrant threat is related to the incompetence of the elitesand/or with their hidden agenda, also in the cases of French Iden-titarians, Belgian National Democracy, Here is Slovenia movementand the two Italian cases, the Casa Pound and the Northern League.Anti–elite discourse may also serve as a mask for exclusivist attitudestowards migrants. French Identitarians for instance blame capitalists,the elite and the industry for attracting migrants with the purposeof lowering the salaries of local workers and earning profit.

The antagonism between the interests of “us” i.e. “natives” andmigrants includes economic reasoning, which rests on the unques-tioned and generalised assumption that whatever is given to a mi-grant, must be taken away from a native. This logic is not appliedonly to the labour market, but to various rights in social fields. Forexample, adaptation of the learning process to the needs of migrantchildren is argued by the youth branch of Freedom Party (Austria) todiminish educational gains for native children. The seemingly non–ideological stance allows populist parties to present each instanceof the immigration threat as a problem of the allocation of scarceresources (rather than a problem of racism, equality or social justiceetc.) in a specific policy field, while at the same time using the antago-nism of natives and migrants as an explanation for (nearly) all politicalconflicts or policy problems. Consequently, populist discourse findsfruitful ground especially in times of economic, political and social


crises. De facto migration therefore appears as the ubiquitous causefor social problems and political dissatisfaction, even though the un-derlying ideological convictions are never openly formulated andneed not be shared by all sympathisers or voters.

Another dimension recognised in the populist discourse on migra-tion analysed is reference to essential differences between migrantsand “native” population. For instance the British National Party andCasa Pound Italy depict migrants as outside of “our” culture andvalues and as such a threat to “our” existence. Ethno–nationalistargumentations of this kind are often accompanied with implicitor explicit denial of racism. Several organisations/movements thatdefine migrants as a threat claim to operate from a democratic stand-point. “We’re only protecting our people”, is the proverbial denialof racism. The Identitarian Movement Austria for instance operateswith the term “ethno–pluralism” and claims that racism would onlystart with the establishment of a hierarchy of different (ethnicallydefined) peoples, while these differences were naturally given andought to be preserved as much as possible.

The common denominator of all anti–migration discourses is thebelief that ethno–communities should be divided in order to preservetheir existence. Following this logic, nationality and ethnicity becomethe “natural” basis of politics (i.e. the nation states and their borders)as well as of ethnic and racial discrimination of migrants. This isclearly observable in the prognosis part of our analysis, where wehave looked at what kind of main frames or “solutions” have beenoffered in the texts where the diagnosis main frame of immigrantthreat has been identified. All together different main prognosisframes were detected, which are made up of sub–frames. Thisagain points to a vast arsenal of ideas on how to fight immigration.

Prognosis is evidently dominated by propositions for restrictiveand discriminative policies on immigration, captured under the prog-nosis main frame anti–migration ( occurrences). Here is Sloveniaand the Austrian Youth Freedom Ring for instance suggest an ed-ucation reform with an explicit demand for political measures infavour of “native youth”. In most extreme cases eviction of alreadysettled migrants and “foreigners” is proposed by some parties. TheBritish National Party and Counter–Jihad Nebula strive for both:end to immigration and “resettlement” of migrants, whereby theirhighest concern is Muslim migrants. A common target of populistparties and movements are migrants who do not assimilate, whereby


assimilation is predominantly related to the need for the respect oflaw and norms in a particular country in exchange for hospitality.Migrants who break the law are exposed within the broader securitydiscourse; most of the parties/movements suggest their immediateexpulsion from the country. Proposals to restrict immigration andthe rights of migrants are not always concretised, especially in thediscourses of parties/movements who at the same time claim torespect human rights and other cultures. The catholic oriented partyNew Slovenia fits this description. However, the party regularly op-poses the laws which would improve the position of migrants andother minorities in society. While there are many common lines ofpopulist argumentation (ethno–nationalism and anti–elitism), the ex-tent of expressed hostility may vary considerably between differentpopulist parties/movements.

. Against the elites: fighting liberalism/the left and migration

Anti–elitism is the second strongest feature of the populist discoursecaptured by our research. Its diagnosis part is made up of two mainframes: politicians/government not working for the people ( oc-currences) and elites threat ( occurrences). For the People’s Partyand National Democracy (Belgium), the British National Party andNorthern League (Italy) politicians/government not working forthe people is the most pronounced diagnosis main frame. The an-tagonism between the people and the elites/establishment has astrong ideological component, as is related to diagnosis main framesof a left–wing ideology threat, liberal ideology threat, capitalism andglobalisation threat and racism dispute. Similarly like migrants andother minority groups, governments/elites are accused of threaten-ing national identity, democracy, nation and national interests and/orthe prosperity of the region and local community. Taxation, povertyand gender policies are also criticised. Often several markers are usedat the same time when labelling elites. In one of the texts for instance,«economic, left–wing, multiculturalists, Islamic and other elites» aretargeted.

The occurrence and intersection of anti–elite and anti–migrationdiagnosis main frames are particularly high in the cases of Belgiumand the UK. National Democracy (Belgium) for instance on one handcriticises the government and “Europe” for not protecting nationals


and national identities, while on the other migrants are constructedas being part of the plot themselves as it is said that they benefiteconomically from the system established by the elites. Similarly,the Counter–Jihad Nebula (UK) argues that the elites are supportingislamization (i.e. immigration) on the grounds of political calcula-tions. The construction of others is thus three–way: as perpetratorsendangering “autochthonous” identity, victims of the false policiesof the elites and collaborators of the very same elites.

A different definition of the problem and the actor who causes itis presented by the Italian Northern League. As a party striving forthe highest possible independence of the North of Italy (so–calledPadania), their economic criticism mostly concerns the interestsof the region, i.e. how to bring in more money from the centralbudget. Hence the elite criticised is first of all the central government,whereby NL has itself been part of governmental coalitions in thepast. Contrary to this Casa Pound considers a strong nation stateas a solution to all economic and social problems affecting Italians.Consequently, the elites one should fight against are international.

In several cases threatening elites and governments are relatedto ideologies such as liberalism, leftism, multiculturalism and com-munism. In the Austrian case of Youth Freedom Ring the diagnosismain frame politicians/government not working for the people wasoften related to criticism of other parties or politicians in general,who would only work to stay in power and become re–elected, butwould not care about solving real–world problems. In these caseselites are criticised for following specific ideologies, which wouldshape their policies in ways that run counter to the needs and wishesof the natives. Besides the people, populist parties and movementstend to present themselves as victims of the left or liberal regimesand consequently as the only true fighters for democracy.

Interrelations between anti–elitist and anti–migration discoursesare again confirmed in the prognosis part of the analysis. The mostpronounced prognosis to the diagnosis politicians/government notworking for the people is anti–migration ( instances), which in-cludes proposals to ban immigration and discriminate against mi-grants. Less frequent were the prognosis main frames of ethno–identity (), economic policies (), political action/participation (),education reform (), security and control (), gender policies () andpolitical system reform (). As we see, anti–elitism serves as a toolfor political mobilisation for various kinds of goals. Among them


a system change in regard to power and wealth re–distribution isin the minority. Proposals on the restructuring of society are lim-ited to replacement of the elites and the ruling ideologies that bringenforcement of discriminative policies, especially against migrants.

. Islam and the West: reproducing the clash of values discourse

The diagnosis main frame Muslims/Islam threat is the third mostpronounced diagnosis main frame in our database ( instances).Sub–frames reveal that Muslims/Islam are depicted first as a threatto security ( sub–frames) and identity/values (). Radical Islamis exposed and presented as a threat to moderate Muslims () andeducation system (). Muslims are also constructed as essentiallydifferent from Christians and “natives” in general. However, thisframe does not grasp all the nuances of the anti–Islam discourse, asthey are particularly targeted within anti–migration, value, ideologyand anti–elite discourse. Thus anti–Muslims/anti–Islam discoursecan be understood as the continuation of the anti–immigration andanti–elite discourse.

The movement with the most pronounced anti–Islam positionin our analysis is the Counter–Jihad Nebula (UK). As they claimMuslims are a specific security threat, the West faces ongoing pro-cesses of islamization of society while Western societies and Islamshare fundamentally opposed values. As a result of the war in Syria aprominent topic of the movement has become “Jihadist fighters”, re-turning UK citizens fighting in the battlefields of Middle East. As oneauthor proposes, they should restrict re–entry to the country. From acritical perspective the author, in this instance, does not raise a topicthat is not already strongly represented in public debate. However,the author seems to feel strongly that the current course of actiondoes not go far enough.

After security the second most pronounced set of argumentswithin the diagnosis main frame Muslim/Islam threat is built aroundregional/national/European identity and values, including humanrights and democracy. A range of political actors use islamization asthe key word in their argumentation against Islam and immigration.This is particularly true for identitarian movements. In the Identi-tarian Movement Austria (IMA), discourse works on an explicitlyideological level, where the alleged closeness or difference of mi-


grants in terms of “cultural” and “ethnic” markers is key to theirposition in discourse. Islam has been singled out as the very different,and therefore very dangerous “other”. The discourse of IMA pointsto an underlying logic of “race” rather than one of “culture”, therebyrevealing the “old” racist underpinnings of this “new” “ethnoplural-ism”. On the other hand for some populist parties and movementsexposing rising numbers of mosques and Muslim associations is rea-son enough to spread fears of islamization, as the case of FrenchIdentitarians shows.

Even though populist parties and movements more or less openlyattack minority groups, at the same time they carefully select argu-ments in doing so. It is not religion, but values which pose or are thethreat. The People’s Party (Belgium), for instance, is campaigningfor the conservation of “Judeo–Christian values” and denounces first“a clash of values” before coming to the economic and security ar-guments. In the same way, the party opposes multiculturalism. TheBulgarian National Ideal for Unity argues that Islam and in particular“radical Islam” are a threat to constitutional and democratic order. Itis argued that “foreign forms of Islam” are imported to the country,which are so different that Bulgarian Muslims do not adhere sponta-neously, but are “bought”, stating that Muslim women were paid toveil themselves.

On the part of prognosis, main frames were identified inthe texts with the diagnosis Muslims/Islam threat. They encom-pass the main frames of anti–Islam (), anti–migration (), ethnoidentity (), value (re)orientation (), ideologies fight (), politicalaction/participation (), patriotism reinforcement () and in one in-stance the frames of anti–elite, economic policies, media policies andsecurity and control. Cases may however differ greatly and involveassimilation of Muslims, self–defence or immigration ban. Many ofthe proposed solutions are rather vague, such as a call for protectionof democratic values, gender equality or the fight against islamiza-tion. The closest example of advocating violence against Muslimscomes from “An open letter to Cameron” from Counter–Jihad Neb-ula (UK). In it, the author suggests that the Prime Minister shouldprovide arms and ammunition to the “indigenous citizenry” to allowthem to “get on with cleaning up this gruesome, atavistic mess”.Importantly, the wider context of this quotation is in an open letterthat lists the author’s apparent exasperation with what he sees as adisastrous political mismanagement and ignorance of an existential


threat. Significantly, this text was written under a pseudonym and ina sarcastic style, which allows more space for spreading hate speechunpunished. The intention to present Muslims as a dangerous massis however clear. As one of the authors claims:

The fact that many Muslims do not support or engage in violent jihad is notgermane. If only one percent of Muslim believers take the Islamic mandateof jihad seriously, it means there are over fifteen million people scatteredamong the world’s Muslims who want to destroy us, and we have no meansof determining in advance which ones they are.

Populist othering of Muslims has clearly shown a vision of societywhich is segregational, exclusionary and discriminative. Interestinglythere is little (Christian) religious reasoning behind restricting humanrights to Muslims, which may be connected to a legal, in many casesconstitutional, ban on discrimination on the grounds of religion.

. Conclusions

The comparative research study of online discourses of politicalparties/movements shows that the populist discourses analysed reston three pillars, i.e. the construction of the people (“us” or the in–group), the othering of outside groups, and anti–elitism. If there areintersections between othering and anti–elitism, there emerges anexclusivist view of gender relations and distinct narratives on severalother issues, such as the EU, the media and so on.

The results demonstrate what has previously been establishedas a distinct feature of populism (Canovan, ; Taguieff, ;Wodak, ), that is the construction of a homogenous group of“us” which is defined by ethnic markers (natives), but also throughsexual orientation (heterosexuals), religious affiliation (Christians),family situation (“traditional family”) and/or values in general (suchas marriage, family, country, nation, identity, culture, independenceand sovereignty, legal order and security). Each of the nation’s orpeople’s characteristics is projected as being threatened by others— most prominently by migrants, followed by Muslims, LGBT per-sons and the Roma. Presenting these groups as threats constructsthem as perpetrators and the people as the victim. This message isfurther reinforced by presenting marginalised groups as privilegedcollaborators of the political establishment and the elites, as they


supposedly benefit from the dominant policies. As our findings indi-cate, anti–elitism rarely appears independent from othering. Whileit is true that populist discourse is critical of corruption, poverty ortaxation, mostly political establishment and the elites are accusedof being either wilfully ignorant to the threats posed by the othersor actively contributing to the endangerment of the people by, forinstance, allowing migration, building of mosques, or supportinghomosexual weddings.

Populist argumentation allows political actors to easily switchbetween the targeted groups and issues addressed. The people, elitesand others, can be grafted onto different political contexts, appliedto various groups and adapted to tangible contemporary issues likethe wars in Syria and Afghanistan or legal changes aimed at grant-ing equal rights to LGBT persons. Adaptability, but also complexityof populist discourse, is clearly demonstrated by pairing of diag-noses and prognoses in specific texts. As shown by frame analysis,strengthening of ethno–identity can be a solution to the threats ofmigration, islamization, globalisation, left–wing and liberal ideology.In other cases ethno–identity also stands in opposition to homo-sexuality. Since it is built on rising fears, populist discourse is alsohighly emotional. To increase the identification by the addressees,some groups within “the people” are exposed as being particularlyendangered: children, youth, families and workers.

The European populist discourse captured by this research holdsfor a myriad of political actors, from networks and movements toestablished political parties with different ideological background.Among them, some were or are in the position to shape nationaland European policies. Hence, this is not an isolated discourse, buta consistent part of mainstream public and political discourses inEuropean countries and also embedded in national and EU policies(particularly militant response to the “threat of immigration” onthe borders). While the media in some countries restrict access topopulists (or they themselves decided to ignore them), the Internetprovides an important platform, where populist ideas and actionscan be presented and spread unmonitored.


Engaging Young Peopleagainst Discrimination

An action research study in the field of mediaand citizenship education

M R, F F

. Introduction

While groups of young people are increasingly attracted across Eu-rope by populist organisations and movements that actively discrim-inate against minority groups, the Internet seems to provide pop-ulist organisations with a new platform, in which discriminatory dis-courses and practices can circulate without any monitoring. Indeed,as seen in the previous chapters, discrimination is not perpetratedby those movements through violent behaviour, but through moreand more subtle strategies based on the construction of the people,othering and anti–elitism, and amplified by the new social mediaenvironments.

In this context, the e–EAV project developed and tested a rangeof educational tools addressing students aged – with the aim ofraising their awareness against discrimination, deconstructing pop-ulist hate speech towards the other and promoting young people’sparticipatory skills.

The educational contents were created by the University of Flo-rence (IT) in collaboration with Media Animation (BE) and weretested through an action research process in seven European coun-tries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Slovenia and theUnited Kingdom. The design, the pedagogical strategies and thekey concepts characterising the tools that have been produced dur-ing the project were largely informed by the international literatureon citizenship and media education and the current educational prac-tices promoted by civil organisations (NGOs, groups of politicalactivists, etc.) to prevent and combat discrimination.

Maria Ranieri, Francesco Fabbro

The aim of this chapter is to present the methodological approachthat inspired the design of the modules and discuss the results of thetesting.

. Theoretical background

There is a long history of attempting to address discrimination andpromote young people’s democratic participation through citizenshipeducation.

However, citizenship education is a polysemous concept entailingdifferent meanings depending on the model of democratic partici-pation that underpins it. Roughly speaking, we can distinguish twomain approaches, that is the representative and the participatorymodel.

The representative model refers to a form of government wherethe power of the sovereignty is delegated to a body of persons whoare elected in order to exercise it for the benefit of a nation (Schum-peter, ). Its critics underline that it tends to reduce democracy toa means of formalised decision–making, and participation by citizensto vote and legitimate the ruling elite (Pateman, ). However,from the representative model’s perspective, citizenship educationshould provide young people with knowledge about the politicalsystem, especially at national level. Citizenship education is seen as aform of “political education” aimed at «enabling students to acquirethe competences that will enable them to understand politics andtake part in political processes» (Krammer, , p. ).

The participatory model, instead, emphasises the importance ofdifferent forms of citizen participation in a democracy, and criticisesthe reduction of participation to the periodic voting in or out ofdifferent elites (Pateman, ). This model identifies citizenshipwith social agency and with a broader conception of democraticparticipation which implies greater involvement and more egalitarianrelationships in the all social arenas — not just the formal institutionsof “politics”, but also spheres such as education and family (Ichilov,). In this perspective, citizenship education is a form of socialtraining and an actual practice of democratic participation.

In e–EAV project we adopted this conception of citizenship ed-ucation as a framework to promote anti–discriminatory practicesand support multiculturalism, anti–racist, anti–sexist and human

Engaging Young People against Discrimination

rights teaching in different contexts (Abdi and Shultz, ; Oslerand Starkey, ; Shukra et al., ).

Another fundamental reference that we considered as a necessarybackground to engage young people and empower them as criticaland active participants in democratic life was provided by the theoryand practices of media education. Nowadays media literacy meantas «a constellation of life skills that are necessary for full participa-tion in our media–saturated society» (Hobbs, , p. vii) is widelyacknowledged as an important dimension of active citizenship (seefor example Grizzle et al., ). The reflection around the role ofmedia education for citizenship is particularly relevant today, whenconsidering that several authors in recent years have claimed thatthe Internet, especially web . tools, are inherently participatory,thus contributing to the democratisation of educational relations andto young people’s civic and political engagement (see for exampleTapscott, ; Pettingill, ). Polarising this view one could arguethat media education would be useless: if media are participatorythemselves, we do not need education about them.

However, other studies have questioned the enthusiasm in theparticipatory power of the Internet. For example, Livingstone etal. () found that visiting civic websites depends primarily ondemographic factors (with older, middle–class girls being most likelyto visit these sites). Similarly, further research demonstrated thatweb–based technology may improve the quality of participation butonly for certain categories of people, notably those belonging tothe upper class (Banaji and Buckingham, ). These findings pointto the need for a more critical and socially situated approach tothe role of the media in contemporary societies (Buckingham ;Selwyn ) and lead us to recognise the role of media educationas a practice to develop citizenship and participation ( Jenkins et. al.,). In this regard, media education should provide young peoplewith the critical resources they need to interpret, to understand and(if necessary) to challenge the media that permeates their lives; andyet it should also offer them the opportunity to develop the abilityto produce their own media, to become active participants in mediaculture rather than mere consumers (Buckingham, ). With thisin mind, media education should ensure that learners acquire thecritical tools to question media content, reject bias and stereotyping,and raise awareness of patterns of ownership and influence thatdrive the production and distribution of media content (Masterman,


; Buckigham, ). In addition, this approach also entails thecreative process of making alternative media content or using mediato challenge rights’ abuses and question discrimination (Goodman,; Hammer, ).

. Design and implementation of educational content

e–EAV’s educational content consists of modules designed to en-courage young people to reflect on the role that media may playin reinforcing or challenging different forms of discrimination of —and violence towards — the other. Before presenting the contentsof each module, we underline three main features that characterisethem.

Firstly, since media education aims not only at enabling youngpeople’s critical understanding of media but also at encouragingtheir critical participation as media producers in their own right(Buckingham, ; Hobbs, ), each of the modules includesboth media analysis and production. Hence, each module consistsof units, including units on media analysis and units on mediaproduction.

Secondly, the educational contents combine the e–EAV’s focus onwhat we might term “politics of representation” — and particularlythe discursive strategies of othering – with other media literacycomponents (language, production, audience) that are supposed tobroaden young people’s critical understanding and uses of digitalmedia in their everyday lives.

Thirdly, a module does not address one form of discriminationin particular, for example racism, sexism, homophobia and so on.Rather each module deals with multiple forms of discriminationand inequalities, which are in some cases explicitly suggested by theactivity (e.g. analyse and discuss gender stereotypes in some TV–series targeting teens) while in other cases by students’ own choicesabout the form of discrimination to address through the activity (e.g.reporting an episode of discrimination through a newspaper article).

The main contents and media of each module are described inbrief in the following synopses.


Module

Information reception and production focuses on how news mediarepresent the social world rather than simply reflect it. The analyticalsection of the module pays particular attention to verbal and visualstereotypes regarding gender, ethnicity, race and disability embeddedin different non–fictional media narratives, particularly newspaperarticles, TV newscasts and information blogs. The production ori-ented activities, instead, invite students to make choices about howto represent real events, especially in relation to the issues of discrim-ination and violence. Hence, students are encouraged and supportedto engage with the collaborative production of information, mostnotably through the creation of a “participatory journal” inspired tothe practices of participatory journalism.

Module

Audio–visual Fiction and Ideologies concentrates mainly on howaudio–visual fiction can convey representations that nourish a stereo-typical and sometimes prejudicial imagination of specific social groups,especially in the context of Western societies. In particular, the anal-ysis oriented units deal with different representations of female,young and/or non–Western characters in some popular movies andTV series. The section on media production, instead, provides stu-dents with information and practical tips on how to tell fictionalor non–fictional stories through audio–visual language. Hence, theunits include exercises of audio–visual production, specifically scriptwriting, ideation of characters, video editing and creation of simplesoundtracks.

Module

Videogames and citizenship highlights the connections betweengame play and citizenship with a particular focus on how videogames can represent more or less inclusive ideas and practices of citi-zenship. The analytical units include activities aimed at providing acritical understanding of the mechanisms of gameplay, the simulationof social identities through videogames and the wider debate aboutthe alleged effects of videogames on young people. The section onmedia production, instead, engages the learners in the creation of


characters, rules and situations characterising possible videogameand online communities of players. Here particular attention is paidto the ideation of a videogame inspired to real life situations anddiscriminations experienced by migrants and refugees in Europe.

Module

Political Communication and Propaganda focuses on the uses of me-dia by different political and civil organisations — from political par-ties to NGOs — to analyse their role in questioning or conversely re-inforcing different types of prejudice toward particular social groups.The analytical section concentrates mainly on the — verbal and visual— rhetorical strategies through which race, ethnicity and sexualitybecome “political issues”. For example, here students analyse — andreflect -– on some pro and anti–gay marriage campaigns or politicaldiscourses about migration and migrants. The production orientedactivities, instead, encourage students to experiment different typesof communicative strategy aimed at raising citizens’ awareness aboutdiscrimination. In particular, here students are asked to engage asproducers of a short video against discrimination addressing theschool community and the wider public.

Modules

Online Activism & Networking encompasses a heterogeneous setof communicative, organisational and mobilising practices aimed atsocial and/or political change. The first section introduces the maintypes of online activism with particular focus on hacker culture andincludes two case studies of online activism, namely Wikileaks andthe Arab Spring. The media production section focuses on the ex-perimentation of some communicative practices aimed at promotinghuman rights and fighting discrimination of LGBT people throughsocial networks. Furthermore, the last three units are devoted tothe collaborative development of a Students’ Rights e–Charter andits sharing on social networks with other members of the schoolcommunity.

The learning activities proposed in the modules vary among differentlevels of difficulty ranging from a simple introductory exercise ofmedia analysis to more demanding practices of media production.


The units can be combined with one another in a rather flexibleway, even across the modules. An overview of aims, activities andresources of the unit is provided at the beginning of the unit inorder to allow the teacher to easily select contents. Each activity wasdesigned to last about hours.

On a pedagogical level, great attention is given to mobilise stu-dents’ pre–existing knowledge and experiences on the topic (Activa-tion), provide opportunities to work concretely on the issues dealtwith in a unit (Practice) and stimulate – during and at the end ofthe activity – a metacognitive reflection on the activities carried out(Metacognitive reflection). Therefore, each unit is structured in threesteps:

— Step – Introduction: students are encouraged to recall theirpersonal experience through visual or narrative input.

— Step – Activity: students are engaged in different types ofactivity such as inquiry, analysis, production, construction etc.

— Step – Conclusion: students are involved in the final debriefingthrough a discussion on the learning experience, comparinginitial and final views, engaging with “what if. . . ” reasoning.

Each module was implemented and delivered under the form ofan online e–book (http://e-engagementagainstviolence.eu/index/students.html).

. Methods and research questions

We adopted an action–research approach aimed at engaging teachersand students in an educational process of changing media practicestowards diversity and improving their skills for civic engagementand citizenship. Our main research questions were:

a) do media education activities addressing discrimination con-tribute to enable young people’s critical understanding of therelationships between media messages and different forms ofdiscrimination? How?;

b) can media education provide young people with the partici-patory and media/citizenship skills to question and combatdiscrimination? How?




In order to answer these questions, a series of tools (students’satisfaction questionnaire, pre– and post– test, focus groups, inter-views, observations, teachers’ logbook etc.) to assess pre–existingviews, take notes on the process, and evaluate the final outcomeswere used. Qualitative data (transcriptions of focus groups, teach-ers’ logbooks, pre–test and post–test, students’ productions) wereanalysed through ex–post categories that were identified through aniterative process of reading and analysis. When available, quantitativedata (e.g. students’ satisfaction questionnaire) were organised intotables and triangulated with qualitative data.

. Contexts and participants

The testing took place in all seven countries involved in the projectover the period March – October . Partners chose to testsome modules rather than others according to the educational rele-vance of the learning material to the specific national context. Morespecifically, in Austria all the young participants focused on Module ;in Belgium some students tested Module while others Module ; inBulgaria they concentrated exclusively on Module ; in France bothModule and were tested; in Italy the testing embraced Modules, and ; in Slovenia students focused on Module whilst in theUnited Kingdom on Module .

Each research team identified one or more schools on a nationallevel to test the effectiveness of the module with at least students.Overall, students (age range –), teachers, educators and members of e–EAV research team participated in the testing. e–EAV’s researchers played different roles, from providing externalguidance to being direct observers. The experimentation of the unitsrequested at least hours for each class, with the exception of acouple of groups where the testing lasted only .

All groups of participants carried out the testing in formal educa-tion settings — mostly in schools — but the latter often differed fromone case to another also within the same national context. Indeed,the type of institutions involved ranged from elite to low–incomeschools. Despite this difference, most teachers were to some extentalready familiar with citizenship education activities and the use ofmedia to deliver curriculum content. In some cases, teachers werealso already confident with media education and the issue of discrim-


ination because of their previous involvement in similar projects.Though the age of participants ranged from to , a large

part of students were in the age group –, which represents theideal audience for e–EAV’s education material. In this respect, somenotable exceptions are some students in United Kingdom who werebetween and years old and one small group of students with years delay in their schooling paths in Belgium.

Testing groups vary among them and, sometimes, even internallyin terms of gender, class and ethnicity. Regarding the gender com-position of the whole sample, boys and girls were almost equallypresent with a slightly higher number of girls. Indeed, in most caseswithin each group the number of boys and girls was balanced. How-ever, in a few cases classes were made up of almost exclusively girls.Stronger differences among testing groups and sometimes withinthe same group were recorded along the lines of class and ethnicity.Hence, the sample included both young people with a high socio–economic status and students with a disadvantaged background. Nev-ertheless, most participants were middle class boys and girls. Fur-thermore, some testing groups were ethnically mixed, whilst otherswere formed mainly by natives.

Of course, the students’ existing knowledge about media and theissue of discrimination also varied greatly from one group to anotherand, not rarely, from one individual to another in the same group. Insome cases, students were to some extent already able to negotiatethe modern media system whilst in other instances they lacked evenbasic media competences and participatory skills. However, the latterproblematic cases were much less common on a general level.

. Main results

In this paragraph we present and discuss the main results of thetesting process in the seven countries. We first focus on teachers’comments about the constraints and affordances they encounteredduring testing. Then, we will report on the main learning outcomesthat emerged from analysis of the teaching and learning processes.


.. Constraints and affordances

Though teachers faced different issues depending on the context andthe units tested, we can distinguish three main types of problemsthat emerged during testing: time constraints, lack of equipment andsome limitations relating to the educational contents.

Timing issues were faced in all contexts though to different de-grees. Firstly, almost all teachers complained that the period fortesting (i.e. particularly April–June) was not adequate since in the lastmonths of school there is little room for extra–curriculum activities.Secondly, in some schools hours’ activities in a row did not fit intothe time of a regular lesson that lasted about hour. Teachers inAustria, Bulgaria and France overcame the problem by revising thematerial in order to fit each unit into the available time. Finally, in acouple of cases — one in the United Kingdom and one in Bulgaria —teachers found that adapting the units to their disciplines and targetgroups would have taken too much time.

A second type of constraint revolves around the technology re-quired to carry out the activities. Indeed, in some cases, the mediadevices expected in the units (e.g. Internet connection, personalcomputers) were not available or, more often, did not work verywell.

As mentioned before, a third category of issues concerns the limi-tations of the educational contents. Some teachers noted that the lackof advice on how to adapt the units to their specific contexts madethe task of content revision very challenging. Other teachers, particu-larly from Belgium, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, observedthat some media contents proved to be too far from students’ experi-ences. Therefore, in some cases additional contents were created toaddress more effectively students’ interests and concerns.

Thirdly, some teachers in Italy and the United Kingdom foundcertain activities not suitable for their students in terms of complexity.For example, it was reported that in some units the terminology wastoo difficult or also that the students did not have sufficient skills toaccomplish certain tasks.

Finally, in Belgium some teachers pointed out that a larger num-ber of assessment tools would have been useful to evaluate students’learning in a more systematic way.

Despite these difficulties, all teachers also reported several affor-dances of the educational contents. Limiting ourselves to the most


mentioned benefits, we identified three main affordances. Overall,teachers appreciated the flexibility of the contents finding them easyto adapt to different contexts. Moreover, teachers were very positiveabout the wide range of topics covered across the modules. Indeed,at the end of the testing many teachers declared their willingness touse the educational contents for upcoming school activities. Finally,as we will see below, most teachers recognised that the extensiveuse of visual materials — both as subject of text analysis and mediaproduction — as well as the pedagogical strategies featuring the unitscontributed significantly to empowering students by increasing theirparticipation and improving their learning results.

.. Learning results

... Acquisition of a meta–language and improvement of knowledgeto describe different forms and practices of communication and(anti)discrimination

Overall, students’ acquisition of new knowledge about media anddiscrimination was reported by all research teams, though at differentlevels both across and within partner countries. Indeed, on a meta–linguistic level, there is clear evidence that students developed and/orimproved relevant theoretical knowledge throughout the learningprocess.

This emerges from the comparative analysis between pre– andpost–test definitions of some key concepts (e.g. media representation,stereotype, discrimination, racist propaganda) and the descriptionsof some media practices (e.g. journalism, political communication,media activism) provided (or not) by students in the questionnairesor during the focus groups.

For example, before testing some students were not able toprovide any definition of “stereotype” or “media activism”, whileother students — especially the older and/or more “experienced” —showed a good level of understanding of those concepts and prac-tices. Interestingly, at the end of the testing almost all students wereable to answer all the questions and some of them provided moreaccurate responses as well as more diversified examples.

As an example, in the excerpt below (E, Ranieri and Fabbro,a), two definitions of the stereotype are compared before andafter the testing:


Excerpt . Pre–Test/Post–Test, Module , Italy [from Ranieri and Fabbro, a]

Pre–test: « I don’t know what a stereotype is, maybe it is a prejudice »Post–test: « A stereotype is a generalisation, a common place about a group of people. Inmy country the most stereotyped by media are the Roma ».

Some direct evidence that learning improved is the recurrentreference in the post–test questionnaires to specific contents deliv-ered during the experimentation: for instance, students mentionedthe criteria that should be used to assess the reliability of a newsstory or the media strategies which can be used to question and fightdiscrimination, clearly referring to the contents of the lectures.

... Development of a more critical stance towards media

Young participants developed varied levels of critical understandingtowards the media, as emerges from a wide range of crucial learningsituations reported by teachers and researchers in almost all partnercountries. Unsurprisingly, both media analysis and production of-fered opportunities to develop deeper knowledge and skills in thefield of media education. Indeed, as well known, critical abilities ofunderstanding and decoding the media can be equally developedthrough practical activities of analysis and production of media texts,and most often through their combination (e.g. Buckingham, ;).

As already said, in our action research active and participatorymethods of teaching were viewed as fundamental means to enablemeaningful and more inclusive learning experiences. In particular,the analysis of visual materials and role–play exercises aimed at teach-ing how media represent identities and social relations proved to bereally engaging and able to support the development of critical read-ing/viewing skills. Furthermore, when included in the satisfactionquestionnaire administered at the end of the unit, analysis of imagesand role play were indicated by most students as among the “mostenjoyable” activities (see Ranieri and Fabbro, b).

In addition, it is important to highlight that teachers and re-searchers considered debriefing as a crucial step in the learningprocess undertaken through simulation, analysis or production. In-deed, in several cases students’ reflection and self–evaluation of theirown work were described by teachers and researchers as important


learning moments during which students demonstrated an improvedability to make sense and critically interpret the media that permeatetheir lives (see E from Ranieri and Fabbro, a, p. and E fromMayer and Sauer, , p. ).

Excerpt – Students’ self–reflection, Module , Unit , Italy [from Ranieri andFabbro, a, p. ]

« In Unit , dealing with the reconstruction of an event based on different sources, bothobservers reported a further significant learning situation, specifically when studentsdiscussed the impact of social and cultural factors in their evaluation of sources’ reliability.Teachers described the final discussion on representations based on different sources as,“the moment in which students really reflect critically on the sources”. Moreover,researchers highlighted how the closeness between the event in question and students’everyday experience contribute to this specific learning situation ».

Excerpt – Students’ self–reflection, Module , Unit , Austria [from Mayer andSauer, , p. ]

« When analysing film posters at the beginning of the Unit some of the students appearedto be rather sceptical and questioned the importance of the topic and the validity of theclaim that gender stereotypes are still important today, but with the examples from and theanalysis of scenes from “Twilight” the atmosphere shifted, students became more engagedin the issue and started to question their own assumptions about film characters ».

In contrast, sometimes the lack of time for a final debriefing wasseen as an obstacle to a more inclusive learning process. Indeed,teachers and researchers (but also all young participants) describedthe discussions carried out at the end of the activity to debrief theprocess as providing effective opportunities for mutual learning andunderstanding among students themselves. In this respect, the virtu-ous relationship between acquiring theoretical knowledge (e.g. theconcept of representation) and developing practical skills (e.g. how to(de)construct media representations) can be considered as a recurrentand significant learning pattern.

... Varied ability to decode and interpret “strategies of othering”performed through the media and in everyday life

While the acquisition of a specific meta–language around media/dis-crimination (par. ..) and the development of a more critical stancetoward media (par. ..) characterised, though to different degrees,the learning experiences of all testing groups, critical understand-ing about strategies of othering and related forms of discrimination


(racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.) did not emerge as a trend acrossthe different contexts. Indeed, we collected mixed evidence of theability to critically interpret (media) discourses that are likely to re-inforce different forms of prejudice and discrimination. On the onehand, during the analytical activities students proved to be able torecognise gender, ethnic and racial stereotypes embedded in differentmedia narratives quite easily and at the end of the testing some ofthem showed — through their answers in post–test questionnaires— a better understanding of the links between media and discrimi-nation in contemporary societies (see for example E and E fromKamenova et al., , p. ; E and E from King, Lazaridis and Lee,, pp. –).

Excerpt – Focus group, Module , Bulgaria [from Kamenova et al., , p. ]

« I came to know that language and words can also be aggressive. I am trying not to usesome names that I don’t want to be called by others ».

Excerpt – Focus group, Module , Bulgaria [from Kamenova et al., , p. ]

« I think that the movies are presenting Arabs as the bad guys because of their politics, ofthe wars. They want us to think that they are bad ».

Excerpt – Student satisfaction questionnaire, Module , UK [from King, Lazaridisand Lee, , p. ]

« It was interesting for me to talk to the others because I had never thought that it mightbe me that had the problem as well as them. I have stopped calling people whitey now ».

Excerpt – Student’s satisfaction questionnaire, Module , UK [from King,Lazaridis and Lee, , p. ]

« I worked a lot on the first three lessons and then a lot on the last two and it wasimportant that we had a good talk about stereotypes and we did; so it was interesting tosee what others thought about Muslims ».

On the other hand, beyond the general recognition of stereotypesin the media, a deeper and self–reflexive understanding of “otheringdiscourses” and discrimination was understandably more difficultto achieve for some groups of participants. Of course, this is partlydue to the fact that understanding of the links between otheringmedia discourses and discrimination is a complex competence whichis more likely to be developed through a long term process ratherthrough a brief educational experience. Nevertheless, in several casesthere were episodes of learning in which a more critical understand-


ing of othering media discourses, violence and discrimination wasmanifested by students, sometimes even beyond the expectationsof their teachers. Generally speaking, these situations were mainlyobserved during group activities (including discussions), more specif-ically when students had the chance to address discrimination alsoon their own terms and in relation to their diverse life experiencesand understandings about discrimination. In contrast, when the formof stereotype or discrimination in question was felt far from students’contingent concerns, they were less engaged in critical reflection,often regardless of the learning methods adopted.

Interestingly, groups improved their awareness of discriminationthrough different paths. For example, in some instances these learn-ing moments consisted of a cooperative work of analysing, producingand discussing (anti)racist or (anti)homophobic media messages. Inother cases, they entailed engaging in lively and sometimes conflict-ing discussions about students’ own prejudices and proved to be asuitable, though challenging, way to address discrimination. In addi-tion, the acquisition of a more self–reflexive approach seems furtherconfirmed for those students who in the post–test questionnairesor in focus group discussions commented that testing largely con-tributed to changing their perceptions of others and sometimes theirown way of representing them in everyday life.

... Use of media/participatory skills to question and fight discrim-ination through media production

Media production oriented activities often turned into engaginglearning situations. As suggested before, media production oftencontributed to developing a greater awareness of media languageboth in general and when used to discriminate the other. In otherwords, producing media influenced students’ reading/viewing skillspositively and their awareness of discrimination. Of course, students’production of anti–discrimination media messages provided richopportunities not only for learning but also for “civic” or, broadlyspeaking, “political” participation. Overall, students were motivatedin making their voices heard and sharing their views, for examplethrough short videos against racism (Fig. ), multimedia messagesabout human rights to be posted on social networks and short news-paper articles about episodes of sexism, racism and homophobia.


Figure . A screenshot of the short video against racism made by the students ofthe ITT Marco Polo of Florence (IT)

Students’ products were clearly different in terms of aestheticquality and content accuracy and this was linked to the very differ-ent levels of media–writing skills and awareness of discrimination.Indeed, in some cases the lack of writing skills and the students’detachment from the specific form of discrimination under consid-eration represented an obstacle to their full participation and to thecreation of an effective media message. In this regard, it is worthnoting that teachers’ scaffolding during production activities oftenplayed a key role to enable and encourage a more equal participationand sometimes even to achieve the task before the end of testing (e.g.producing a video against discrimination). Indeed, media productionactivities often required more time than what was planned in theunits.

Beyond these criticalities, generally the several students’ mediaproducts as well as their critical reflections on them testified anincrease of their media/participatory skills. Furthermore, through“media productions against discrimination” some students demon-strated the ability to question publically different forms of discrim-ination and violence. Particularly significant were those episodeswhere students addressed racial, ethnic, gender and homophobic dis-crimination or more generally power relations (e.g. between teachers


and students) in their own specific contexts (family, school, group ofpeers). In these instances, media production proved to be an effectiveteaching strategy to support students’ empowerment as active andcritical citizens in contemporary democracies.

. Conclusions

This chapter reported the development of educational contents tochallenge discrimination in the media and the testing of those con-tents across seven European countries. On the basis of our research,we cannot state of course that media education is the solution tocontrast the new forms of discrimination spreading through the web.Further research, particularly long term studies, are necessary toassess the impact of such types of intervention. However, taking intoaccount teachers’ observations about constraints and affordances to-gether with the learning results outlined in the previous paragraphswe can draw some conclusive considerations about limits and poten-tials of the e–EAV educational contents.

The opportunities and critical situations that arose during the test-ing were often the result of a convergence or a divergence betweenthe specific activity (seen both in terms of content and pedagogicalstrategy) and the particular learning context in which the testing tookplace. Indeed, in many cases the relevance of the same activity fordeveloping students’ critical thinking was evaluated in different waysaccording to the context. This suggests that teachers’ proactive roleis a key component to engage the students effectively in a significantlearning process. Therefore, the way in which the units are selectedand eventually adapted is of particular importance. More specifically,the match between the specific form of discrimination considered (e.g.racism, islamophobia, sexism, etc.) and students’ direct or indirect lifeexperience seems to be a relevant pre–requisite to enable students’ crit-ical reading of (media) stereotyping and, even more, their questioningof discrimination through media production. This does not entail thatteachers should exclusively address the forms of discrimination alreadyrecognised as such by students, but that when students lack awarenessabout some forms of discrimination, then a bigger effort is required tomake the activities more meaningful to them. More generally, the mainchallenge in teaching media education about discrimination seems tobe that of connecting students’ “micro–politics” and the wider “macro–


politics” (Fiske ; Wilkinson and Mulgan, ) to support studentsin the meaning–making process.

At the same time, the flexible and varied nature of contentsproved to be a successful feature of the educational materials in so faras these characteristics allowed teachers to combine, adapt and varythem according to the specific students’ needs. Another aspect thatpositively influenced students’ learning was the pedagogical choiceof engaging them with activities based on peer (Alexander et al., )and experiential learning (Pfeiffer and Jones, ). On the one hand,through group work and discussions they were stimulated to reflecton their own experience, “to think aloud” around their own learningpractices and develop critical thinking. On the other, simulations,role–play and gaming enabled them to reflect on the consequencesof their behaviour in a safe environment and engage with ethicalconsiderations relating to their actions.

Of course, the learning contents may still be improved to makethe activities more effective and, most of all, more inclusive of a wideraudience. In this respect, teachers’ suggestions represent precious“experiential knowledge” to start with in a future re–designing of thelearning material.


Media education goes online

A virtual learning environmentfor teachers’ training against discrimination

P T, A–C O X

. Introduction

Though there is a strong emphasis on the role that media educationmay play in building global citizenship and supporting interculturaldialogue (see for example UNESCO, ), educational contents andbest practices on these issues are still lacking (Aguaded–Gómez,). In particular, teachers and educators may contribute to de-constructing populist stereotypes about race, gender, disability andsexual orientation in the media, and promote youth engagementagainst hate speech by raising their awareness, but they need educa-tional tools and support. With this in mind, in the fourth phase ofthe e–EAV project, we developed an online learning environment toenhance teachers and educators’ self–training about media literacy,populism and discrimination. More precisely, we aimed to promoteteachers and educators’ awareness about the mechanisms occurringbetween media, populism and discrimination; develop teachers’ me-dia literacy skills in order to make them able to analyse violent mediamessages, deconstruct stereotypes and support media creation activi-ties; increase teachers and educators’ participation in the design andimplementation of educational strategies against violence in the newdigital media; train multiplier actors to amplify the impact of theproject and expand the dissemination of its results; finally, to build acommunity of e–engaged teachers, educators and young people tomonitor discrimination on the web and promote participation.

To achieve these goals, an e–learning platform about media liter-acy with specific focus on the role of media towards discriminationand populism issues was designed, implemented and tested with teachers and educators from all over Europe. After presenting

Paul de Theux, Anne–Claire Orban de Xivry

the content of the platform, this chapter reports some results ofthe experimentation carried out with teachers, particularly focusingon the co–design of the virtual community. Finally, it draws someconclusive considerations about the main outputs of the project andfuture developments.

. Framework and contents

How to approach teachers and educators’ training in the field ofmedia education, particularly referring to challenging prejudices inthe media and promoting youth’s engagement? Generally speaking,there are several competences that should be considered in teachers’professional development including (Wilson, Rizzle et al., , p. ):

— understanding how media literacy might be implemented inthe school curriculum;

— being able to critically assess media texts and informationsources taking into account media;

— developing the pedagogical skills that are necessary to teachmedia literacy;

— acquiring knowledge about student interactions with mediato support their learning processes;

— understanding key concepts, tools of enquiry and structuresof media literacy in order to design and develop meaningfullearning experiences to empower students and prepare themas citizens.

Following these general principles, the e–EAV project has de-veloped a learning environment for teachers and educators’ self–training, which consists of an online platform including five thematicmodules mainly relating to discrimination as well as media and citi-zenship education.

The contents of the modules were planned and developedcollaboratively by Media Animation (Belgium) and the Universityof Florence (Italy) around five main media literacy topics, availableboth in English and French. Each module includes units of hours’ training. The first units of each module develop analysismechanisms, the other focus on media message production. Thefinal goal is to develop teachers’ capacity to take a critical stance


towards media, populism and discrimination and to act against it.Here a synopsis of the modules.

Module

Information reception and production concentrates on news mediaand on how they represent rather than reflect the social world. Theanalytical section provides teachers with a framework to deconstructnews media representations including the main mechanisms of neg-ative stereotyping of different social groups (i.e. women, disabledpeople, ethnic groups, etc.) Through production oriented activities,instead, teachers apply the basic concepts of source, reliability, diver-sity coverage, users’ participation engaging with some exercises thatwill make them able to lead a process of participatory journalismwith their students.

Module

Audio–visual Fiction and Ideologies focuses on how audio–visualmay convey stereotypical representations of specific social groups,particularly in Western societies. Starting with an introduction ofhow otherness is represented in audio–visual fiction, teachers areinvited to reflect on the use of stereotypes by taking into accounteven other points of view (e.g. Western movies versus non–Westernmovies). The section on media production, instead, provides teacherswith basic notions and methodologies of video making (i.e. story-board, audio–visual language, sound, editing) in order to allow themto supervise students’ video making activities against discrimination.

Module

Videogames and citizenship highlights the possible interplay be-tween games and citizenship with particular focus on the situationof immigrants. The analysis oriented units provide teachers withan analytical framework to understand basic concepts like gaming,gameplay and representation in strategic games. Teachers are alsoinvited to deconstruct discourses about video games and reflect onthe regulation mechanisms related to them. Finally, in the media pro-duction section they explore various creative aspects of video games


like transforming classical story to gameplay, avatar and fan art toget to know some challenges of video games related to citizenship.

Module

Political Communication and Propaganda deals with political use ofmedia and their role in questioning or reinforcing different types ofprejudice toward specific social groups. Starting with the definitionsof political communication and propaganda, teachers work on themain rhetorical strategies of political discourses including the roleof stereotype. The production oriented units, instead, aim to equipteachers with methodological tools in order to allow them to advisestudents in creation of campaigns against discrimination addressingthe school community and the wider public.

Module

Online Activism & Networking refers to different communicative, or-ganisational and mobilising practices for social and/or political change.The first section focuses on online activism including the analysis oftwo specific cases, namely Wikileaks and the Arab Spring. Teachersget methodological hints (i.e. the timeline and video détournementtechnique) to teach these cases. The media production section engagesteachers with some communicative practices, such as writing effec-tive texts to promote human rights and fight discrimination of LGBTpeople through social networks. Furthermore, the last three units arededicated to the collaborative development of a Students’ Rights e–Charter and its sharing with other members of the school community.Teachers get hints on how to support students in this task.

Within each module, units are developed according to the follow-ing pattern: first it provides teachers and educators with theory andexamples, and then it invites them to use a worksheet for media anal-ysis or to produce some resources through the online environment.This structure in modules reflects the organisation of the e–bookimplemented for young people (see Chapter ). Indeed, the tools de-veloped for youth and teachers (i.e. the e–book and the platform) wereconceived and implemented at the same time to guarantee a certaincoherence between what was taught to youth and what was proposedto teachers for self–training to in turn advise youth. Therefore, the


themes dealt with in the e–learning platform are identical to thoseaddressed to the students providing teachers with a double method-ological starting point. Either they are firstly interested in e–learning,and then from the platform they have access to students’ activities andmay translate into practice what they have learnt (from the platformto e–books). Or they like carrying on some activities with their groupof students, and then they take the opportunity of the e–learning plat-form as a pedagogical means to prepare themselves for the teachingactivity (from e–books to the platform).

. Structure of the content

To support teachers in finding their way through the five modules, abrief description of each module is given on the home page of theplatform. Then, the teacher can decide how to organise its learn-ing path in a very flexible manner. In other words, he/she has notnecessarily to study in a sequential way all units from to . Asanticipated, in each module, the units are articulated into twogroups: units – are dedicated to media analysis while units –are more oriented towards media production. Moreover, there is aslight difference between each group of units. The first two units ofeach group (i.e. units , and units , ) are considered "basic", i.e.they explain the necessary concepts to address the subsequent units.The second group of units (i.e. units , , and , , ) are meantas "optional", since the teacher may decide whether to address allof them – if he/she has the time, or select the ones he/she is mostinterested in.

Each unit shares the same pattern, that is: Introduction, Theoryand Context, Activity, Conclusion, Sources and links:

— Introduction: The introduction provides a short overview ofthe unit, its goals, and the media resources used in it (filmclips, websites, articles, pictures etc.).

— Theory and Context: the first part includes a section devoted tothe theory providing the teacher with basic concepts on theunit’s topic that he/she will need to achieve the objectives ofthe unit. A number of examples is also given to link theoryto practice. The examples often come from famous mediasuch as films and news media. The platform aims at targeting


as many teachers and educators as possible across Europe, itwas therefore important to find examples known by everyone.For Module Audio–visual Fiction and Ideologies, for example,mainstreams films (often American productions) were cho-sen to be analysed and used as examples. We may assume thatmost teachers know them or at least have already heard aboutthem. On the other hand, concerning political subjects andnews media, it was more difficult to find relevant examplespotentially known by everyone. For example, we thoughtthat the case of Lampedusa Island (Italy) with hundreds ofimmigrants involved could be used in some units providingsignificant examples since these events had been reportedin much of the press in Europe. But for other subjects, likefor instance the analysis of a political party website, we hadto propose national political parties. In this case, a brief ex-planation of those parties was however provided and Englishwebsites were privileged, as this language was accessible to amajority of teachers.

— Activity: After providing teachers with theory, we integratedtheoretical knowledge with practical work. The exercises of-fered in each module are quite varied, from analysis to mediaproduction. As far as media analysis is concerned, the exercisemay refer to searching for information on a website, fillingout an analytical framework from given examples, lookingfor more “local” examples illustrating theory presented in theTheory and context, and so on.Concerning media production it was important that unitsdid not require specific material to enable the teacher to dothe exercises at home. We opted for simple exercises (writingarticles, reviews, scenario creation ...) or for productions thatdid not require expensive software (e.g. for exercises aboutsoundtracks, we suggested using open source software thatteachers can download for free).

— Conclusion: Self–training in a context of voluntary learningrequires a form of assessment that, on one hand, empow-ers teachers while, on the other hand, is not too formal (noquote system, for example). Self–assessment was the mostappropriate evaluation method and closer to the self–trainingapproach because it promotes independence and autonomyof the teacher. In this approach, teachers are responsible for


their own learning and it is up to them to estimate if they haveacquired the competences needed or not. Therefore, each unitends with a phase of self–evaluation that provides teacherswith an evaluation grid to evaluate their level on the exer-cises they have carried out. This final phase also encouragesteachers to share their feedback, comments or self–evaluationthrough the forum.

— Sources and links: After the conclusion, the teacher can accessall the sources used for the unit and links to go further. Linksgiving access to exercises on the same subject to do in classwith students are also provided (i.e. links to e–book tools).

Beside the learning units, the e–EAV platform offers severalother functionalities to users. It is structured into four main sec-tions: Homepage, My courses, Progress and Social Network. On the“Homepage” a general overview of the modules and of the generalorganisation of the platform is provided. The “My courses” sectiongives access to the modules. In this section, there is a frame called“Courses” with the Course catalogue where the user can choose themodules he/she wants to subscribe to and that will appear in the“My courses” section. The “Progress” section offers statistics on theperformances of the user (i.e. time spent on the courses, progress inpercentage etc.).

Finally, the “Social Network” section allows the user to sendmessages to other users, to add “friends” and create or join groupsof users to share contents on different topics, like a forum. The usercan also download some files onto his/her profile.

. Methodological framework of the experimentation

The editing of educational modules and their implementation in an e–learning platform then led to an experimentation of this environment.Campaigns to call for volunteers were launched in each country inorder to recruit about to teachers or educators in each partnercountry (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Slovenia and theUnited Kingdom).

There were about teachers and educators across Europe whoregistered on the platform to participate in the experimentation be-tween May and November .


Each volunteer needed to be able to work either in English orin French and have access, from school or home, to a computerconnected to the Internet.

The role of these volunteers, that we called “Tester teachers”,consisted of connecting and testing at least units within one singlemodule (a unit is about hours). Of course, they could carry onmore activities even within other modules/themes. The choice ofthemes (i.e., modules) and units was free. They were asked to fullycarry out the activity, to explore and test the different features (profileediting, exchange area, etc.) of the platform. They were requested totake notes during the testing about their experimentation thanks toa logbook. This note taking would help them complete the surveysthey were asked to fill in, i.e. the tester teachers’ survey and the finalsurvey. Those surveys were available either clicking on a button onthe platform or by writing an e–mail to the platform’s administrator.

Among the Tester teachers, about teachers were consideredas “pilot” in the sense that they were asked to provide additionalfeedback on usability, smoothness and the community aspect of thee–learning platform. These pilot teachers were involved from thebeginning in a collaborative process (co–design) for the implemen-tation of a community of teachers, educators and youth engagedagainst online discrimination. The experimentation protocol for pilotteachers entailed that they connected to the platform and tested anumber of units ( instead of , and at least units within one singlemodule), freely choosing the themes (modules). They had to fullycarry out the online activities. During their exploration of the onlineactivities, they were asked to pay attention to the following dimen-sions: ergonomics of the platform, clearness of instruction, relevancyand accuracy of content, diversity of online activities, communitybuilding: opportunities and features.

Along the experimentation phase, several working tools wereelaborated in French and English in order to supervise the testing:tutorials for the use of the e–learning platform, physical and phonemeetings between partners to monitor and improve the experimentalframework, methodological guidelines and a logbook for participantsto take notes during the testing period.

Beside those working tools, three types of research tools were im-plemented to evaluate the e–learning platform’s use by teachers andeducators. Firstly, in each country, we organised physical or virtual(webinars, conference call) meetings with teachers before and after


the experimentation. The goal of the pre–meeting was to presentthe research protocol and provide participants with information tofacilitate the testing. The post–meeting aimed to collect feedbackabout the opportunity and the usefulness of the online environment.Secondly, online surveys were implemented into the platform: apreliminary survey to establish the users’ profiles was administeredduring the pre–meeting or the first contacts with the volunteer teach-ers; a questionnaire on community co–design specifically addressedto pilot teachers; the teacher testers’ survey related to assessmentof content and a final survey for all participants. The third type ofdata available is the statistics collected from the platform (registration,modules subscriptions, etc.).

This methodological approach based on a combination of sur-veys and statistics was mainly chosen for reasons of flexibility andfeasibility. Indeed, the online implementation of all the research toolshelped to overcome the obstacle of collecting quantitative data fromdifferent geographic contexts (i.e. seven countries). On the otherhand, the flexibility of the protocol (free choice of modules, lack ofcontrol of answers to surveys, etc.) did not allow us to cross surveyanswers and participants data with more scientific rigor.

Through these various research tools we collected different in-formation that we will present and discuss in the next paragraphs.Before describing the results, we provide some general data aboutthe number of participants (Table ):

Table . Summary of survey responses

Users registered on the platform “Active participants” (Users connected more than once on the platform) Participants on the preliminary survey Pilot teachers’ survey responses Tester teachers’ survey responses Final survey responses

. Participants’ profiles

A preliminary survey was presented to participants at the same timeas their registration on the experimentation process. They thereforecompleted the questionnaire before testing the platform. This survey


aimed to establish users’ standard profile of the platform. Througha series of questions () around the (socio–professional) variables,the survey sought to understand what type of profile engaged in aproject such as e–EAV, namely the testing of a self–training mediaeducation platform against discrimination. It also allowed us to have afirst overview about the favourite contents according to participantsand some of their expectations.

The results of the survey were extracted on Tuesday October. From these results, there was quantitative data processing. Atotal of participants completed the survey although the ques-tionnaire was made mandatory for all participants, but without thepossibility of control of execution. Of the users registered on theplatform, almost % therefore answered the preliminary survey.

.. Participants’ age

In the context of this survey, it was interesting to know the averageage of participants. What would be the most represented age groupamong respondents?

From the year of birth provided by each and based on as thebase year, we were able to divide participants by age (with a marginof error of one year).

In total, the youngest participant is years old while the oldestis years old.

Figure provides a distribution of respondents to the prelimi-nary survey across age groups of years. We observe that mostparticipants (nearly respondents) are within the usual period ofprofessional life: between and years old, with an average ageof years. Unlike the hypothesis of a potential interest of youngerteachers for online self–training tool, this figure shows a more ho-mogeneous distribution throughout the working lives of teachersand educators, either they are at the beginning or the end of theircareer.

.. Second target group’s age

Through the question “How old are the students/young people youwork with?”, the goal was to have an overview of the age group ofthe second line target audience, namely the group with whom theparticipants work. To this question most participants responded by


Figure . Distribution of participants’ ages by different groups

specifying a range of ages. For example, many answers were given inthis way: –/– etc. From these data, a methodological choicewas taken to process data as follows: in each age group cited, everyage was counted as one occurrence.

An interval of years — years was set. The + category (years and more) groups quoted ages older than . The calculationresulted in the graph below (Fig. ) representing a Gaussian curve.The curve starts and ends between the ages of years to – years.This is the age group of high school. These results are of coursedirectly related to the teaching profession, since teachers representedthe majority of users of the platform.

The high school audience is also the one targeted by activities foryoung people and gathered in the eEAV e–books. Indeed, as alreadymentioned, the activities of e–books and of the self–training platformwere developed in pairs in the interest of simultaneously targetingboth teachers and students in high school. Figure confirms therelevance of the target audience of the project.


Figure . Occurrence of the cited ages


.. Previous experience in e–learning

Figure shows the proportion of respondents who have already beeninvolved in an online self–training process (e–learning). In readingthis graph, it seems that there is no systematic relationship betweenhaving already had an e–learning experience and being involved inprojects such as e–EAV. The proportion is about % –%. Sincethe question “Have you already been involved in e–learning activ-ities” did not specify the meaning of “e–learning activities”, theanswers include different types of experiences ranging from onlineself–training such as participation in MOOCs (Massive Open OnlineCourses) to online tutorials, interactive resources, etc. Therefore, wecannot consider the variable “former experience in e–learning” asrelevant to identify the profile of our participants. On the other hand,we can assume a certain proximity of these respondents with onlineresources.

Figure . Percentage of participants who have already been integrated into ane–learning activity

.. Former experience about discrimination, populism and media issues

Again, another question of the survey was whether the respondentshad already had the opportunity to work on the themes of discrim-ination, populism and the media with their target audience. We


wanted to understand whether interest in a project such as e–EAVwas indeed linked to willingness of approaching for the first timeand exploring notions and concepts around citizenship and mediaeducation; or rather they wanted to deepen and master them.

Through Figure , it is possible to see that the proportion ofparticipants who had already dealt with the subject and those whohad not is almost equal. As for the issue of former experience inonline self–training, it does not appear that the interest in onlineself–training on discrimination and media education relates to eitherbeginners or specialists.

Figure . Experiences on discrimination and diversity in the media with students

In summary, we can identify the typical profile of the user of thee–engagementagainstviolence.eu platform. He/she is usually a teacher,from any level of career and working predominantly with teenagegroups (– years). We cannot consider him/her as a specialist apriori either of the topics dealt with (discrimination, populism andmedia) or of the e–learning process.

. The learning aspect

.. Participants’ favourite topics

Before the experimentation of the platform and through the prelimi-nary survey, we collected information about themes declared a priorias the most or least attractive.

In Figure , the number of times that the module was declaredas a favourite is indicated in blue, while the number of times that


Figure . Users’ preferences about the content

the module was declared as of lowest priority is highlighted in red.We may therefore conclude that Module — Production and receptionof information was perceived as the most attractive. It is followed byModule — Audiovisual fictions and ideologies and then Module —Political communication and propaganda. Module — Online activismand networking and Module — Video Games and citizenship appearedto be less attractive. In terms of justification for these choices, wefind in the survey many arguments of personal judgment against athematic rather than its relevance in the professional context (Verba-tim: “I’m not interested in video games”, “I’m not comfortable withthis”, etc.).

This trend is confirmed by the platform’s statistics about subscrip-tion to the modules. An overview of favourite themes is provided inFigure . Indeed this figure shows the proportion of subscribers foreach single module: the topics of information, audio–visual fictionand political communication obtained more subscriptions than videogames and social networks.

These results are coherent with other studies on media education(Parola and Ranieri, ). Indeed, there is a common tendency byteachers to approach media education on the basis of their personalpractices and knowledge (e.g. information, communication, televi-sion and film culture, etc.) rather than considering the interests oftheir students (e.g. social networks, video games, mobile phones,etc.). Moreover, topics relating to audio–visual, information and com-


Figure . Module frequentation

munication are perceived as more “conformist and serious” for theschool community rather than others.

.. Modules and units: learning through a path

Figure . Unit progression

The modules were conceived as learning paths. As explainedabove, they consist of two parts: media analysis (units – ) andmedia production (units – ) in which the first two units ( & , & ) were labelled as basic activities while the others as advancedactivities. Participants were free to choose the units to carry on.

Both graphs above (Fig. and Fig. ) tie in and are coherent. In-deed, when we asked the pilot teachers if the progression of unitsmakes sense within the modules, .% answered ‘Yes’ and .%


Figure . Units tested

agreed relatively. And when comparing these figures with the effec-tive use of the platform (see Fig. ), we can notice that, althoughteachers were free to choose the units, % started with unit andonly after having completed the early units did they skip and accesssubsequent units. So, they were inclined to follow the suggested pathof units rather than to freely pick units.

We can also observe that they have mainly chosen units focused onanalysis rather than on production. This observation is confirmed bythe representation of their level of acquisition (see the next paragraph).

.. Learning activities mobilised by participants

In this paragraph, we focus on the representation of participants aboutthe learning activities offered by the e–EAV platform. For this purpose,we use the well known taxonomy of learning activities developed byBloom () in the Sixties and still used today (Benraouane, ). Wereferred to this taxonomy in a question (i.e. «Please, rank the followingtypes of activities according to their importance/frequency/degree ofoccurrence–mobilisation in the e–EAV online environment») includedin the final survey administered to all participants.


This taxonomy has six hierarchical levels, organised from thesimplest acquisition level to the most complex one:

— Knowledge: description of things and facts. Examples of verbsrelated to these activities: to define, to duplicate, to list, tomemorize, to identify, to name, to reproduce.

— Understanding: explanation with his/her own vocabulary. Ex-amples of verbs related to these activities: to describe, toclassify, to discuss, to place, to reword, to translate.

— Application: transfer of theoretical knowledge into practicalknowledge. Examples of verbs related to these activities: toapply, to choose, to illustrate, to interpret, to practice, to plan,to schematize.

— Analysis: activities of induction and deduction. Examples ofverbs related to these activities: to analyse, to estimate, tocompare, to contrast, to criticise, to examine, to determine.

— Synthesis: creation of new ideas on the basis of thesis andantithesis already known. Examples of verbs related to theseactivities: to predict, to produce, to formulate, to compare, tosynthesize, to compose.

— Evaluation: capacity of independent judgement, the learnerbecome autonomous by developing his/her own points ofview and asserting his/her own positions. Examples of verbsrelated to these activities: to argue, to assess, to justify, tojudge, to assume.

To obtain the respondents’ representations, we asked them torank these activities in descending order of importance in e–EAVprocess. The results presented below show the six types of activities(Fig. ). Each column refers to a position in the ranking (first, sec-ond, etc.). In each column, the percentage obtained by each level isindicated in %.

Results show that activities regarding knowledge and understandingare in first position: they were chosen as the first level by respectively.% and .% of respondents. These two levels also dominate insecond rank, with respective results of .% and .%. At the otherend of the scale, we find the choice of the activities related to synthesis(.% in the fifth and sixth positions) and to evaluation (.% and.% in the fifth and sixth positions). The other levels of the taxon-omy obtain intermediate results in the rankings, placing them mainly in


Figure . Learning activities

third and fourth positions. These results match the structure of Bloom’sTaxonomy: according to participants, the e–EAV platform offered dif-ferent opportunities for learning of which the most important learningacquisition relates to the first levels of the taxonomy; the higher learn-ing levels (synthesis and evaluation) seem to be less supported by theonline environment. Participants therefore seem to have taken moreadvantage of the first five units within each module (analysis section),instead of the five last ones which are focused mainly on the productionof media messages.

. A community of e–engaged teachers to build

The e–EAV project planned to associate teachers to the co–design ofthe community of the e–learning platform. For this reason in eachpartner’s country, we recruited about pilot teachers dedicated to thisspecific task. As explained in the methodological framework section,the role of those pilot teachers was to give feedback about the er-gonomics, the smoothness and the community aspect of the learningenvironment. This helped us to improve some features of the platformand to implement the community features into the environment.


Topics covered in the survey for co–design were about:

— Ergonomics of the platform— Clearness of instruction— Relevancy and accuracy of contents— Diversity of online activities— Community building: opportunities and features

Before starting the survey, all pilot teachers were asked to exper-iment at least units overall, and at least units within one singlemodule. They were free to choose the themes (modules) and theunits. They were required to fully carry out the online activities.They also had to explore all features of the platform (editing profile,exchange area, etc.) and the opportunities of interacting with others.After having tested the environment and its contents, pilot teachershad to fill in an online survey.

The survey was an anonymous online form, available in French andin English. It included closed as well as open questions. In total we had pilot teachers who answered the survey. Among the respondents,there were teachers, educators and lecturer. Two did not indicatetheir job or professional activity. participants were between and years old and between – years old. Two did not specify theirage. They were representatives of six countries: Austria (), Belgium (),Bulgaria (), France (), Italy () and Slovenia ().

In the context of this chapter, we will focus more on the commu-nity’s co–design rather than the ergonomics aspects.

.. Networking with others during the experimentation

An “exchange area” was implemented in the platform to allow partic-ipants to share their analysis, productions and exercise answers withtheir colleagues. In this regard, the majority of the pilot teachers did notseem to be interested in the use of this sharing space (% of them haveno advice or disagree or even strongly disagree about its usefulness).Indeed, this feature was concretely exploited by only a few users.

In general, all the sharing opportunities were not exploited bythe participants as Figure demonstrates. % on average answeredthey never used the tools set up to exchange with other teachers orused the networking tools. The tools that were less used by the pilotteachers were the messaging tools (“Sending invitations to people”,


Figure . Usage of tools

“Sending and replying to messages from people”).From Figure we can draw that the pilot teachers did not really

use the social tools of the platform either to get in contact with othersor to share their work, even if it was requested as a task. We mayalso observe that this trend is true for all the participants.

Moreover, when asked about the missing tool/feature of theplatform, participants’ suggestions for new features were linked tocontents improvements or resource organisation. The pilot teachersdid not seem so far to consider the potentiality of a community (e.g.work sharing, network building).

.. Community co–design

A full section of the pilot teachers’ survey aimed at collecting infor-mation about opportunities and features of the platform to build anonline Community of e–engaged teachers, educators and young peo-ple in order to monitor discrimination on the web and to promoteEuropean engagement against populism, racism and other forms ofdiscrimination through the media.

As observed in the previous section, the ready–made networkingtools available on the platform did not lead to spontaneous contact


making among participants. Respondents explained their lack ofinterest through two main arguments: they believed that those toolswere not necessary (.%) or they did not have time to use them(%). Some other teachers declared that they did not know aboutthe existence of these services (.%) or they were not interestedin making contact (.%). Another .% do not specify any reason.The few teachers (.%) who did try to make contact with otherusers did not get an answer or not enough to really make contact.

Even if participants did not really exploit the opportunity oflaunching the community, they were asked to contribute to its design.Most of them (.%) did not or could not make hypotheses on howthe e–community could work during the experimentation phase.Among those who were able to give an answer to the question “Howwould you describe the community?”, three–quarters had a mixedopinion, seeing the community as unsubstantial, at its inception oras an empty place. Two teachers gave more positive feedback onthe community, considering it as “A community for exchange ofteaching practices” and “International and engaged”, but they werenot frequent users of it so far.

To go deeper in the community co–design, we asked pilot teach-ers to formulate at least three goals of this forthcoming community.We can collect the most expected goals under six main groups:

— Share productions and documentation;— Exchange ideas and thoughts;— Work together in groups, or with others (from different coun-

tries);— Learn Media Literacy and make prevention;— Discuss topics, exchange views;— Ask questions and ask for help.

In order to define their expectations better, they were also in-vited to specify the target group of such a community. To the ques-tion “Who may join this community?”, one third of the pilot teach-ers (.%) estimate that this community could be joined by ev-ery teacher/educator interested in the topic of Media Educationagainst discrimination. .% of the participants deem the teach-ers/educators could join the community with their group of stu-dents/young people. Another .% think it could be used by every-one interested, not only teachers. A minority (.%) say that only the


teachers/educators using the platform could join this community.But how to moderate this community? .% of the pilot teachers

do not know how or did not answer this question. The rest of theparticipants are fairly unanimous on the fact that there should bedesignated moderators (administrator of the platform, or nominatedmoderators like experts or teachers). Only .% deem it could beself–moderated, if the community is large enough.

From these results, we can draw some main lessons. First, to net-work did not seem “natural” to our participants because of the lackof spontaneity in making contacts. Secondly, a community would beinteresting for teachers if it is mainly content–oriented: to exchangeresources, ideas and work experiments would be the main goal of net-working. Therefore, and finally, the sustainability of such a communityrelies on content supply from an “animator–moderator” in order toengage participants into a collective and collaborative dynamic.

. Conclusions

For a majority of teachers involved in the experimentation media ed-ucation is a vital component of education. Through the organisationof post–meetings, we obtained more advice and feelings regardingthe opportunity of the e–learning platform. Many of them also un-derlined that there is a real need for this type of material in schools.This platform was described as interesting, useful, and worthwhileand with a variety of relevant activities and pertinent, well docu-mented topics. Almost all teachers reported having enlarged theirview on discrimination and media thanks to the self–training activity.After the experimentation, their perception of the issue has changedand they are now more aware of various forms of discrimination.The platform provided them with information, tips and tools in aready–to–use format that was highly appreciated. Teachers who werealready aware of discrimination did not radically change their viewbut the e–EAV experience enabled them to found new insights towork on this topic and new ways to deal with it (i.e. tools, examples,theoretical concepts etc.). Those who had not much experience ofdiscrimination are now more aware about it and better prepared toaddress these topics in class. Some units inspired teachers to try newapproaches to teaching, and to introduce more media in class. Someteachers underlined that there was a good balance between theory


and practice and that information was globally well structured.This virtual learning environment about media education against

discrimination was judged as a really good opportunity providingmany educational resources. This project was also one of the firstinitiatives in terms of media education activity through an e–learningprocess. The teachers were involved in a self–training activity thatdoes not seem to have troubled them in terms of learning: they didnot seem lost even if they were more used to attending traditionaltraining (in groups, with a trainer in a physical room). On the otherhand, many teachers highlighted the need for self–discipline and thetime–consuming aspect of such a process. Looking at their progres-sion and statistics, we observed however that they seemed to feelcomfortable in the web area. They privileged media analysis ratherthan media production. Moreover, they chose mainly to follow the in-formation, audio–visual and communication modules. Video gamesand social network topics appeared as lower priority, reproducingthe same pattern of usual teachers’ interest for media education: thedenial of some media practices considered as funnier and thereforeof no educational interest (serious vs fun), the propensity to stay inthe comfort area of one’s own media practices rather than exploringnew media practices and cultures.

Again, this exploratory attitude was also missing in relation tonetworking. The social features were scarcely used by participants:to make contact, to exchange ideas, to confront their work were notvery exploited during the experimentation. However, participants inthe co–design process agreed on the fact that social tools could bean added value. This means that teachers and educators need a bit ofa boost to involve themselves in collective sharing and networking.To engage oneself in a community of media education against dis-crimination with other teachers and educators did not look natural.Incitement and networking strategies need to be better defined. Thiswould be the next challenge of media and citizenship education.

In the meantime, the e–EAV project had offered teachers and edu-cators a step forward: to engage themselves with their students againstdiscrimination. Through this e–learning platform they became aware ofthe role of media and media education against discrimination and pop-ulism and started to act in their school communities. The further andextensive uses of the e–learning platform e–engagementagainstviolence.euwill perhaps offer new opportunities to make bridges and to give birthto a community. The future will tell us.

P II

LEARNING SCENARIOS


Learning scenario

From gender stereotyping to reportingdiversity in the news media

. Introduction

In a globalised world news media play a crucial role in representingdifferent social groups. When an event is transformed into a newsstory (e.g. newspaper article, TV newscast, journalistic reportage,etc.) it turns into a particular perspective on reality that should becritically read as a representation of reality and not as a transpar-ent presentation of it (Masterman, ). Indeed news media, likeall media, offer particular interpretations and selections of reality,which inevitably embody implicit values and ideologies. Hence, theability to critically interpret the representations of the social worldconveyed by news media is often considered a key citizenship skill tobecome an active participant in democratic life. In this regard, MediaEducation can be seen as an effective pedagogical strategy to enablestudents to critically read news media representations of particularsocial groups but also to make them active producers of their ownmedia representations of the social world (Buckingham, ). Inthis learning scenario, which has been developed within the frame-work of e–EAV Module – Information reception and production, wepay particular attention to how news media can stereotype specificsocial groups and how things may be reported in different ways,that is avoiding the oversimplification media portrays and respectingdiversity.

In the following, we will provide background information onmedia stereotyping and reporting diversity, a description of the unitsincluding examples of exercises and some final considerations.

Learning scenario


A stereotype can be defined as a widely held and simplistic imageor idea of a particular social group. To some extent news mediaalways make use of stereotypes to portray certain social categoriessince stereotypes may work as means to represent complex socialreality in a comprehensible and immediate way to a wide audience.Generally, news media stereotyping simplifies individual identitiesby emphasising some features of people (nationality, gender, immi-gration status, etc.) over others in the news story, thus generalisingmore or less explicitly about an entire social group (e.g. the French,women, immigrants, etc.). When the representation is negative, thissort of generalisation always risks reproducing and reinforcing preju-dice. And, as well known, a prejudice is a negative attitude towardan entire social group. How can we recognise negative stereotypesembedded in journalistic accounts of reality (e.g. newspaper articles,video or photo reportage, etc.)?

Yanovski () identifies five techniques through which newsmedia makers reproduce negative stereotypes.

The first stereotyping technique corresponds to the transforma-tion of a negative individual case into a generalised prejudice. Itconsists of reporting particular cases in a news story by emphasisingsome negative features of the people involved in the event and thenattributing more or less explicitly these negative characteristics tothe social group to which individuals belong.

The second technique works through the accumulation of mainlynegative information about a particular social group. It is based onproviding copious information around a particular social group whilefocusing on some negative attributes that are presented as “typical”of that group through their repetition in different forms (e.g. writtendescriptions, photos, videos, etc.).

The third technique is featured by the use of negative or evenoffensive labels to define one particular social group. For example,Islamophobia can be reproduced and reinforced when news mediaregularly describe people of Muslim religion with labels such as“fanatical”, “fundamentalist” and “intolerant”.

The fourth technique concerns the use of some moments of thehistory of a specific social group to define its “nature”. In this case,controversial or even dramatic events of the history of a given socialgroup are employed — and sometimes manipulated — as if evidence

Learning scenario

of some “innate” negative features shared by all members of thatgroup.

The fifth technique consists of identifying the image of a groupwith that of a nation–state as if internal differences between individualmembers were not relevant compared to the so–called “national iden-tity”. Here, prejudice is built through one’s own national group beingpositively represented and other nationalities depicted in a negative way.

Of course stereotyping techniques are not the only ways to representsocial groups. More accurate and less stereotyped representations canbe offered through news media. In this respect, “Reporting Diversity”is the expression used when one refers to the writing of journalisticreports about groups that are different from “our” group — that is tosay, the “other” —, without having necessarily this diversity leading to aqualitative opposition “good/bad” or “civilised/non–civilised” (Yanovski,). In other words, it is a journalistic practice that is respectful towardsdiversity, which refers to “the other” without stigmatising him/her andby also including his/her point of view.

. Learning activities

This learning scenario includes three activities of media analysis andone of media production. It starts with a simple exercise of visualanalysis aimed at promoting a basic understanding of media represen-tation inductively (MU). Concretely, students are asked to compareand comment on two different photo–framings of the same situation.Afterwards, it continues with a more sophisticated analytical activityrequiring students to identify examples of negative stereotypes inonline newspaper articles and reflect on which stereotyping tech-nique(s) are used (MU). The third activity is specifically focusedon the reproduction of gender stereotypes and brings students toreflect on how newspapers represent men and women more or lessdifferently and how these different representations echo or questioncommon gender stereotypes (see Box no. ) (MU). The learningscenario ends with an exercise of news media production, requiringstudents to re–write a newspaper article offering a particular portraitof Romanian immigrants in the UK. The news story puts forward astereotyped representation of Romanians and students are asked tore–tell the story without reproducing the same simplistic negativerepresentations that it contains (MU).

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . Analysing representations in news media

Objectives This unit intends to stimulate students to reflect on how news mediarepresent and interpret reality. In particular it aims at developing thefollowing objectives:• To understand how even news media always offer partial and partisanrepresentations of reality;• To learn to describe, interpret and judge visual representations ofreality;• To learn to reflect upon one’s own media interpretations by compar-ing them with those of other people.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase the teacher invites thestudents to express their opinions on the realism and influence ofimages in news media based on their own experience;Phase – Activity ( min): in this phase the teacher supports the stu-dents in the analysis of two images by inviting them to give the broadestand most exhaustive possible answers;Phase – Conclusion ( h): in this phase the teacher plays a crucial role ashe/she co-ordinates and tries to guide self–reflection upon the analysis.Here it should emerge how both media representation of reality andour different representations of media concur in building the meaningof representations.

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . How to recognise negative stereotypes in news media

Objectives This unit intends to encourage students to reflect on how news mediamight create negative stereotypes. In particular it aims at developingthe following objectives:• To understand the role of stereotypes in the representation of people’sidentity;• To learn how to recognise and describe the ways in which prejudicesare expressed about some social groups, through the construction ofnegative stereotypes;• To reflect on the interpretation of negative stereotypes elaboratedduring the activity and self–evaluate the quality and accuracy of theanalysis.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase the teacher introduces theunit topic, describes the identity game and coordinates a short groupdiscussion;Phase – Activity ( min): in this phase the teacher presents sometechniques of negative stereotyping by giving some examples. After-wards, the teacher supports the students in the analysis of negativestereotypes;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase the teacher coordinatesthe presentation of students’ work and debate aimed at evaluating thework.

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . Gender stereotypes in information websites

Objectives The unit intends to encourage students to reflect on the pervasivenessand power of gender stereotypes in society and particularly in newsmedia. In particular it aims at developing the following objectives:• To learn how to recognise the most common gender stereotypes andunderstand the possible consequences of using them;• To learn how to evaluate and systematically analyse gender stereotypesin news media, particularly when they turn into sexist stereotypes;• To learn how to clearly express one’s own reflections and empiricalobservations on gender stereotypes in a group discussion.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase the teacher invites thestudents to discuss gender stereotypes, writing male gender stereotypeson one side of the board and female gender stereotypes on the other.After this, the teacher coordinates the debate in order to emphasisepossible negative consequences of stereotypes;Phase – Activity ( min): in this phase the teacher supports the stu-dents in a research and analysis activity, for example by suggestingpossible websites to analyse;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase the teacher coordinatesstudents’ presentations and encourages a final debate on gender stereo-types in news media.

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . Reporting diversity: How to write an article withoutstereotyping the “other”

Objectives This unit encourages students to reflect on the concept of reportingdiversity and on how to write journalistic articles without resorting tostereotypical images of the “other”. In particular it aims at developing thefollowing objectives:• To understand the concept of reporting diversity in its different aspectsand implications;• To understand the fundamental rules for writing an effective journalisticarticle;• To learn to report events without using simplistic representations of the“other” and/or stereotypes.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): the teacher begins the activity by asking thestudents to read an article and to discuss how facts and main characters arerepresented, focusing on how the “others” are represented (“Romanians”in this case);Phase – Activity ( h): the teacher goes on to task students with rewritingthe article, modifying in particular those parts characterised by stereotypi-cal representations;Phase – Conclusion ( min): following this, the teacher invites eachstudent to reflect on his/her work, and to read an article with a lessstereotypical view.

Learning scenario

. Examples of exercises

This is an example of an exercise from Module , Unit dealingwith the analysis of articles found on the web to discover genderstereotypes. It is based on a worksheet supporting the decoding ofstereotypical views on gender.

Box no. . Module , Unit – Activity

In the next exercise we will discover whether and how gender stereo-types are present in news media. We suggest you divide into groupsof five and:

a) choose a national news website;b) specify how many articles on the home page are predomi-

nantly concerned with men as protagonists (“male articles”)and how many with women as protagonists (“female arti-cles”);

c) specify the topics in the “male articles”, from amongst thefollowing: ) politics/government; ) crime/violence; ) sci-ence and health; ) gossip and celebrity; ) economy; ) art,sport and media; ) other (specify);

d) specify the topics of “female articles”, by choosing amongthe same issues above.

Report your findings in the worksheet below (Worksheet ).

Once you have compiled your answers, you can write down youranswer to the following questions:

) Who features more in the news reported on the website youhave analysed? Males, females or both equally?

) Which topics are addressed more often in the “male articles”and in the “female articles”?

) Do you recognise in the articles you have read, includingimages, any of the gender stereotypes noted on the board orthat have emerged from your discussion? If so, specify whichones and where you found them.

) How does the reporting make you feel? How do you think itwould make others feel?

Learning scenario

Worksheet – Decoding stereotypical views

G [insert number] I [insert name and url]N “ ” [insert num-ber]

N “ ” [insert num-ber]

P/G [insert number of“male articles” on Politics/Government]

P/Gt [insert number of “fe-male articles” on Politics/Government]

C/ [insert number of “malearticles” on Crime/violence]

C/ [insert number of “femalearticles” on Crime/violence]

S [insert number of“male articles” on Science and health]

S [insert number of “fe-male articles” on Science and health]

G [insert number of“male articles” on Gossip and celebrity]

G [insert number of “fe-male articles” on Gossip and celebrity]

E [insert number of “male articles”on Economy]

E [insert number of “female articles”on Economy]

A, [insert number of“male articles” on Art, sport and media]

A, [insert number of “fe-male articles” on Art, sport and media]

O [specify] O [specify]

. Conclusion

Active participants in democratic life should be able to critically andautonomously interpret portraits of the “other” conveyed by newsmedia. This learning scenario aims at encouraging students to de-velop this critical perspective both through analysis and productionoriented activities. However, some recommendations can be madein order to increase the chance to make the activities effective andengaging. Firstly, though all units already include visual and verbalmaterials to be analysed, before starting the activities the teachershould evaluate to what extent the specific media contents might beof interest to their students. If a teacher feels that some materialsare too far removed from the life of his/her students, he/she shouldreplace those media contents with others more relevant to the stu-dents or he/she should ask them directly to search online for otherexamples of stereotypes. Secondly, the terminology adopted in someunits — and particularly in MU — might be difficult to understandfor some students and this difficulty risks preventing students froma significant engagement. In this regard, teachers should dedicatemore time to introduce the key concepts of the units (e.g. genderstereotype and stereotyping technique) through the presentation anddiscussion of concrete examples that can help to clarify the unfamiliarconcepts. Finally, re–writing a newspaper article without stereotyp-ing the “other” can be a very difficult task when students are not

Learning scenario

familiar with this genre of media production and/or when they donot have any knowledge of the social group stereotyped. If studentslack specific writing skills, teachers should give them some basicinstructions on how to write a newspaper article before asking themto re–write the article. If students lack basic knowledge or concernabout prejudice toward Romanians (i.e. the group stereotyped inthe article in MU), teachers should provide students with furtherinformation about this social group, including articles in which thevoice of some Romanians are also reported. Alternatively, teacherscan ask students to re–write another news story in which a morefamiliar social group is represented in a negative light.

Sources

B D. (), Media education. Literacy, learning and contemporaryculture, Polity Press, Cambridge.

M L. (), Teaching the media, Comedia, London.

Y R. (), Reporting Diversity. A Guide to Reporting Diversity, AC-CESS Association, Sofia, Bulgaria. Retrieved on December , fromwww.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/reporting%diversity.pdf.

www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/reporting%20diversity.pdf

www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/reporting%20diversity.pdf


Learning scenario

Challenging ethnic prejudicesthrough participatory journalism

. Introduction

Ethnical and racial prejudice is a kind of attitude shared by the mem-bers of a dominant group against a minority group (Van Dijk, ).Generally speaking, the representations of the other that convey andreinforce racial prejudice and ethnic conflicts are characterised bythe “us/them” contrast in a number of areas of social life, includingnews media. Indeed, looking at results of research on representationsof — and speeches on — ethnic minorities in news media in Europe,there is a clear tendency to represent the other negatively and in op-position to a positive “us”, mainly identified by nationality (EuropeanCommission, ).

To challenge ethnic prejudices in news media this learning sce-nario, which has been developed within the framework of e–EAVModule – Information reception and production, engages students inthe production of a participatory journal on diversity at school. Theexperience of producing a journal will increase their awareness ofhow information is sought, selected and reported, while the collab-orative work will allow them to improve their social/participatoryskills and their sense of responsibility that are key competences forcitizenship.

In the following we will provide background information on “par-ticipatory journalism”, a description of the units including examplesof exercises and some final considerations.

Learning scenario


Participatory journalism is also known as “open journalism”, “citizenjournalism” or “public journalism”. It is therefore a type of journal-ism that includes forms of collaboration on the part of the reader andeven a transformation of roles, which happens when the journal iscompletely managed by readers.

There are three aspects that characterise this type of journalism:open publishing, collaborative editing and distributed content (Allanand Thorsen, ). The idea that citizens can directly contributeto news production and dissemination was already rooted in theUnited States, where, since the late eighties, the movement for citizenjournalism began to take its first steps during the presidentialelections.

Today, the potential of participatory journals seems to have beenamplified by the recent development of web . technologies, throughwhich online publishing and content sharing and editing have be-come increasingly simpler. Now, we no longer speak of user–consu-mer information, but rather of user–producer information. In orderto make a synthesis of the two functions, the term prosumer, whichis now well known, was created. Often, when a journal is run bythe readers, almost all news is about local events which has the aim,obviously, to increase citizens’ participation in the community’s civicand social life.

That is the reason why participatory journalism is concomitantwith new forms of online engagement that are starting to emerge inthe . universe of social media and digital networks.

There are several types of participatory journals characterised bythe level of participation of users (Lasica, ):

— Level : This level only refers to a simple comment from thereader.

— Level : The reader helps in a very simple way (a link, a photo)towards the journalist’s article.

— Level : The reader contributes more significantly by guid-ing or helping the journalist (collaborative journalism); forexample, the journalist, who has to interview someone, asksreaders what their suggestions are on the questions to beasked.

Learning scenario

— Level : This level concerns the citizen-blogger, especially ata local level; he/she is offered a blog space in the journal or areader’s blog is chosen.

— Level : This level is related to the concept of transparency(the transparent organisation of information) and involves thereader’s participation in the editorial work; for example theorganisation of news.

— Level : This is about a real participatory journal website, man-aged by the readers who therefore become journalist-writersand are, above all, interested in local events that directly affectthem or that they have witnessed.

— Level : Following the above but with respect to the latter, thenews is published immediately without reviewing texts, withpotential typos, etc.

— Level : The same as above (level ) but with a paper version— Level : This level is a combination of the work of professional

writers and that of a group of around ten citizen journalists.— Level : Articles written by professionals (paid) alongside

those written by citizens (free content) are combined on anyone page (which is the difference with level ).

— Level : This is also known as wiki–journalism. Anyone canwrite and publish news/stories and anybody can edit what hasalready been written by adding photos, links, and details or bymaking small adjustments. A prime example is representedby Wikinews (http://www.wikinews.org).


This learning scenario is characterised by four main activities, onedevoted to media analysis and three to media production. It startsby asking students to analyse how an ethnic minority is representedin a journal article taking into account the selection and omissionof elements in the news item, the title, the pictures, the role ofethnic group, the words and tones used to describe it and report itsvoice (MU). It continues with three strictly interrelated tasks, fromdeveloping a working plan to defining a policy for the participatoryjournal on diversity at school.

In particular, students are requested to plan their work through aworksheet asking for roles (e.g. infobroker, reporter, editor etc.) and

Learning scenario

tasks (finding sources and data, collecting information and organisingit into a coherent story, reviewing texts etc.), tools for publication(e.g. wiki), the specific subject, the possible sources and the timetable(MU).

Once the work is planned, students will start collecting informa-tion through interviews, observation and Internet searches tryingto be pluralistic and inclusive as much as possible (see Box no. )(MU).

Finally, students are invited to reflect on their audience (e.g. “Whoare we writing for? Classmates, the whole school, the neighbourhood,the city, everybody?”) in order to write an appropriate article anddefine a policy on how the audience can contribute to the journal(e.g. “Which role do we assign to the audience? Just the reader,commentator, or author as well?”, “If we think of a reader-authoruser, which rules should he/she follow?”) (MU).

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . Ethnic and racial prejudices in news media

Objectives The unit aims at showing students how news media can exacerbateethnic and racial prejudices that already exist in society. In particular itintends to develop the following objectives:• To understand how the news can reinforce prejudices and ethnic andracial stereotypes;• To learn to analyse news critically, particularly with reference toethnic minority groups;• To learn to argue for and against differing interpretations and evalua-tions of news reports and the ethnic and racial prejudices they feature.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase, the teacher invites thestudents to express their opinions on an article in which an ethnicminority group is depicted in a negative way;Phase – Activity ( h): in this phase, the teacher presents the fiveelements for news analysis with reference to the previously read article.He/she then invites students to analyse another news report about anethnic minority group in detail;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase, the teacher coordinates thepresentation of the resulting analyses and encourages debate amongthe students.

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . First steps in creating a participatory journal

Objectives The purpose of this unit is to promote students’ collaboration andparticipation capabilities through the planning of a participatory journalon the topic of diversity at school. In particular it intends to developthe following objectives:• To become aware of one’s own role (consumer, author, both) as amedia user;• To learn to draft a plan of work for the preparation of a participatoryjournal at school;• To learn to work collaboratively and make group decisions.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase the teacher starts by suggest-ing that students reflect on their own media practices with referenceto active participation, through the completion of a worksheet;Phase – Activity ( h): in this phase the teacher asks students to makea group plan for a participatory journal addressed to the school andlocal community and to start by telling and giving proof of diversityat school referring to gender, ethnicity and so on, depending on thecontext and the students’ interests;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase the teacher invites eachgroup to present their plan of work and take common decisions aboutjournal titles, publishing tools and topics.

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . Finding information from an inclusive perspective

Objectives This unit, like the previous one, aims to enable the preparation of aparticipatory journal on the topic of diversity at school. In particular itintends to develop the following objectives:• To develop awareness about one’s own information needs and strate-gies to meet them;• To learn to look for information from a variety of sources and from aplural and inclusive perspective;• To know how to work in a collaborative way to actively and construc-tively contribute to joint work.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase the teacher starts by group-ing students into editorial staff of - members each and asking themto think about the information they need and possible sources;Phase – Activity ( h): in this phase the students start collecting infor-mation from a variety of sources to build a pluralistic and articulatedversion of the event or facts to be reported in the journal;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase, the teacher asks each edito-rial staff to reflect on their work with reference to the completeness ofcollected information, plurality of represented opinions and participa-tion levels.

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . From writing to sharing. Here is our journal!

Objectives This unit aims to start the production of the participatory journaldealing with diversity at school. In particular it intends to develop thefollowing objectives:• To acquire awareness of the role that the beneficiary can play inthe fruition of a press product (from content consumption to contentproduction);• To learn how to write an article which is effective and acknowledgesdiversity;• To learn how to define a policy for sharing a participative journal.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase the teacher begins the activ-ity with a brainstorming session on the concept of audience in order tostart thinking about a policy (rules of users/producers’ participation)for the participatory journal;Phase – Activity ( h): in this phase the class members undertakedifferent activities. Some students work on the technological environ-ment for publication, others write a first draft of the article and othersprepare a policy for sharing. . . ;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase the students report back tothe class on the work they have done, each according to his/her ownrole. During the presentation, each student evaluates the work donethrough a specific worksheet to be delivered to “critical friends”. Theywill have to summarise comments and give suggestions to the class tocomplete the work (at school and/or at home).


This is an example of an exercise from Module , Unit relating tothe development of a plan for information search. Students are givena worksheet that should support data searching and collection.


Gathering information is crucial: the more and better informationyou have, the more accurate the final article will be. Therefore, in thebeginning everybody should be active in searching for information.Later on, some people will need to write the story, others will needto look for supplementary information and others will manage theweb space and publish the story.

To organise the job, the editorial staff should define who looks forwhat, where and how, by filling Worksheet . For example, say youwant to write an article on the reception of foreign students in the

Learning scenario

province of Genoa (Italy). One staff member (NAME) can researchthe number of foreign students in schools in Genoa (Italy) province(WHAT) by using the web (WHERE) through a keyword–basedresearch in an online database (HOW), while another staff member(NAME) looks for information on reception policies (WHAT) forforeign students at your school by interviewing the headmaster(HOW).

Worksheet – WORKPLAN FOR INFORMATION SEARCHName What Where How

You should check information carefully and whenever possible,consult different sources on the same fact and compare them. Fact–checking like this will allow you to:

a) Make your story more accurate;b) Represent different points of view;c) Avoid simplistic versions of reality;d) Avoid stereotypical representations of others.

. Conclusion

Deconstructing racial prejudices in news media is a challenging task.The combination of media analysis and production is a strategicmeans to enable young people to master the specific techniques thatare used to construct “others” in journalistic discourses and opposethem to “us”. The learning scenario presented here is featured inthis double approach to the media. However, in order to make itmore effective some elements need careful consideration. Firstly,if the lexicon is too difficult for the target, the teacher must adaptit to better fit students’ characteristics and include more concreteexamples. Indeed, this learning scenario might be hard for youngstudents who are not familiar with the topic of diversity and themedia. Secondly, if the Internet connection is not always working, the

Learning scenario

teacher should plan alternative solutions. For example, he/she canbring a selection of printed articles to school dealing with migrationissues to support media analysis or he/she can advise students toproduce the article offline and then publish it online. In addition,if students are not able to create and manage a blog or a wiki, theteacher can do it by showing them how. In the next steps, perhapsthey will be able to work autonomously. Thirdly, if time is insufficient,especially for the last activity, where several tasks are proposed, theteacher should reduce the workload by limiting the activity to themost significant tasks according to the context. For example, studentscan concentrate on collaborative writing and not defining a policy,if not in a very basic way. Or they can finish writing the article athome and dedicate more attention to discussion of the policy. Finally,teachers must not forget to take care of the ethical issues related tostudents’ privacy when talking about sensitive topics. For example,if articles deal with racist episodes occurring at school, the teachermust ensure that privacy is protected.

Sources

E C (), Discrimination in the EU in , Special Euro-barometer . Retrieved on December , from http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs__en.pdf.

V D T. (), Communicating Racism. Ethnic Prejudice in Thought andTalk, London, Sage

L J.D. (), What is Participatory Journalism?, « Online JournalismReview », August , . Retrieved on December , from http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs__en.pdf. http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/.php.

A S. and T E. (eds.) (), Citizen Journalism: Global Perspec-tives. New York, Peter Lang

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_393_en.pdf.




http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1060217106.php

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1060217106.php


Learning scenario

Questioning stereotypes throughthe decoding of audio–visual fiction

. Introduction

Young people face representations conveyed by audio–visual fictionevery day. These representations are often very stereotypical andcan feed or create prejudice among young people. It is thereforeimportant that teachers help them to distance themselves from theserepresentations and stereotypes by deconstructing and analysingthem in class. In this learning scenario, which has been developedwithin the framework of e–EAV Module – Audio–visual fiction andIdeologies, students will learn some mechanisms inherent to audio–visual fiction but also decrypt what these representations are sayingabout us and our society. It is important to give tools to young peoplein order to decode films and fiction so that they can critically analyseand challenge the stereotypes they face. Being aware of stereotypesin the media around us is the first step towards non–discriminationand rejection of racism and populism.

In the following we will provide background information on themain concepts approached in the learning scenario (i.e., stereotype,otherness, audience targeting and gender), a description of the unitsincluding examples of exercises and some final considerations.


The concept of stereotype plays an important role in the narrative ofmovies. Stereotypes are defined as simplified representations of socialgroups in the eyes of other social groups. They may be comparedto mental images that support the representation of more complex

Learning scenario

concepts and are based on alleged representative characteristics of thegroups they represent. Stereotypes are acquired from childhood andcomprise characteristics inherited from the social and cultural environ-ment in which one grows up, but also from one’s own life experiences.

Apart from the effects they may have in relation to others, stereo-types are useful in the way in which one comprehends the world. Bycharacterising the different social groups that make up society, stereo-types are practical tools which allow one to easily represent the worldwhere we live. Stereotypes are not necessarily a negative bias but theycan contribute to fuelling or strengthening this bias.

In the cinema the use of stereotype is very often necessary. Havinglittle time to portray a character, the narrator adopts stereotypes inorder to rapidly set up the elements needed for his/her plot. Therefore,the cinema is packed with stereotypes of all types which it often helpedto create: the private detective, the policeman, the youth from thesuburb, the serial killer, etc. Regarding other cultures, we often comeacross the hard–working but sly Asian, the fanatical and cruel Arab orthe sporty but naïve African, etc. Stereotypes raise problematic issueswhen they become a bias, that is when they are considered as a provenreality and no longer as a simplification. In this case, they become atrue obstacle to the work of discovery and reflection, not only in thecinema but also in real life. Furthermore, when a social group createsthe stereotype of another social group, it integrates itself in the way thegroup sees the world. A stereotype can therefore be negatively loadedagainst another social group. Racist propaganda will be especially betteraccepted as it leans on well–established stereotypes.

But how is “the other”, which is object of stereotype, built in arepresentation? Otherness is a flexible concept: anything that is notme is considered as “other”. Therefore, others are defined in relationto the identity of oneself. Yet, it would be difficult to conceive of anidentity without otherness. The identities of social groups would buildup facing others, comparing themselves to others. Who is the otherwould therefore depend on who I am and vice versa. It is a generalconcept that depends on the way individuals conceive their place withina group. Am I part of it? Do I identify myself with this group? If so, basedon what criteria? Does this group identify me as being part of them?The “other” will be the one for whom I do not accept the belongingto the group I believe I am part of: a nation, a community of one’sliking, a sexual gender, an age category, a social class, etc. As shown, thequestion is eminently subjective. It is therefore complicated to look for

Learning scenario

the otherness of a society. To better understand the mechanisms thatlead to the construction of “the other” in audio–visual representations, itis important to know how the plot is structured and roles assigned. Thescript of audio–visual fiction is based on various characters which allhave a different role to play in the plot. We often find a main characterto which the other characters are connected, whose importance canvary and can be approximately divided up depending on whether theyhelp the main character or whether they are obstacles. The place ofthe characters determines a hierarchy based on values and normsspecific to the universe of the story that is narrated. Role allocations toindividuals are not without contradictions. The most energetic wave tocondemn the asymmetries of these norms is doubtlessly the one linkedto feminism and which is at the root of what we call gender studies.

Gender studies invite us to distinguish gender and sex. Gender isthe social role applied to an individual or to a social group according tohis/her sex. The role of a woman will be to be a mother and to takecare of the education of her children whereas the one of a man will beto work in order to bring back money for the household. A womanhas a duty to be beautiful and a man to be strong; a woman is guidedby emotion and a man by reason, etc. These stereotypes come fromthe allocation of gender that our society applies to sex. When one isexposed to fiction, it is often revealing to question oneself about theplace occupied by men and women. If a character is male, what arehis characteristics, his desires, the obstacles he faces? Do we notice anydifferences with female characters? How are men and women rankedin these stories? What roles do they play in the story? Who, in the end,keeps things moving?


This learning scenario is based on exercises and activities aimed toteach students how to articulate the concepts of stereotypes, other-ness, gender and target audience in audio–visual fiction.

It starts with an introduction to the notion of otherness based on theanalysis of movie clips. This analysis can lead to a debate with studentson what political messages may be conveyed by the way otherness isrepresented in movies (MU). It continues by focusing on the conceptof stereotypes through the examination of the representations of Africain several Western movie trailers. This exercise will help students to

Learning scenario

step back and analyse common representations they usually watchwithout questioning them (see Box no. ) (MU). The third activityproposed in this scenario will enable students to deepen and enlargetheir conception of stereotype, by discovering the concept of gender.They will use this concept to decode the representation that is made ofmen and women shown in movie posters (MU). Finally, the teacherwill introduce the notion of target audience and genre to explain tostudents why stereotypes and movie scenarios are predictable and howthis can evolve from one period to another (MU).

Sheet no. . Module , Unit – How otherness is represented in audio–visual fiction

Objectives This unit aims to discover the mechanisms that come into play in the processof identification and to explore how others are represented in movies. Inparticular it intends to develop the following objectives:• To understand the idea of “otherness”;• To understand the usefulness of the “other” in film scripts;• To be able to look critically at movies and how they construct identity andotherness.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase students read an introduction tothe concept of otherness and then they identify and discuss it in a movietrailer;Phase – Activity (h min): in this phase students analyse a series of clipsfrom the movie “” to see how opposite fields are created, then theydiscuss their interpretations. Afterwards they compare this work with someclips from the movie “Kingdom of Heaven”;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase students define what otherness,membership and analogy in audio–visual fiction are and look for furtherexamples in other movies.

Sheet no. . Module , Unit – Representing otherness in fiction: what is the roleof the other?

Objectives This unit aims to identify some representations of Africa in the Westerncinema through the analysis of movie trailers. In particular, it intends todevelop the following objectives:• To acknowledge how cinema represents different cultures;• To analyse some characteristics of Africa’s representation in the Westerncinema;• To look critically at these representations.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase students identify representationsof Africa in three Western movies;Phase – Activity (h min): in this phase students construct a scheme ofthe representation of Africa and Europe in Western cinema;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase students summarise earlier work.

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module , Unit – From the other to me: gender representations infictions for teen

Objectives This unit enables students to reflect on gender stereotypes conveyedthrough cinema and TV series, and learn how to identify them. Inparticular, it aims to develop the following objectives:• To raise awareness about inequalities between men and women infiction;• To learn how to spot them;• To reflect on how to overcome them.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase students analyse how movieposters represent men and women;Phase – Activity (h min): in this phase students analyse the relation-ships between men and women as represented in clips from Twilightand discuss their consequences;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase students rewrite a moviescene with the characters from Twilight reframing it according to adifferent perspective on the relationship between men and women.

Sheet no. . Module , Unit – Representing in fiction: the role of the productionsystem and audience targeting

Objectives This unit aims to develop students’ understanding of cinema marketingstrategy through the analysis of trailers followed by the writing of filmsummaries based on their posters. In particular, it intends to achievethe following objectives:• To understand the notion of audience;• To understand different genres;• To be able to predict the genre of the movie and its target audience.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase students discover the ideaof cinematic genre and audience through a series of trailers of SnowWhite. The teacher asks to students to identify for each trailer whatthe cinematic genre is and who the target audience is;Phase – Activity (h): in this phase to make students aware of howmovies can be predictable as they have to match the expectations ofviewers, the teacher ask students to summarise movies on the basis oftheir posters and to compare it to the real synopsis;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase students write an alterna-tive summary to reflect on their own notions of cinematic genre andaudience.


This is an example of an exercise from Module , Unit relating tothe analysis of three different movies to decode stereotypes.

Learning scenario


The way we classify individuals is partially influenced by the stereo-types conveyed by the media. For example, Western cinema oftenrepresents Japanese as hard workers, reserved people and not veryemotional, while Russians are often presented as vodka drinkers,gangsters and very rich, etc. Through this activity we will identifythe roles generally attributed to Africans in Western cinema.

Watch the movie trailer of the following movies:

— Blood Diamond, Edward Zwick, .

— Shooting Dogs, Michael Caton–Jones, .

— The Last King of Scotland, Kevin Mac Donald, .

Then, answer the questions below:

— Who are the heroes?— Why is the main character in Africa?— What is the image of Africa? — What is the image of the

Western world?

Now compare your answers with those reported below:

— Who are the heroes?Blood diamonds: the Western trafficker and the African fish-erman;

Learning scenario

Shooting Dogs: the British priest and teacher;The Last King of Scotland: the Scottish doctor.

— Why is the main character in Africa?Blood diamonds: diamond’ trafficking;The Last King of Scotland and Shooting Dogs: humanitarianaction.

— What is the image of Africa?Africa is a continent subjugated to civil wars and bloodyregimes.

— What is the image of the Western world?The Westerners are in Africa both for humanitarian purposes(The Last King of Scotland, Shooting Dogs) and for theirown profit (Blood Diamonds). International/Western organ-isations are powerless in the face of the violent conflicts inAfrica and they are sometimes forced to leave Africans tohandle the situation.

. Conclusion

Approaching stereotypes in audio–visual fiction is an important wayto discover how othering strategies work through and in the media.The analysis of concepts such as stereotypes, otherness, audiencetargeting and gender will help teachers to guide their students to de-code audio–visual fiction and to challenge the stereotypes they mayconvey. However, though this learning scenario is generally muchappreciated by students because of the attractive aspect of the videoclips, teachers should pay attention to the pedagogical relevance ofthis activity. Firstly, visual material can sometimes distract students,as they can consider watching videos as free–time and thereforecan be less focused on the work. Secondly, teachers must be awarethat students tend to focus on the story of the movie rather thanfocusing on the representations and stereotypes conveyed by the film.This may provide an opportunity to teach them to take a step backand think critically instead of being led by emotions determined byaudio–visual materials. Drawing their attention to this will makethem aware of the strength and power of images and the importanceof distancing themselves from these media. Finally, students can alsohave some difficulties to nuance their opinion in the debates pro-posed in the learning scenario (especially the one concerning the

Learning scenario

movie “”). It is therefore important for the teacher to preparegood arguments to make the debate move on and help students tonuance their statements.

Sources

A M. (), La Guerre des rêves. Exercices d’ethno–fiction, Paris, Le Seuil.

E J.–P. (), Sociologie des publics, Col. Repères, Paris, La Décou-verte.

F P. & R K. (), Regard sur la notion de rôles sociaux. Réflex-ion conceptuelle sur les rôles en lien avec la problématique du processus deproduction du handicap, «Revue: Service social», () pp. –.


Learning scenario

Designing video clipsto denounce discrimination

. Introduction

Being able to identify negative stereotypes in audio–visual fiction isalready a first good step towards the raising of students’ awarenessagainst discrimination. Engaging students in active processes of videoproduction to challenge stereotypes and prejudices is even better. In-deed, if media analysis provides students with fundamental skills ofdecoding meanings, media production may improve their capacity ofself–expression or, also, their capacity to act in the world: in a wordtheir agency. With this in mind, this learning scenario, which has beendeveloped within the framework of e–EAV Module – Audio–visualfiction and Ideologies, aims to provide teachers and students with notionsand technical hints to produce a video clip denouncing discrimination.Nowadays, students are used to spontaneously filming and recordingdaily life moments with their mobile phones. Through the activitiessuggested here, we would be able to supervise them into a morereflected process of video making and to bring it to the purpose of de-nouncing discrimination. In the following we will provide backgroundinformation on how to produce a video, a description of the unitsincluding examples of exercises and some final considerations.


To get involved in a video production process, at least four conceptsare of fundamental importance: the script, images, soundtracks andediting. Let’s see what their role is and what the main challenges arewhen facing them.

Learning scenario

.. Writing a script

In order to write the script of a short film, one has to go throughthree stages: the basic idea, the synopsis, and the scene–to–scenegrading and dialogue writing:

— Basic idea: Before developing the story one must have a basicidea. One needs to be able to summarise this idea in oneor two sentences. In the context of this learning scenarioaimed at deconstructing the stereotypes related to race, gen-der, disability or sexual orientation present in media and atpromoting engagement against violence, the basic idea canstart from a negative bias which will be deconstructed startingfrom a concrete example.

— Synopsis: The synopsis is the summary of the story. It containsan exposition at the beginning: it provides information onthe main character, his/her daily life, etc. At the end of theexposition a triggering event will happen, which destabilisesthe initial situation and plunges the hero into the story. Thusone will set himself/herself an objective. The exposition canbe very short. Then, there is the development (main part of thefilm): the hero does everything in order to achieve his/herobjective. In his/her quest, he/she is helped by auxiliaries(people or situations that will help the hero) and held up byrivals (people or situations that will be obstacles) (see below:the characters). He/she runs into numerous difficulties untilthe main scene of the film, the climax, where tension is at itsheight and which will lead to the conclusion. This conclusionshows the consequences of the climax on the characters andsees the conflicts resolving. It is the shortest part of the film.

— Scene–to–scene grading and dialogue writing: The synopsis goesback over the sum and substance of the story but not overthe sequences or dialogues again. These elements will benecessary to prepare the shooting. The sequences, the settingswhere they take place and the characters that feature will haveto be defined. Dialogues will also need to be planned.

Learning scenario

.. Shooting with the language of images

Audio–visual media are essentially made with the aid of imagesthat are assembled and edited in order to produce the story. Theaudio–visual image is always incorporated in a frame. The frame’srectangular shape comes from the traditions of Western painting. Initself, it is not physically needed and does not correspond to naturalvision. It comes from cultural (technical, architectural) elementsoften challenged by modern painting. When shooting images, theframe delimits a part of reality and, thus, transforms it. By selectinga part of reality, the frame reconstructs it and gives this reality themeaning that will be used to make the film.

The shot is the smallest unit of a film. It begins when the camerastarts running and follows an action, and ends when the camera stops.In general, a scene is divided into various shots to which differentvalues are attributed. This is known as the shot scale. But it can happenthat a scene is filmed in a single shot, then known as a sequence shot.We take care of many aspects of the audio–visual language:

— the shot scale;— the camera angle;— the camera movement.

.. Thinking about soundtrack

The sound contributes to the construction of representations. Likethe image, the sound is not a mere reproduction of reality but asystem of representation with its specific codes. However, the soundis much more similar than the image. This latter goes from being athree–dimensional object to a two–dimensional flat surface, whereasrecorded sound is similar to natural sound. Its artificial dimension ismore difficult to perceive. Three types of sound–image relationshipscan be distinguished:

) redundancy: the sound only repeats what the image has al-ready told us;

) anchoring: it allows the sound to clarify the image by insistingon one of the elements;

) disparity, it allows us to give the sound a real function ofproduction of meaning.

Learning scenario

It is the case either when the sound precedes the image or when itcomes after the image, but above all when it brings a dimension that isnot present in the image and which is in tension with this image.

.. Making sense through editing

The art of editing is also the art of assembling shots. The continuityshot is the passage from one shot to another one. In other words, itis the way the last image of a shot will be strung to the first image ofthe next shot. In order for this passage to be coherent, certain ruleshave to be followed. Here is a non–exhaustive list:

) The rule of the two–size shots: When we move from oneshot to another one, the rule requires that there will be atleast two shot sizes in between the two. For example, if wemove from an extreme close–up to a close–up shot this willannoy the viewer as they are too similar. It is better to movefrom a medium close–up shot to an extreme close–up one.

) From the largest to the smallest shot: Generally we start froma large shot and move towards a small shot. This way of doingthings allows the action to be put in context.

) The out–of–focus shot: When we finish a shot with a blurredimage it generally means that the next shot, which will alsostart with a blurred image, will be a flashback, a dream or anevocation. This type of shot is also called “insert”.

. Learning activity

Through this learning scenario teachers and students are guidedto design their own video clip to denounce discrimination. Indeed,the learning scenario starts by engaging students with the basictasks relating to writing a story focused on stereotypes (MU). Itcontinues with deepening audio–visual grammar, particularly theuse of images and the way they are constructed to convey particularmeanings in order to improve their scripts (MU). Then, studentsare invited to reflect on sounds that make sense and think aboutthe soundtrack of their video before editing their clip (MU) (seeBox no. ). Finally students are requested to analyse the differentediting techniques and implement their video: moving from the

Learning scenario

storyboard of their stories (see Box no. ) they create their own videoagainst discrimination (MU). This learning scenario can either beexploited with audio–visual material in order to produce the videoclip, or be applied around a central tool: the storyboard (a graphicorganizer in the form of illustration displayed in sequence).

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . Story and screenplay: how does it work?

Objectives This unit aims to re–examine the basic rules for writing a story andthe techniques employed to turn it into a screenplay. In particular, itintends to develop the following objectives:• To understand the three stages of the classic tale;• To use the three stages to tell a story that is capable of deconstructingprejudice;• To transform the story into a screenplay.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase students invent a storyaccording to the three stages of the classic narrative;Phase – Activity (h min): in this phase students dismantle thestereotypes of their story and transform it into a script (or screenplay);Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase students evaluate the scriptsproduced by the various groups.

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . The audio–visual language

Objectives This unit aims to better understand two notions related to the construc-tion of images (different camera shots and camera angles) in order touse them in the development of a video production. In particular itintends to develop the following objectives:• To acquire the basic concepts of audio–visual language (camera shotand camera angle);• To understand the function of these concepts;• To provide students with the necessary tools to develop a storyboard.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase students familiarise them-selves with audio–visual language, specifically with two technical con-cepts: close–up and flashback;Phase – Activity ( min): in this phase students develop their ownmeanings of “camera shot” and “camera angle” by identifying theiruse and function within a movie;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase students put into practicethe two concepts through the production of a storyboard.

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . The soundtrack that makes senseObjectives This unit explores the dimension of sound as an important element

of audio–visual language, focusing on how it helps to create an atmo-sphere for a sequence and affects how the viewer understands it. Inparticular, the unit aims to develop the following objectives:• To understand the role of sound effects and music in video produc-tion;• To be able to use music effectively in the context of a video productionproject;• To understand how the sound can impact on our understanding of acharacter or situation.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase students discover the roleof sound effects and music in an audiovisual documentary;Phase – Activity (h): in this phase students are invited to associatesome images to certain sounds;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase students evaluate the workof different subgroups in the previous stage.

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . The sense of audio–visual editing

Objectives This unit focuses on different techniques of audio–visual editing andinvolves students in the preparation of a shooting plan based on stu-dents’ stories about deconstructing stereotypes (Unit ). In particular itaims to develop the following objectives:• To learn how to combine images to tell a story;• To understand the concept of "insert" and the Koulechov effect;• To complete a storyboard based on a script that deconstructs a preju-dice.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase students will tell a storythrough the combination of different images;Phase – Activity (h min): in this phase students first understand howa combination of images can contribute to constructing an audio–visualnarrative and then develop their own storyboard;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase students collectively evaluatetheir storyboards.

. Examples of exercise

These are examples of exercises from Module , Units and : thefirst two exercises (Box no. ) refer to the capacity to make sense ofsounds in movies by combining music and images; the third exerciseprovides an example of a storyboard to be filled in.

Learning scenario

Box no. .

Module , Unit – Introduction: Role of sound effects and music

Moving images, when associated with different sound effects ormusic, can be “read” in very different ways.

Watch this video of a couple walking in a park (http://vimeo.com/) and pay attention to the interplay between the imageand the three different sound effects. Focus on the information andthe impressions that every single sound suggests.

Now watch the pictures of the same couple walking in the parkbut associated with three different pieces of music (http://vimeo.com/). Think about the different impressions that thesedissimilar types of music arouse.

Module , Unit – Activity: Association of images to sounds

In groups of or people, learners watch the excerpts (or clips) fromthree different movies selected by teachers and describe the soundsand music as well as the emotions they evoke. Do the images fit withthe sounds? Are the sounds fake or exaggerated?

After, they are invited to see how we might change the atmo-sphere of these videos by selecting some music or a sound thatchange the sense of the image (a terror film becomes funny, a funnyone scary, a joyful clip becomes sad).

However, students need to beware: not all images fit with all typesof music! They have to try until they get a credible atmosphere. Avery easy way to start working on the editing is to open two windowson the browser with the images in one window and the sound inanother. The (muted) foreground window can display images whilstthe window in the background can supply the music or sound effects.

http://vimeo.com/86604464




Learning scenario

Box no.

Module , Unit – Activity: Example of storyboard

In the boxes below, describe the situation that must be representedin each shot.

. Conclusion

This learning scenario includes some technical information and con-cepts related to video clip making. However, teachers should firstlykeep in mind that the technical aspects, though relevant, are notthe most important. Indeed, before any technique, students have toreflect on the message they want to communicate. Therefore, the

Learning scenario

activity of script writing and the reflection about the use of stereo-types to denounce discrimination are crucial. When overlookingthis dimension, the educational value of the learning scenario willinevitably be reduced. Secondly, in the context of a media educationactivity, the focus should be more on the process rather than theproduct. Indeed, one of our expectations would be that students un-derstand the main steps of video producing in order to allow themto use this media to speak out against discrimination in their dailylives. Finally, and when possible, the support of a technician wouldreduce the technical pressure allowing the students and the teachersto concentrate on the communicative and cultural aspects of videoproduction.

Sources

M A (), ACMJ, Tournez Jeunesse!, Brussels.

M A (), Médiacteurs, tout savoir sur la télé, Brussels.


Learning scenario

Analysing representationsin video games to tackle discrimination

. Introduction

Similarly to other media, video games are not an exception to linkmedia and discrimination. On the one hand, we can be confrontedwith discriminatory situations within video games. On the otherhand, the theme or the gameplay of a video game might be a goodopportunity to tackle discrimination issues.

Indeed, since video games show social representations such asrepresentations of populations or civilizations and representations ofgender, they might lead to negative stereotypes and discrimination.Understanding choices of representation within a social phenomenonis one of the approaches of media education that characterises thislearning scenario. The latter, which has been developed within theframework of e–EAV Module – Videogames and Citizenship, is ad-dressed to the public at large (gamers and non–gamers) and aims atpromoting analytical media skills to decode representations in videogames.

In the following, we will provide background information ongames and gameplay, a description of the units including examplesof exercises and some final considerations.


Understanding the characteristics of games is fundamental to allowteachers and students to contextualize the phenomenon of videogames better. A game is based on eight possible components that aredescribed below:

Learning scenario

A game. . .

is regulated A game has rules: a series of more or less strict injunctionswhich will encode the practice of the game.

is a test A game features a goal, an accomplishment whose resultsdepend on the gamer’s action. He/she has to accomplishsomething whose result is uncertain.

offers freedom A game is always designed in order to leave more or lessfreedom to the gamer. The game has to set its framework (i.e.the rules) and also offer a recreational freedom to the playerfor him/her to undertake the test.

takes place behind closed doors A game is a kind of “magic circle” which includes the gamers,rules and the goal to be accomplished. These elements areheld in this space only. These are the elements that are “in thegame”.

is conscious A game is addressed to gamers who are receptive to recre-ational devices. The gamer is conscious that he/she playsgames. It is a mindset that raises awareness about him/herbeing in a recreational device.

is recreational The aim of the game is entertainment and amusement. Thegame will have to be planned in this fun context.

is a second fictional degree A game knows it can count on a very specific condition ofreception from the player. Indeed, the gamer will not take thegame “at first degree”. For this reason, he/she will be able touse fictional mechanisms.

creates a difference betweenwhat we say we do and whatwe really do

A game is a simulation: it proposes a representation of whatthe gamer does which does not correspond to what the gamerreally does. If we take the example of the video game, wemust recognise that a gamer only presses keys. However, inthe game he/she can be trying to save the world.

Among the features mentioned above, four criteria are fundamen-tal to describe a video game. Indeed, it always presents a virtual worldgoverned by rules. These rules have to leave freedom to the gamer sothat he/she can accomplish a trial that is proposed by the game.

Another concept which is important to understand video gamesis the notion of gameplay. We define “gameplay” as the equilibriumwithin a game between the environment, the rules, the test to accom-plish and the freedom given to the gamer. Briefly, we can analyse agame’s gameplay through four questions, which refer to the basiccomponents of gameplay, that are:

) What is the universe/environment of the game?) What is the purpose of the game?) What are the means available to the player to get there?

a) What will help the gamer?b) What will the obstacles be?

Learning scenario

) How do the objectives of the game and the rules participatein creating fun, recreation for the gamer?

Teachers should appropriate this analytical framework to drivetheir students in video game education.

. Learning activity

This learning scenario includes four activities of video game analy-sis around the four main components of gameplay. It starts with arole–playing game centred on the theme of discrimination, providingstudents with tools to understand the concept of a “game” and howit relates to representation (see Box no. ) (MU). It continues withan exercise focused on the mechanisms of management and strategygames. Indeed, by emphasising economy, military or demography, etc.,these games broadcast a certain idea of civilisation. The exercise aimsat discovering the “problems” caused by these games resulting fromtheir representations of the world (MU). The third activity is based onthe analysis of how women and men are represented in video games:students are asked to identify roles and recognise stereotypes (MU).The learning scenario concludes with a wider reflection on societaldiscourses about video games, while offering critical reading of themand encouraging students to take positions about these topics (MU).

Sheet no. . Module – Unit . Gameplay and representations

Objectives This unit intends to develop students’ critical understanding aboutvideo games, with a particular focus on the theme of discrimination. Inparticular it aims at developing the following objectives:• To understand the concept of “game” in the context of video games;• To understand how video games can influence representations ofreality.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase students are asked to answera series of questions about an image taken from a video game. Thesequestions will lead them to think about the idea of representationin video games. After answering the questions students share theiranswers;Phase – Activity ( h min): in this phase, through a role–playinggame based on the previous exercise, students explore discrimination.Indeed, they put into practice the concepts of “rules”, “freedom” and“play”;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase students debrief role playing.They draw conclusions and create links with the concept of “game”.

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module – Unit . Playing with reality: the representation of civilisations

Objectives This unit encourages students to reflect about the mechanisms ofmanagement and strategy games, a type of game that offer playersthe opportunity to simulate the development of a state, a community,a culture, a civilisation, etc. In particular it aims at developing thefollowing objectives:• To understand the mechanisms of a strategy game;• To reflect on how some aspects of reality are included in a game;• To understand some of the simplistic choices at work in simulationgames.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase, students in groups analysesome covers and a trailer of a videogame in order to better understandthe representations of history in the historical simulation game;Phase – Activity (h): in this phase small groups of students imaginethe general principles of a simulation game of their choice;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase all the students discuss therelationship between reality and the strategy game.

Sheet no. . Module – Unit . Gender representations and discrimination

Objectives This unit encourages students to analyse and understand how womenand men are represented in video games. In particular it aims at devel-oping the following objectives:• To identify the roles assigned to men and women on video gamecovers;• To recognise the stereotypes related to gender representation on videogame covers;• To question gender stereotypes.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase students are asked todetermine if, in their opinion, some everyday activities relate moreto men, women or both, in order to highlight some stereotypicalrepresentations of men and women;Phase – Activity (h min): in this phase, in groups students are askedto look at the covers of two series of video games with the aim ofidentifying some of the stereotypes in how they represent men andwomen and to question them;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase students’ groups share theirresearch and conclusions.

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module – Unit . Representations of video games: which discoursesabout them?

Objectives This unit aims to reflect around the positive and negative representationof video games, to focus then on their opportunities and risks. Inparticular it intends to develop the following objectives:• To identify recurrent discourses about video game risks and theiropportunities;• To understand the PEGI video game classification system;• To develop a more general critical point of view with regard to risksand classification.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase students choose a videogame they know well and then they identify the risks and opportunitiespresented by the game;Phase – Activity (h min): in this phase, in groups students developtheir own classification of risks related to video games and compare itwith the European PEGI system;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase students collectively rankthe opportunities offered by video games.


This is an example of an exercise from Module , Unit based on arole–playing encouraging students to reflect about discrimination.


Preparation

The classroom should be transformed into a set of customs offices.The offices are located within the class, which should now havea dozen offices or so. Everyone has minutes set up time forthe game. Four selection criteria (see below) should be chosen bythose playing customs officers. Identification documents (see below)should be created through drawings or cut–outs. Finally, a paper withthe words “customs’ decision” should be prepared. People are notallowed to write anything else on this last sheet. They will let thecustoms officers write the decisions.

Customs officer’s tasks

Choose up to selection criteria among the following. Remind themthat at least one criterion must be used.

Learning scenario

— Accuracy of the paper presented.— Coherence between the personal data in the document.— Possession of ID.— Possession of a passport.— Possession of a driving licence.— A stamp present on the following documents: driving licence,

passport and ID a stamp is on the ID.— Passports with a stamp are not valid (the foreigner cannot be

accepted if he/she presents this type of document).— ID with the stamp of the municipality is not valid (the for-

eigner cannot be accepted if he/she presents this type ofdocument).

— An identity card with a stamp is not valid (the foreigner can-not be accepted if he/she presents this type of document).

Customs officers have to choose some of these criteria and applythem to the foreigners who arrive at the customs office. Customsofficers are obliged to respect the selected criteria. They cannotchange their minds in front of the applicant. Every customs officershould be provided with a red and a green pen. If the foreigner cancross, the border the customs officer will write on the documentswith the green pen while if the foreigner cannot enter the country,the officer will use the red pen.

Foreigner’s tasks

Here is a list of possible documents:

— ID;— driving Licence;— passport;— the stamp of the municipality may be required on any docu-

ment;— a stamp may be required on any document;— on each document the foreigner will declare their date and

place of birth.

Learning scenario

Starting the game

Half of the students will play the role of customs officers while theother half will play the role of foreigner. In the second stage theyswitch roles. In the course of the game the foreigners pass from onecustoms office to another and present their documents. The customsofficers stay in their offices and check the documents of foreigners.They assess whether the documents are in order (or not) accordingto the established criteria. Finally, the customs officer writes his/herresponse — on the foreigner’s sheet — in green if the foreigner hasbeen accepted and in red if rejected. After every foreigner has passedthrough the customs offices the roles will be exchanged. Customsofficers will become foreigners and vice versa. The rules are still thesame.

. Conclusion

Video games like other media may be seen as a space where somediscrimination linked to immigration or diversity could take place.This learning scenario aims at deconstructing the embedded mech-anisms that make video game bearers of stereotypes. However, inorder to make it more effective teachers should pay particular atten-tion to some aspects. Firstly, if students are not familiar with thenotions of games or gameplay, the teacher should dedicate moretime in explaining their meaning and providing examples. Secondly,in most exercises in this learning scenario the concept of stereotypesis taken for granted. And yet it is not obvious, especially with youngerstudents. Before starting the activities, it is recommended to verifywhether students are already aware of this concept or not. If not,the teacher has to spend some time on it. Thirdly, when starting therole–playing the teacher should leave the students free to choosetheir roles in a very spontaneous way. Indeed some students, becauseof their personal history, might feel bad in assuming certain roles.Finally, students should be particularly encouraged and supportedin reflecting on the opportunities and risks of video games: videogames are part of their daily life. Identifying risks and opportunitiesrequires considerable efforts in terms of abstraction and generalisa-tion.

Learning scenario

Sources

C R. (), Les jeux et les hommes, Paris, Folio.

H J. (), Homo Ludens. Essai sur la fonction sociale du jeu, Paris,Gallimard.

M P. (), Cyberdépendance et autres croquemitaines, Yapaka.be/Fa-bert ed.

Websites

Ludologique: http://www.ludologique.com.

PEGI official website: http://www.pegi.info.

http://www.ludologique.com

http://www.pegi.info


Learning scenario

Playing against discrimination

. Introduction

Though video games are usually associated with entertainment, theycan provide significant opportunities to raise people’s awarenessof discrimination issues. Indeed, video games are cultural artefactswhich reflect values and visions of their producers like all media. Assuch they convey particular points of view about reality, includingstereotypes and prejudice. This learning scenario, which has beendeveloped within the framework of e–EAV Module – Videogamesand Citizenship, aims at discovering these mechanisms through me-dia production. And yet producing video games requires technicalabilities and professional tools that are not easy to find at school.However, through being directly involved in the development of avideo game, in this learning scenario teachers and young people areinvited to explore some processes of video game making in order todevelop gaming situations to speak out against discrimination. Start-ing from the development of a story in a video game, learners willalso be asked to develop the community rules, some Fan art, and thesocialising strategy of their video game concept.

In the following we will provide background information ongaming, a description of the units including examples of exercisesand some final considerations.


Is a video game a story? In a novel, a movie or a comic, fiction takesthe form of a story that the reader/viewer gets to know progressively.This narrative form of fiction is now overwhelmed by the massiveemergence of the video–recreational experience that offers radically

Learning scenario

different ways of capturing fantasy. If one relies on traditional narra-tive theories, largely inspired by literature and developed successfullyfor the cinema, a story is based on criteria that do not apply easily, ifat all, to the video game.

The main difference lies in interactivity. In a game, it is the gamerwho directs most of the action and it is his/her initiatives, whethersuccesses or failures, that determine the course of things. Somehow,while the game shares with films and novels the fact of offering aspecific perspective on a topic, it is the gamer who controls most, ifnot all, of its development. The story, if there is one, is recorded inthe probabilities of the game but there is no guarantee that it willtake the path wished for by the authors.

If one observes a video game, one can easily identify the strictlynarrative elements of the intrinsically recreational moments. Thestory will often be used to propose and dramatise an objective to thegamer. A game may start with a short video clip (called a kinematics)that contextualises the gamer’s action and that has this action restupon an aim. Between the different levels that the gamer takes, therecreational interface often returns to a traditional narrative modewhich intends to give meaning to the development of the gameand to create logical transitions. However, the stories of games areusually not what the gamers want. While most gamers take pleasurein viewing or reading these elements, the interest lies above all inthe quality of the recreational challenges. One could actually saythat if a traditional story shapes a plot intended for an audience, agame will rather submit a trial to those who play it. In a video game,the questions of the narrator, the focus and the actant structureare far less important than that of playability and progression. Ifthe latter criteria are satisfying, a gamer will enjoy repeating thesame recreational sequence by which he/she will improve his/hercontrol of mechanisms. The story usually tries to carefully avoid thisrepetition except for rare style figures.

Unlike other fictional narrative media, the video game puts theplayer at the centre of the action. Gaming draws the player in and pro-motes emotional involvement and hence, expression. Video gamesare thus a major source of Fan Art. This term encompasses the var-ious products, mainly amateur, that express the fans’ passion for awork in the form of drawings, texts, films or events (such as conven-tions, events that rally fans of a work like Star Trek or a genre likemanga or heroic fantasy). The most popular works like Star Wars,

Learning scenario

Star Trek and The Lord of the Rings generate a large number of suchworks and have helped to establish their global reputation. Videogames account for a significant part of that universe. Mythical gameslike Mario Bros, Zelda and Final Fantasy generate an impressivenumber of derivatives and quotations in other works.

Here are some examples to give you an idea of that creativity.

— Artworks: On the deviantART photograph and artwork shar-ing site you can browse through thousands of artworks re-lating to games like Skyrim (The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,Bethesda Game Studios, ) that have been produced byfans. They express different ways of looking at the game:seriously, humorously, through players’ accounts of games,etc.

— Mods: Interest in the game also generates a large number ofinnovations within the game itself, through what are calledmods. These are small programs that are added to the gameand enhance or modify it. Examples include adding elementssuch as armour or weapons, improving graphic “textures”like light effects or water effects, and so on. Created by ama-teur computer users, they show how a keen interest in thegame leads to changes and development within a community,matching the game’s popularity.

— Machinima: this is the most original mode of expression relat-ing to video games. Machinimas are films shot in the gameitself, using the program’s graphics engine. Most machinimasare simply animated screen shots highlighting some play theplayer is proud of, a bug or a tutorial on overcoming a prob-lem. But machinimas can also be stories in their own right,reworked with editing software, music, etc. Some amateurdirectors even go so far as to involve other players online: theyarrange to meet them at a particular point in the game andthen direct these avatars’ play as though they were actors, inorder to create scenes. This highly specific cinematographicgenre has its own festivals and is now recognised as a form ofdirecting.

Artistic hijacking of the technical and social possibilities offeredby online games is a cultural phenomenon that goes far beyond merepassive utilisation of digital products.

Learning scenario

. Learning activity

This learning scenario deals with media production activities relatingto video games and discrimination. It is structured into two parts.In the first part, it asks students to reflect on the notion of narrativein video game and, then, to develop their own video game scenariotaking as a context for the story the situation of immigration toLampedusa Island (Italy) (MU). As a second task students are in-vited to create the avatars of their game about Lampedusa, and tothink about the extension of their game to other cultural products(MU). In the second part, students will reflect on the practices ofplayers, particularly referring to how to regulate online activities.Indeed, since online gaming spaces are social spaces, they are accom-panied by rules: understanding these rules may help become awareof how discrimination works within a game. On this basis, studentshave to establish the rules for community moderation in the chatspace of their game (see Box no. ) (MU). This game making peopleaware of the Lampedusa Island situation needs to be disseminatedand spread throughout the school community at least. In this waystudents take the role of publisher to promote the socialisation oftheir game, even if for them it is not for a lucrative purpose (MU).

Sheet no. . Module – Unit . Converting a story into a game

Objectives This unit aims at encouraging students to reflect on the relationshipbetween games and reality and to discover the specific narrative mech-anisms of video games in two steps. In particular, it intends to developthe following objectives:• To explore the relationship between game and reality through theissue of immigration;• To analyse a video game and understand its ideological message;• To develop the outline of a game based on the realities of migration.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase students play a videogamedesigned by the UN Refugee Agency (Against all odds– http://www.playagainstallodds.ca) and then analyse its content;Phase – Activity ( min): in this phase, with reference to the situationon Lampedusa Island (Italy), students design a video game includingcharacters, opponents and challenges;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase students collectively evaluatetheir designs and draw conclusions about the representation of realitythrough video games.

http://www.playagainstallodds.ca

http://www.playagainstallodds.ca

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module – Unit . Fan Art: Creativity and Video Games

Objectives The unit aims to introduce different aspects of creativity in the contextof video games, focusing on the reciprocal influences between videogames and movies but also between video games and real events. Inparticular, it intends to develop the following objectives:• To examine the video game’s place within culture;• To understand how video games interact with culture in differentways;• To engage in an creative exercise and express their views about asocio–political issue.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase teacher and students lookfor various audio–video documents regarding fan art to discover thewide field of this unknown contemporary culture;Phase – Activity ( min): in this phase students describe a characterin the context of their video game about Lampedusa and create thischaracter through online software (http://www.icongenerators.net/);Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase students discuss the complex-ity of representing reality through video games.

Sheet no. . Module – Unit . Rules and communitiesObjectives This unit intends to develop students’ understanding of how online

chats are moderated and their capacity to decide their own set of rulescollectively to manage interactions in online games. In particular, itaims to achieve the following objectives:• To understand the role of rules in moderating interactions betweenplayers;• To acknowledge the social dimension of rule making;• To understand how rules can be based on non–discriminatory princi-ples.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase students in groups reflect onlimits of freedom of expression and on how this applies to video games;then, they discuss how player communities can be self–regulating;Phase – Activity (h min): in this phase students acknowledge theneed for making and respecting rules and understand how such rulesare socially enforced;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase students evaluate the rulesthey have created and discuss the importance of rules that supportnon–discrimination.

http://www.icongenerators.net/

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module – Unit . Developing a Network through Video Gaming

Objectives This unit aims to provide the tools needed to understand social gaming,namely the strategy adopted by some games that take advantage ofsocial network mechanisms in order to develop their own network ofusers, and hence consumers. More specifically it intends to developthe following objectives:• To become familiar with the concept of social gaming;• To identify the gameplay that promotes socialisation and buyingwithin a game;• To develop mechanisms for socialising the launch of a new game.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase, based on the exampleof Candy Crush Saga, students identify how games can use and beembedded in social media and how this can reflect the commercialgoals of the developer;Phase – Activity ( min): in this phase students develop similar socialnetworking integration for their game set on Lampedusa Island (seeUnit );Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase students collectively evaluatetheir ideas and draw conclusions.


This is an example of an exercise from Module , Unit relating torules and communities. Students are given a worksheet to analyseand solve different situations where rules are violated.


Back to the game about Lampedusa Island situation designed in theprevious phase (Unit ), you have different types of character (forexample, migrants, residents (or locals), police officers, politicians,etc.). In this game the players can talk to each other through a textbased chat system.

As a moderator you are obliged to create a set of rules. In asmall group, you are invited to establish at least six rules that playerswill need to follow when chatting. Then, decide the sanctions (orpenalties) to apply when someone breaks each rule. You can choosepenalties both for the character of the game (virtual penalty) and theplayer (e.g. prohibition to play for several days).

Then, starting from the set of established rules try to resolve thefollowing cases. You must point out one penalty for the player, onefor the character as well as the motivations of your choices.

Learning scenario

Worksheet – Analysis of cases and solutionsInfraction (or offence)committed by thecharacter or by the player

Penalty for the player Penalty for the character Motivation

Expression of racist idea

Express sexist ideatoward an avatar of theopposite sexDenying the Holocaustas a historical factThe character wants tosell items in the gameto get richThe character isadvertising for a privatecompany within thegameA player shares apornographic videowith other playersAdvocating genocide

. Conclusion

Game perspective may alter our relationship with a work of fiction.Just as when a novel is adapted for the cinema, we look at it in adifferent way and the story changes. But video games could alsohelp to create awareness about social reality such as the immigrationsituation, child exploitation, etc. Through this learning scenario wewent through various video game making processes offering food forthought to students and teachers. And this is crucial. Creativity andimagination make this scenario fun. However, we invite teachers tolook carefully to some critical aspects. Firstly, teachers cannot take forgranted the students know the tragedy of Lampedusa Island. Thoughalmost every day the Mediterranean Sea is the seat of dramaticevents reporting immigrants dying during the passage from Africato Europe, students do not really know what exactly is going onin that area. Teachers should provide information and let studentsget informed. Secondly, some students may not be acquainted withonline gaming. In this case, thinking of rules for moderation wouldbe difficult. Teachers could invite students who know about onlinemoderation and games to introduce the topic and explain it through

Learning scenario

examples from their personal experiences. Lastly, teachers shouldcontinuously stimulate students to think critically. Though designinga video game has mainly to do with imagination, taking a step backfrom the fancy activity has to be the conclusion of the learningprocess.

Sources

B N. & B M. (), Prendre la parole sur Internet. Des dis-positifs sociotechniques aux grammaires de la discussion, «Reseaux», ()pp. –.

F G. (), Simulation versus Narrative: Introduction to Ludology, inM.J.P. W & B P (eds.), Video/Game/Theory, London,Routledge, pp – .

Recommendation of the Forum of Rights on the Internet “Online video games:What governance?”. Retrieve on December , from http://www.globenet.org/IMG/pdf/pdef_forum_droits_internet_jeux_en_ligne_surligne.pdf.

Websites

Ludologique: http://www.ludologique.com.

http://www.globenet.org/IMG/pdf/pdef_forum_droits_internet_jeux_en_ligne_surligne.pdf



http://www.ludologique.com


Learning scenario

Making sense of political communicationand questioning new racism

. Introduction

Recent studies on what is called “new racism” (Barker, ), i.e. asubtle and indirect form of racism that claims to be democratic andrespectable, have clearly shown that, even though popular racismexists and that it is sometimes expressed in a more direct manner thanthe racism of the political, cultural and economic elite, a large partof the prejudices of popular racism comes from the interpretation ofthe media, textbooks and, particularly, political discourse. Politicalcommunication, particularly propaganda, still plays a key role andoften even a dominant role, given its ability to produce racist models— a system based on inequality and, racial and ethnic domination —or, on the contrary, to oppose these very same models.

This learning scenario, which has been developed within theframework of e–EAV Module – Political communication and Propa-ganda, aims at questioning “new racism” conveyed through politicalpropaganda. Students are engaged with the analysis of different typesof political discourses, from oral speech to websites, in order tobetter understand how political communication works and how itconstructs racist discourses.

In the following we will provide background information onhow political communication addresses its audience through racistdiscourses, a description of the units including examples of exercisesand some final considerations.

Learning scenario


There are several ways in which political communication addressesits audience through racist discourses. Van Dijk (; ) indenti-fied four main strategies that are often used by Western politicians:positive self–presentation, negative representation of “the other”,denial of racism and false impartiality.

— Positive self–presentation. It is the most frequent strategy cho-sen by politicians in order to be differentiated from “the oth-ers” and takes the form of nationalism. For example, withregard to immigration and inter–ethnic relations, politiciansoften appeal to a “long national tradition of tolerance, equal-ity and democracy”, as stated by a British parliamentarian: “Ibelieve that we are a wonderfully fair country. We stick tothe rules unlike some foreign governments”. Positive self–representation can also come forward with regard to one’sown political party or movement when they are depicted asmodels of tolerance, models of democracy, etc.

— Negative representation of the “other”. When the objective is tolegitimate restrictive policies on immigration or civil rights,in particular within conservative political parties, positive self–representation is used as a strategy with the following premise:“we are tolerant, welcoming, etc.” in order to conclude byrepresenting “the other” in a negative manner: “the others,to the contrary. . . ”. Immigration, multicultural society andequality are presented unfavourably only through the nega-tive representation of the other. Subsequently, the migrant isdefined as someone who is “illegal” and even dangerous forthe socio–economic well–being of the host country.

— Denial of racism. When one creates a positive public image, de-nial of racism plays a key role in the political discourse. Even ifall politicians (whatever their political orientation) can imple-ment this strategy, it should be noted that it is usually adoptedby those who share clearly racist opinions. Therefore this isthe classical method through which people deny being racistsdespite the racist opinions expressed: “I am not racist/we arenot racists, but. . . ”. Or “we have nothing against immigrantsor minorities, but. . . ”. Furthermore, by denying their racism,politicians tend to shift it onto others. Racism can therefore

Learning scenario

be considered as a phenomenon that characterises far–rightpolitics or as the expression of a natural resentment that thelowest social classes experience against migrants.

— False impartiality. Politicians tend to associate positive self–representation and/or denial of racism with the necessity toput restrictive measures in place with regard to minorities,by being opposed to politics that address the rights of mi-grants and minorities. An example of this strategy whichhas been defined as “fair but firm move” is well demon-strated by the following statement of another parliamentarianin Great Britain: «If we really want to fight for harmony, non–discrimination, equality of opportunities in our cities, it hasto be done through a rigorous and correct control of immi-gration».

All the above mentioned strategies can be used by politicians forpropaganda. Propaganda refers to a communication strategy used bya political power or a party to modify events or people’s perception.It tries to convince people of a set of ideas and values, to mobilise andsometimes to convert them, without revealing its intentions. Propa-ganda wants to spread information, false or not, but always biased.During wartime, propagandist persuasion techniques are intensified.Modern techniques are generally subtle. In their speeches, politicalparties mobilise these techniques to varying levels. These techniquesaim at manipulating emotions to the detriment of reasoning andjudgment skills.


This learning scenario is characterised by four main activities aimedat deconstructing racism in political communication through mediaanalysis. It starts by asking students to analyse different forms ofpersuasive discourses comparing advertising and political postersin order to understand the mechanisms of propaganda (MU). Itcontinues with another analytical task which requires students tofind out the types of argument that advertising and political commu-nication use to reach their target group, focusing on techniques andcommunication strategies (MU). The last two activities are specifi-cally dedicated to racism in political communication. Indeed, in the

Learning scenario

third activity students are given three media texts on immigrationdelivered by three political organisations. They have to analyse themconsidering a number of questions such as “What is the position ofeach of these parties on immigration?” or “How are the positionsjustified?” (MU). The learning scenario concludes with a focus ononline communication. It requests students to analyse two politi-cal websites according to the following parameters: representationalfunction, interactional function, mobilising function, propagandisticfunction (see Box no. ) (MU).

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . What is propaganda?

Objectives The purpose of this unit is to develop students’ capacity to understandpolitical communication with specific focus on propaganda and itsmechanisms. In particular it intends to develop the following objectives:• To understand propaganda and its characteristics;• To start a discussion in favour of or against propaganda;• To discover the mechanisms of propaganda.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase, students discover theconcept of propaganda comparing different types of poster such aspolitical, cinematographic or advertising posters and conclude withproviding a definition of propaganda;Phase – Activity (h): in this phase, students analyse an electoral speechas a specific form of political communication to deconstruct the mech-anisms of propaganda;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase, students formulate theirdefinition of propaganda for the collaborative Glossary and reflect ontheir analysis of a political discourse.

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . Political communication and its audience: targetinggroups

Objectives This unit aims at making students understand how political commu-nication addresses its audience. In particular, it intends to develop thefollowing objectives:• To understand the concept of target in relation to certain types ofargument (political and commercial);• To discover how persuasive speech is constructed;• To understand that political speech is a discourse that aims at sellingideas.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase, students analyse advertisingand detect the arguments of commercial persuasion included in themessages examined;Phase – Activity (h): in this phase, students discover how a politicalspeech–type is articulated and how political speeches can vary accord-ing to different categories of population;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase, students express their pointsof view about commercial and election speeches.

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module , Unit – Deconstructing racism in political communication

Objectives The unit aims to reflect on – and recognise – racism reproducedthrough political propaganda. In particular it intends to develop thefollowing objectives:• To learn how to argue persuasively on issues of public interest;• To develop critical skills through critical reading of political propa-ganda on the issues of immigration and racism;• To understand how political propaganda can reproduce new forms ofracism in contemporary society.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase, the teacher coordinatesa role–play about the arrival of aliens and then points out the simi-larity between the arguments made by the students and the rhetoricemployed to represent the other;Phase – Activity ( min): in this phase, the teacher presents threemedia political texts on immigration that will be the objects of analysisand supports students in decoding their messages;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase, the teacher moderates groupdiscussion by helping students identify racist rhetoric embedded in themedia texts and making students think about the definition of “newracism”.

Sheet no. . Module , Unit – How and why do political organisations communi-cate through their websites?

Objectives This unit aims to understand how and why political communicationhappens through the web, by evaluating “political websites”. In partic-ular it intends to develop the following objectives:• To understand and to establish the main functions of websites pro-duced and administered by political parties and movements ;• To identify and to describe the different functions of a “politicalwebsite” in a systematic way;• To learn how to develop a critical evaluation of a “political website”collaboratively.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase, the teacher asks studentsto reflect on the possible aims of “political websites”. After he/sheintroduces the four main functions of the political websites and asksstudents to compare their views with the functions provided;Phase – Activity (h): in this phase, the teacher asks the students toanalyse two political websites through a specific worksheet. He/shesupports them as they analyse and evaluate the websites;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase, the teacher invites thestudents to present their own evaluations and then he/she coordinatesa debate aimed at reflecting critically on the analysis that studentsdeveloped.

Learning scenario


This is an example of an exercise from Module , Unit relating tothe analysis of political websites. Students are given a worksheet thatshould support website analysis.

Worksheet – Political Website Worksheet

G O FU

F A

Representational Function(contents and forms torepresent some aspect ofthe world)

None/ low/high • How does the party/movementpresent itself, the others and society?What kind of topics does the websiteaddress more in constructing these rep-resentations?• Which modes of representation (e.g.written language, audio–visual lan-guage, etc.) does the website make useof ? To what extent?• What voices are reported and whichare excluded on the website?

Interactional Function (theestablishment of relationsbetween those who arecommunicating throughthe website)

None/ low/high • Who can interact on the website andthrough which tools (e.g. forum, mail-ing list, etc.)?• How does the interaction take place?Is it a one way interaction, a bidirec-tional one and/or a multidirectional in-teraction?• What are the goals of such interac-tions?• What level of control does the web-site allow users in the communicationprocess and in the content production?• What are the most (and the least)favoured linguistic registers (e. g. for-mal or informal/friendly) employed inthe interactions (i.e. between produc-ers/politicians and users and amongusers themselves)?

Mobilising Function (web-site use for promotion, co-ordination and organisingonline and offline actions)

None/ low/high • Does the party/movement use itswebsite to mobilise activists and/orsympathisers online (e.g. e–petition)and/or offline (e.g. demo)?

Learning scenario

Propagandist Function (theways through which thewebsite persuades its userswith regard to the causesand positions sustained bythe political party or move-ment)

None/ low/high • What are the main propagandist mes-sages which are conveyed through thewebsite? More precisely, what are themost common messages aimed (moreor less explicitly) to persuade the userto think and/or act in a certain way (e.g.“the other politicians don’t care aboutthe good of the people while we do soyou should vote for us”)?• What representations of specific so-cial groups contribute to strengthen thepropagandist message? Who are the re-cipients of such propagandist messages?

Overall Evaluation: Has the party/movement effectively designed and used its official website?(Motivate your answer with some examples)

. Conclusion

Since “new racism” claims to be democratic and respectful of differ-ences, it is even more difficult to deconstruct than traditional formsof racism. “New racism” is embedded in everyday life and media aswell as political discourse. Media analysis is crucial to deconstructthe new subtle forms of racist discourses as suggested in the learningscenario presented here. However, in order to make it more effectivesome elements need careful consideration. Firstly, if the concepts(e.g. new racism, propaganda) and the lexicon are too difficult, theteacher must adapt the text and provide several examples trying torefer to the personal experiences of the students. Secondly, if theexamples of political speeches included in the activities as objectof analysis (e.g. Marie Le Pen’s discourse) is too far from students’experience, the teacher must provide alternative examples accordingto the national context. Similarly, if the media texts or the politicalwebsite that students are asked to analyse are too distant from thepolitical reality they are familiar with, teachers should provide morecontextualised examples. Thirdly, deconstructing new racism in polit-ical communication does not simply entail being “politically correct”.When working on communication and racism, there is a real risk ofremaining on the surface. Therefore, the teacher should provide aframework for the analysis and contextualise the problem in cultural,social, and economic terms. Finally, since the issues dealt with in

Learning scenario

this learning scenario are of political nature, the teacher should bearin mind that he/she is an educator and not a politician. Therefore,his/her attention should be to developing critical thinking ratherthan indoctrinating students.

Sources

B M. (), The New Racism: Conservatives and the Ideology of the Tribe,London, Junction Books.

V D T.A. (), Discourse and the Denial of Racism, «Discourse andSociety», , pp. – .

––––– (), Political discourse and racism: Describing Others in Western par-liaments, in: S. R (ed.), The Language and Politics of Exclusion. Oth-ers in Discourse, Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage, pp. –.


Learning scenario

Campaigning against discriminationto promote equality

. Introduction

Equality of human beings is a basic right of humankind. Through-out the whole European Convention of Human Rights, the rightto equality is continuously claimed: equality of men and women,equality before the law, etc. However, equality does not seem naturalin many societies or countries. Very often in history inequalities anddiscriminations suffered by minorities were not considered or per-ceived as abnormal by the majority of the population. Inequalities arechallenged with great difficulty and at the cost of hard struggles andfights (citizens, politicians, etc.). After each demand from a minorityto acquire a right, a wave of debates with opponents and supportersfollows. When a minority struggles to have a right granted, it istherefore interesting to question the dominant system of values andto reflect on the place it leaves to minorities.

This learning scenario, which has been developed within theframework of e–EAV Module – Political Communication and Propa-ganda invites students and teachers to design an effective campaignagainst discrimination in order to promote equality within the schoolcommunity. It mobilises students into a collective work aimed atengaging them in an effective communicative process to fight dis-crimination.

In the following we will provide background information on howto design an anti–discrimination campaign, a description of the unitsincluding examples of exercises and some final considerations.

Learning scenario


An anti–discrimination campaign can be defined as a specific commu-nicative process whose goal is to critique or change discriminatory,and even violent attitudes, towards people we perceive as “others” ina historically and socially located context. There are four key compo-nents of an effective anti–discrimination campaign, that are message,target group, communicative strategy and team. Below we provide apresentation of each concept.

Message

By “message” we mean the type of discrimination and/or violencewe intend to fight against through the campaign. On a practical levelit is useful to introduce, from the beginning (i.e. when starting theplanning of the campaign), what we mean by the specific discrimina-tion we are facing and the forms it can take (insult, physical violence,financial exploitation, intimidation, social marginalisation, denial ofhuman rights, etc.). Indeed, people rarely share the same idea about“racism” or any other form of discrimination and this lack of a com-mon understanding within a group is likely to jeopardise the clarityand effectiveness of the message. The objective is not so much estab-lishing complex definitions or resorting to scientific literature on thetype of discrimination, but rather starting with what is perceived ordescribed by students as discrimination and/or violence within theirschool and social context.

Target group

In order to adequately and effectively select the message of the cam-paign, the target group to be addressed needs to be defined. Once weknow exactly who the recipients of the anti–discrimination messageare, the latter can be adapted in a way to arouse their interest. Ananti–discrimination campaign can even have more than one targetgroup (e.g. friends, youths, a certain population, national govern-ments, the European Commission, multinationals, etc.) but usuallyevery media product (for example, a video clip, a research documen-tary, a slogan, etc.) is designed to address a particular group, thoughnot excluding further potential recipients.

Learning scenario

Strategies of communication

In any campaign, reaching out to a target group with a specificanti–discrimination message requires a strategy of communication.The latter can be defined as the complex of media that one canuse to achieve one or more of his/her specific goals. Each mediacan lead to several goals such as creating awareness regarding aspecific type of discrimination, putting pressure on multinationalsand governments that exert specific power in the context wherediscrimination takes place, mobilising communities and individuals tofight against discrimination. A communicative strategy can thereforecombine different media and pursue different goals.

Team

Setting up a campaign against discrimination is always the result of teamwork. Within an anti–discrimination campaign, the design, planning,production and dissemination of the message are necessary steps whichare often carried out by completely different individuals or workinggroups. In relation to the anti–discrimination campaign at school basedon a video clip, the budget is made up of students or teachers’ personaltools, equipment provided by the school (e.g. computers, etc.) or opensource software available online for free. In order to have everybody in-volved in the activity, roles and tasks must be divided within the group,with one writing the storyboard, another making the video, anotherengaged with editing, etc. In this way not only does everybody have thechance to participate, but the time for video production is also reducedthus allowing students to finalise the product. How to disseminatean anti–discrimination campaign? An organisation can create differenttypes of media products such as, for example, video clips, researchreports, a website, short texts like a slogan or a poster. All these mediacan then be socialised through other media: daily newspapers, radio,television, social networks but also through online events such as flashmobs, conferences or workshops. From this perspective it is easy to con-sider an anti–discrimination campaign as a symbolic, and yet specific,example of transmedia narrative or “transmedia storytelling” as definedby Henry Jenkins in . If we adopt Jenkins’ definition, we can definean anti–discrimination campaign as a narrative process, whose variousmedia–centred components are systematically disseminated via multi-ple media with the aim of creating a coordinated anti–discriminatory

Learning scenario

message. Each narrative element which participates on the transmediastrategy can, of course, have a different style depending on the specificgoals of the campaign and its target group.


This learning scenario will lead the teacher and his/her studentsfrom an activity of analysis and reflection on representations andvalues to the creation of their own campaign against discrimination.It starts by asking students to analyse arguments used by the Prosand Cons for a homosexual wedding through the posters used inthe demonstration (MU). It continues with three closely interre-lated tasks, from designing a campaign to producing and promotinga short video against discrimination. In particular, students are in-vited to start the design of an anti–discrimination campaign to bepromoted in school by firstly analysing real political campaigns, thenchoosing the topic (Which inequality? Which target groups? , etc.)and finally by designing the different forms and messages of thiscampaign (see Box no. ) (MU). Once the campaign is planned, stu-dents will be involved in the design and development of a short videoagainst discrimination (MU). Finally, the students will finalise theproduction of the video and distribute it within the school commu-nity. They will work on the communication strategy to disseminateand promote the video, both online and offline (MU).

Sheet no. . Module – Unit . Anti–lesbian and gay campaigns

Objectives The aim of this unit is to consider the arguments that are frequentlyused by minorities and their opponents. In particular, this unit intendsto develop the following objectives:• To learn the decoding of different elements of a poster that contributeto the transmission of the message;• To identify representations and values suggested by posters;• To reflect on the dominant norms of our society.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase students imagine andanticipate arguments and posters of each faction (i.e. pros and cons ofgay marriage);Phase – Activity ( min): in this phase students analyse the postersused in the context of demonstrations for and against gay marriage inFrance;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase students identify values andrepresentations conveyed by the posters previously analysed.

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module – Unit . Setting up an anti–discrimination campaign address-ing the school community

Objectives The aim of this unit is to involve students in the design of a campaign.In particular, this unit intends to promote the following objectives:• To acquire knowledge about how a political campaign works andhow its meanings and objectives can vary according to different social,geographical and historical contexts;• To develop critical skills with regard to reading/understanding anddesigning an anti–discrimination campaign;• To learn how to present, discuss and develop ideas in a collaborativeand effective way.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase the teacher asks the studentsto watch a short video, splits the class into two groups, asks them toanswer a set of questions about one of the two campaigns representedin the video and supports students in finding answers;Phase – Activity (h min): in this phase the teacher asks the groupsto set up different anti–discrimination campaigns at school. He/shefirst supports them in designing the campaign by explaining how touse a specific “Campaign design worksheet”. Next, he/she coordinatesthe students’ verbal presentations of — and the discussion about — thecampaigns;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase, the teacher ends the activityby asking students to fill in a grid in order to self–evaluate their owncampaign.

Sheet no. . Module – Unit . Designing a short video against discrimination

Objectives The aim of this unit is to design proposals for a short video to includein students’ anti–discrimination campaigns. In particular, this unitsintends to develop the following objectives:• To understand video production and planning;• To learn how to translate anti–discrimination messages into persua-sive audio–visual narratives;• To gain experience of collaboration in video planning and production.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase the teacher shows students ashort video ( min.) against inequality and asks them to answer in smallgroups questions about the possible sequence of tasks performed tomake the video. After this students are invited to discuss their answersand the teacher assesses the completeness and plausibility of theiranswers;Phase – Activity ( h): in this phase the teacher divides the class into fourgroups and asks them to develop the storyboard and the productionplan for a short video. Here the teacher supports the students bymaking observations and giving advice, particularly to any groupshaving difficulties;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase the teacher coordinates thestudents’ presentations as well as the vote.

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module – Unit . Producing and distributing a video against discrim-ination

Objectives The unit aims to finalise the production and distribute an anti–discrimination video within the school community. In particular, itintends to develop the following objectives:• To be able to search for and produce transmedia contents fromcampaigns or videos against discrimination;• To effectively communicate an anti–discrimination message throughthe audio–visual language;• To present and disseminate effectively the video produced onlineand/or offline.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase the teacher suggests a trans-media anti–discrimination campaign and invites students to recognisethe different narrative elements that transform an anti–discriminationcampaign into a real transmedia narrative;Phase – Activity (h min): in this phase with the support of theteacher, groups of students design an effective communication strategyby producing and searching for other contents in order to improve thetransmedia strategy of a campaign;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase the teacher coordinates thestudents’ presentations of their campaigns.


This is an example of an exercise from Module , Unit aiming atstimulating students to reflect rights relating to minorities. Studentsare given a worksheet including a series of questions that shouldsupport them in the reflection process.


In order to reflect on the various rights that have been acquired ornot in their country in recent years, we suggest inviting studentsto do some research on the Internet and try to find, for each of thefollowing proposals, whether the right or the law in question hasbeen vested in your country or not (and if this is the case, sincewhen). Identify which part of the population is concerned (the entirepopulation, a minority, residents, etc.) and whether their acquisitionraises or has raised a lot of controversy, opposition or many debates(demonstrations, petitions, public debates, etc.).

Learning scenario

Right or Law Has this rightbeen vested inyour country?If so, sincewhen?

Which part ofthe populationdoes this rightaffect? Is it aminority?

Has theacquisition ofthis rightraised or doesit raise muchcontroversyand debate inyour country?

Does it seemto you thatthis right isrespected inpractice?

Law againstracialdiscriminationAbolition ofthe deathpenaltyRight todivorce (formen and forwomen)Right forwomen tohave a bankaccountRight tocontraceptionRight forpeople tochoose theirsexuality andpartner (ho-mosexuality islegal)Right to civilunions forhomosexualsWomen’sright to voteRight toabortion

From the table completed, answer the following questions:

— Which of these rights seem the most obvious and important?— Do some rights seem less legitimate than others?— How old are the rights that seem the most obvious to you?

And those which are less obvious?— Do you notice a correlation between the date at which the

right was granted and the way in which you perceive it?

Learning scenario

This exercise helps to make one realise that certain rights thatseem obvious to us nowadays created a lot of controversy at thetime they were decided on. Where the acquisition of certain rightsis subject to much controversy, it is always good to take a step backand look at things from a distance.

. Conclusion

This learning scenario involves students in production oriented ac-tivities. The design and implementation of a short video or moregenerally of a transmedia campaign need preparation in terms ofmaterial, organisation of work (timing, places, etc.) and methodol-ogy. Therefore, in order to make the learning process more effective,teachers should pay attention to the following elements. Firstly, eachstudent might have a “particular skill” that the group could exploitduring video production: good actors, good technicians, good setdesigners, good writers. The teacher should make sure that every-one plays a specific role otherwise some students might be engagedless than others. Secondly, teachers must bear in mind that fromthe point of view of media education, the process is more impor-tant than the result/the media product. However, students are oftenmore interested in the results and its impact. So we suggest leadingthe anti–discrimination campaign until the end, namely to its dis-semination in order to evaluate with the students the impact andthe effectiveness of their campaign strategy. Finally, such activitiesneed time and some supervision. Teachers should invite colleaguesto join the project and implement some activities in the context oftheir lessons (history, literature, etc.). This would give even moreeducational impact to this scenario.

Sources

C E (), European Convention on Human rights. Retrievedon December , from http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf.

J H. (), The Revenge of the Origami Unicorn: Seven Principles ofTransmedia Storytelling (Well, Two Actually. Five More on Friday). Retrievedon December , from http://henryjenkins.org///the_revenge_of_the_origami_uni.html.

http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf

http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf

http://henryjenkins.org/2009/12/the_revenge_of_the_origami_uni.html

http://henryjenkins.org/2009/12/the_revenge_of_the_origami_uni.html


Learning scenario

Online media activism as a strategyto promote democracy and human rights

. Introduction

Education to Human Rights is an important component of citizens’education. As such it does not consist of the mere transmission ofknowledge, but must take the form of a path that leads to the trans-formation of the person and the development of awareness of thedignity of every human being, the bearer of rights as such. The FirstPrinciple of the Declaration on the Dissemination among youngpeople of the Ideals of Peace, Mutual Respect and Understandingbetween Peoples, adopted by the General Assembly of the UnitedNations on December th, states: « The younger generation mustbe trained in a spirit of peace, justice, freedom, mutual respect andmutual understanding in order to achieve equality in rights betweenindividuals and nations, the economic and social progress, disarma-ment and the maintenance of international peace and internationalsecurity ». This learning scenario, which has been developed withinthe framework of e–EAV Module – Online activism and networking,aims at engaging students with the creation of an online campaignto support human rights through the use of social networks. In thefollowing we will provide background information on the history ofonline media activism, a description of the units including examplesof exercises and some final considerations.


One way of approaching online media activism consists of review-ing its history (Dartnell, ; Beutz Land, ). Among the first

Learning scenario

examples of the Internet being used as a medium for activism goesback to the Nineties. On th April Lotus announced that it wasreleasing a marketing CD–ROM containing the names, addressesand details of the spending habits of million US citizens, whichobviously created major privacy issues. To protest against this threatto privacy, public opinion was informed and awareness was raised viaan e–mail campaign and, as a consequence, more than , peoplecontacted the company asking for their personal data to be removed.This mass action can be considered the earliest form of true onlineactivism. The result was that in January Lotus cancelled its plansto publish its database.

Another example of electronic civil disobedience dates back to with the emergence of the Zapatista movement defending in-digenous peoples crushed by the Mexican government in Chiapas,Mexico. The Internet was used by the movement’s leader, Subco-mandante Marcos, to distribute his announcements at global level.Again in , the Zapatista movement used mobiles to communi-cate with activists around the world and create the anti–globalisationgroup Peoples’ Global Action (PGA) to protest against the WTOconference in Geneva and the effects of globalisation on the worldeconomy and the environment. This was later followed by Indy-media, a worldwide network of activist sites aimed at supportingthe anti–WTO protests in Seattle in connection with the MinisterialConference in November .

More recently, an important event occurred in Burma in .The Support the Monks’ Protest in Burma group on Facebook (asocial network launched in February and followed by Twitter inJuly ) was almost the Burmese activists’ only way of evading themilitary regime in power since , enabling them to bring picturesof genocide to a global audience. Even though that was not enoughto bring down the military government, it did focus the rest of theworld’s attention on the atrocities through the medium of digitalactivism.

Another example of online political activism is WikiLeaks, aninternational non profit–making organisation that first appeared onthe web in and which used anonymous software to interceptmillions of conversations without the people concerned realising.

Over the last years blogs and websites devoted to active citizen par-ticipation in politics and institutional affairs, defending human rightsor platforms to launch online petitions or campaigns (e.g. Amnesty

Learning scenario

International, Avaaz.org, Change.org and MoveOn.org), have seenhuge growth.

Social media are also playing an important role in spreadingonline activism. Indeed, the number of users is constantly increasing,even in those countries where governments strongly control themedia system and therefore these new media platforms are graduallyoccupying a prominent position in social mobilisations. For example,during the Arab Spring revolution, social networks were used bypolitical activists and journalists to get in touch with each other orto share content, such as text, images, short videos, which wouldotherwise have been censored by the traditional communicationchannels (Salanova, ; Taki and Coretti, ). However, the roleof social media must not be overemphasised, since they are still arather “niche” factor, aimed primarily at young people who live inthe city and at present do not involve the majority of the population.


This learning scenario is characterised by four main activities aimedat promoting students capacity to use media, particularly social me-dia, to promote human rights. It starts by asking students to criticallyanalyse a series of resources on the history of digital activism forgathering information to create a timeline representing the histori-cal evolution of online activism (MU). It continues with studentsanalysing specific examples of media activism focusing on videodétournement, a form of critical and playful e–engagement, namely“guerrilla web communication tactics” (MU). The last two activitiesare specifically dedicated to the role of social networks in democrati-sation processes and to support human rights. More specifically,in the third activity an overview of the web communication toolsavailable to citizens is provided, while students are asked to analysethe Arab Spring case and the role played by social networks in mo-bilising citizens (MU). The learning scenario concludes with anactivity engaging students in the production of multimedia messages,specifically posts and tweets relating to the Universal Declaration ofHuman Rights (see Box no. ) (MU).

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module , Unit – Net Activism. A historical overviewObjectives This unit intends to introduce some of the main landmarks in the his-

tory of digital activism through a careful reading of some specific websources and by creating a timeline. In particular it aims at developingthe following objectives:• To build knowledge about the major events in the history of digitalactivism, with particular attention paid to hacker culture;• To analyse information available online and create a timeline detailingkey points in the history of digital activism;• To formulate a collaborative critical assessment of the timeline.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase, the teacher invites thestudents to divide into groups of five and then he/she presents abrief historical outline about digital activism by pointing out the mostrelevant events. Following this he/she explains both the criteria for therealisation of a timeline and the main features of the online tools;Phase – Activity (h): at this stage, the teacher asks students to analysetheir selected websites with the purpose of identifying the fundamentalelements and events in the history of digital activism. Afterwardshe/she asks them to include and describe the events selected in adedicated worksheet (Worksheet ). Finally he/she asks the studentsto use one of three recommended online tools to draw a timeline;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase, the teacher invites the groupspokespersons to present their work by illustrating the most relevanthistorical events identified and the tool selected to draw. He/she alsoasks them to self–evaluate their activity, including the problems thatemerged in drawing the timeline. Here the teacher encourages thestudents to think critically about the different conclusions reached.

Sheet no. . Module , Unit – Détournement or parody as a guerrilla web com-munication tactic

Objectives This unit intends to help students become familiar with (video) dé-tournement as a form of critical and playful e–engagement, namely“guerrilla web communication tactics”. In particular it aims at develop-ing the following objectives:• To understand what détournement is and how it can be used to make“political remix videos” (or “video détournement”) online;• Be able to analyse video détournement in a systematic and sociallycontextualised manner;• To critically reflect on the possible uses and interpretations of specificvideo détournement in different cultural and social contexts.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase, the teacher presents ex-amples of the tactic of détournement and coordinates an initial briefdiscussion;Phase – Activity ( min): in this phase, the teacher asks studentsto analyse some détourned videos and to suggest further examplesof “video détournement” they might know. Here he/she providesstudents with some helpful web sources to find videos if required;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase, the teacher invites thegroup spokespersons to screen the videos examined and to present thecollective analysis. He/she also coordinates the discussions after eachpresentation.

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module , Unit – Net activism. The Arab Spring

Objectives This unit intends to acquaint students with the experience of the ArabSpring and to get them to reflect on the use of social networks indemocratisation processes paths. In particular it aims at developing thefollowing objectives:• To understand which social networks are currently available to citi-zens and how they can be used;• To analyse the impact of social networks with respect to the ArabSpring case;• To evaluate the positive and negative aspects of social network use inthe construction of democratic processes.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase, the teacher starts theactivity by asking students to point out which web communicationtools are available and how they can be used by citizens. Then he/sheprovides a brief introduction to the Arab Spring case;Phase – Activity (h): in this phase, the teacher invites students to carryout an analysis of the role of social networks in the Arab Spring. He/shealso recommends students to structure their analysis as suggested inWorksheet ;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase, the teacher asks the groupspokespersons to present their analysis and then he/she coordinates adebate aimed at thinking critically about the role of social networkswith respect to democratic processes.

Sheet no. . Module , Unit – Translating human rights into posts and tweets

Objectives This unit intends to engage students in the production of multime-dia messages, specifically posts and tweets relating to the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights. In particular it aims at developing thefollowing objectives:• To learn about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;• To produce and publish engaging multimedia and post–it note mes-sages relating to the various articles of the Declaration;• To assess the effectiveness of messages produced through a processof collective self–evaluation.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase, the teacher provides abrief description of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in or-der to frame the context in which students will carry out the activity.Later he/she shows examples of messages published on social net-works (specifically Facebook and Twitter) with respect to the UniversalDeclaration;Phase – Activity (h): in this phase the class splits into groups and eachgroup chooses one or more articles from the Universal Declaration torefer to in their messages, which will be produced in the form of postson social networks (FB and Twitter) or post–it (i.e. stickers);Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase the messages produced bystudents are discussed collectively by the class in order to assess theirimpact and effectiveness.

Learning scenario


This is an example of an exercise from Module , Unit relatingto the publication of tweets on human rights. Students are givenexamples of how to build a campaign through social networks andthen they are requested to create their own campaign.

Box no. . Module , Unit , Introduction and Activity

Introduction

Social networks are a important tools to communicate messages,ideas and information in a variety of contexts. However, to fully ex-ploit them and communicate effectively, it is necessary to understandhow they work and their limitations. In this unit we invite you tostart developing a communication campaign through two very popu-lar social networks, Facebook and Twitter. The topic to be discussedis the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN in. Specifically, you should write messages (or posts) focused on aspecific article of your choice. Before you start, read the Declarationhere then listen to the teacher’s short description of the Declaration’shistory and its articles.

Activity

Now that the Universal Declaration is clear, divide into groups andchoose one or more articles of the Declaration and use it (or them)as the basis for your own campaign. Carefully select the platformyou want to use between Facebook and Twitter. Before making yourchoice, check the specific characteristics of each platform for creatingand communicating your messages. Bear in mind that the moreinteresting and attention grabbing your content is the more effectiveyour campaign will be. In this respect, you cannot just reproducethe text of the article. Rather, the article should be manipulated,paraphrased and/or enriched with further elements in order tomake the message persuasive and interesting.

In order to get an idea of what this kind of message might looklike, see the following examples:

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

Learning scenario

Figure . Post on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/amnestycanada)

In this case (Fig. ) the post refers to art. of the Declarationof Human Rights: «No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest,detention or exile». In order to analyse this post we look at thefollowing elements:

— the text in the post is short and provides the basic elementsto understand the situation to which it refers;

— the associated picture contains a brief eye–catching sentencewhich refers to “our girls”, thus generating a sense of empathyand identification;

— the post aims to take concrete action (i.e. signing a petition)and thus sharing a common objective with the reader.

Learning scenario

Figure . Post on Twitter (https://twitter.com/MSF)

In this case (Fig. ), the message refers to art. : . «Everyonehas the right to freedom of movement and residence within theborders of each state», . «Everyone has the right to leave any country,including his own, and to return to his country» and also to art. : .«Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the healthand well–being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing,housing and medical care and necessary social services, and theright to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability,widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstancesbeyond his control», . Motherhood and childhood are entitled tospecial care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out ofwedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection. In this tweet youcan observe that:

) the text is necessarily brief and straightforward (given the –character limit) but exhaustive. Indeed, it reports where thestory takes place, it clearly indicates that it is about refugeesand that there is a health problem and so the reader hasimmediately a precise idea of what the message refers to;

) the picture is functional and complementary to the writtentext, since it is related to and emphasises the content of themessage. In doing so the message gives the reader a “visual”idea of the issue being addressed.

Learning scenario

. Conclusion

Engaging students to support Human Rights through social net-works may be an appealing and exciting activity. Indeed, since itseems to be very close to students’ practices of messaging through-out the web, one might think that things go alone. However, somecritical situations may emerge, which request careful consideration.Firstly, if the concepts (e.g. media activism, détournement) or thelexicon are too difficult, the teacher must help students by providingmore examples close to students’ life. Secondly, if the web search onthe history of digital activism risks being chaotic, the teacher shouldguide the students limiting the number of sources to be accessed andindicating narrow criteria for selection. Thirdly, if students are lessthan years old, they cannot register on Facebook. In addition, somestudents might not be willing to subscribe to Facebook, Twitter orwhatever commercial services on the web. In all these cases, theteacher should consider alternative solutions. For example, he/shemay transform the digital campaign into a school campaign, askingstudents to write their messages on post–it to be hung on the wallsof the school. Or he/she may suggest using an educational socialnetwork site such as Ning and limiting the online campaign to thedigital context of it. Finally, students may show difficulties in writingshort and effective texts: in this case, provide them with more timefor practice, even at home.

Sources

D M. (), Insurgency Online: Web Activism and Global Conflict,Toronto, University of Toronto Press.

B L M. (), Networked Activism, «Harvard Human Rights Jour-nal», , pp. –.

S R. (), Social media and political change: the case of the rev-olutions in Tunisia and Egypt, Institut Català Internacional Per La PauBarcelona, December . Retrieved on December , from http://www.gencat.cat/docs/icip/Continguts/Publicacions/WorkingPapers//Arxius/WP___RSalanova.pdf.

T M. & C L. (eds.) (), The role of social media in the Arab upris-ings – past and present, «WESTMINSTER PAPERS in communicationand culture», vol. ().

http://www20.gencat.cat/docs/icip/Continguts/Publicacions/WorkingPapers/2012/Arxius/WP_2012_7_RSalanova.pdf




Learning scenario

Voicing students’ rights through an e–Charter

. Introduction

Over the last decade, much emphasis has been placed on the po-tential of information and communication technologies to supportthe development of participatory democracy. In a report of someyears ago, the OECD () identified three levels of involvement ofcitizens in the political process: information, consultation and partici-pation. In particular, focusing on participation, the OECD states thatactive political participation entails the recognition of citizens’ abilityto discuss and generate different political options in an independentway, though not modifying, of course, the traditional mechanisms ofpolitical representation for final deliberation.

The purpose of increasing the involvement of civil society inthe political processes, as endorsed by associations and social move-ments, is still far from being implemented on a global level. However,something is changing, thanks to the spread of digital tools that sup-port collective writing or the processes of decision–making. Someexamples are the projects of developing a crowdsourced Constitutionlike the Constitutional Charters promoted in the UK and Iceland.These examples, which are rooted in the movement of digital ac-tivism, can provide students with a model on how to negotiate rulesin a public sphere developing critical, collaborative and political skillsin the use of the media as suggested in this learning scenario. Thislatter has been developed within the framework of e–EAV Module – Online activism and networking.

In the following we will provide background information on“digital activism”, a description of the units including examples ofexercises and some final considerations.

Learning scenario


Generally speaking, the expressions “digital or online activism” re-fer to the use of digital technologies, particularly social media assuch Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, e–mail and podcasting to supportcitizens’ active participation. In other words, digital activism can beviewed as a metaphor of “How to build a society” and independentmedia are a litmus test of social cohesion and democracy. The no-tions of civic engagement and political participation play a key rolehere in identifying and facing issues of public interest. Indeed, theprinciple of civic engagement is strictly linked to the principle ofdemocratic governance, which is the right of citizens to define thepublic good and determine public policies. It is a collaborative toolto make a difference in the civic life of our societies and developcompetences, knowledge, values and motivations promoting a betterquality of life.

In this context where media are not mere communication tools,but a real political battlefield, a collective theatre of the imaginary,a mirror of our prediction of a model of society, the social mediaare modifying the means through which citizens enquire, get intouch with institutions, parties and movement and offer them newopportunities to get themselves heard. In particular, social network-ing sites such as Facebook and Twitter can be considered as suitabletools that activists can use to spread their voices. Indeed, during thepast years they have been the stage of battles for human rights andhave catalysed the public’s attention, promoting direct participationof citizens in the political and civil life of their country.

There are different forms of online activism. In particular, Vegh() has distinguished three main types of activism: awareness/ad-vocacy, organisation/mobilisation and action/reaction.

Awareness/advocacy

An advocacy is a political process undertaken by a single individ-ual or a group in order to influence public policies and resourceallocation decisions within political, economic, social systems andrelated institutions. It covers many activities generally carried out bya single individual (or by an organisation) such as, for example, presscampaigns, meetings, research or poll publication and the gatheringof documents.

http://en.bab.la/dictionary/english-italian/economic-and-social-cohesion

Learning scenario

Organisation/mobilisation

Internet is a fundamental tool in relation to the category of organisa-tion as it constitutes a channel not only for gathering and sharing butalso for internal coordination in order to reach mobilisation as a typeof democratic participation. It can be efficiently exploited in order toinvite people to participate in the following activities: offline activitieswith invitation sent through digital media; activities which usuallytake place offline but which can be more effective when carried outonline (an invitation to contact our Parliamentary representative bye–mail); online activity such as, for example, a large spam campaign.

Figure . “No Berlusconi Day” is the first example in Italy of a mass political protestorganised through Facebook by the movement Il Popolo Viola (Rome, May )

Action/reaction

The last category of online activism includes online computer attacksundertaken by hackers, which is linked to an aggressive use of theInternet in order to reach a political or financial goal. The first exam-ple of hacktivism was the pro–Zapatista movement which fights forthe Indigenous peoples’ autonomy in Chiapas against the oppressionof the Mexican regime.

Although social media are providing new opportunities for civicengagement, there are also some critical issues or risks that must beconsidered, including:

a) Digital divide. Although on a global level technical access tothe Internet has been increasingly improved, there are still

Learning scenario

people who cannot access digital technologies and social me-dia. As a consequence there could be a sort of digital dividebetween citizens who have access to the web and citizenswho do not.

b) Lack of digital and media literacy. Access to digital media isnot enough to use them in an aware and critical way. Peopleneed to develop digital and media competences, includingthe ability to access, critically analyse and evaluate messages,and communicate information in a variety of forms, includingprint and non–print messages.

c) Lack of political competence or literacy. To participate in a po-litical process citizens must be politically literate. Politicalliteracy is all about promoting citizens’ ability to becomepolitically aware and effective. This entails giving them theability to read issues and events politically, that is using theideas, language, forms of thought, and arguments which citi-zens use when dealing with a public issue.


This learning scenario aims at engaging students in a critical and publicdebate on their rights in order to develop and write a collaborativeStudents’ Rights e–Charter as a form of “political participation” in theschool community. It starts with a theoretical exercise in which thestudents search the web and report on definitions of specific terms inorder to better understand the concept of digital activism. Studentsare also requested to confront some tools for digital campaigns suchas digital petitions (MU). It continues with three strictly interrelatedtasks, from analysing the notion of students’ rights to debating andsharing with the school community a Students’ Rights e–Charter. Inparticular, three role playing games are proposed (see Box no. ) withthe aim of encouraging the development of a greater awareness oftheir rights and those of others through the adoption of an inclusiveand anti–racist perspective (MU). Then, moving from a reflection onthe case of the Icelandic Constitution, students are asked to write inpairs one of the Charter’s articles to be published on a wiki platform(MU). Finally, to improve critical and argumentative skills, studentsare engaged in a real debate on an e–Charter drawn up in the previousunit to assess its strengths and weaknesses (MU).

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . What is online activism?Objectives This unit aims to understand the concept of digital activism through

the analysis of its different meanings and of the fields it refers to. Inparticular it intends to develop the following objectives:• To understand the basic terminology of different forms of onlineactivism;• To experiment with “online active participation” by creating or signingan existing online petition;• To systematically analyse the different features of online petitionplatforms;• To develop a critical assessment of petition sites collaboratively.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): the teacher asks students to form smallgroups and then presents a first description of online activism referringto the terms to be developed later in the Glossary. The teacher thendescribes the main features of environments aimed at promoting onlinepetitions and campaigns;Phase – Activity (h): in this phase, the teacher invites the students tosearch the web to uncover their own definitions of four key terms andreport them in a worksheet. Following this he/she asks the studentsto search, sign–up (or launch) an e–petition and analyse the websitethrough which the petition has been promoted;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase, the teacher invites thegroups’ spokespersons to present their assessments and then he/shemoderates a debate about the merits of different websites and petitions.

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . Role playing exercise on students’ rights and diversity

Objectives The unit aims at allowing students to reflect on their rights within theschool environment while respecting the diversity of all. In particularit intends to develop the following objectives:• To understand the concept of students’ rights in the school context;• To develop the capacity of analysing, comparing and understandingproblematic situations;• To reflect on and understand the concept of rules;

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase, the teacher initiates adiscussion on the concept of students’ rights in the school context;Phase – Activity (h): in this phase the students perform some role–playing games designed to highlight students’ rights in school. Herethe students put themselves in the shoes of an unruly student, a studentwith disabilities and a foreign student;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase, the students reflect on theimplications of the role playing exercise by comparing the way in whichspecific situations are governed by laws, charters and regulations.

Learning scenario

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . Collaboratively writing a Students’ Rights e–Charter

Objectives This unit aims to foster the development of students’ ability to compareand express their views through collective writing of a Students’ Rightse–Charter. In particular it intends to develop the following objectives:• To raise awareness of students’ rights;• To learn how to debate with others and to negotiate different pointsof view;• To develop skills of self–expression and collective writing.

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase, the teacher presents theIcelandic Constitution case as a cue to reflect on the active role thatcitizens can play in creating rules and laws;Phase – Activity (h): in this phase the students collectively draft theire–Charter of Rights. Firstly they discuss in pairs possible subjects thatneed regulation. Then they contribute an article to a wiki (or blog)created by the teacher;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase, students self–evaluate theirwork, first individually and then in pairs.

Sheet no. . Module , Unit . Debating and sharing the Students’ Rights e–Charter

Objectives This unit aims to develop the critical and argumentative skills of stu-dents through a debate on the Students Rights’ Charter drawn upin the previous unit. In particular it intends to develop the followingobjectives:• To develop critical skills and the ability to debate;• To learn to respect the views of others;• To strengthen expressive and dialogue skills;

Phases Phase – Introduction ( min): in this phase, the teacher introducesthe debate as a tool to structure a discussion on the Students’ RightsCharter;Phase – Activity (h): in this phase the students debate each article ofthe Charter, playing the roles of proponent, opponent, moderator orpublic. Arguments and evidence for and against the articles will be putforward according to the debate rules. The discussion should lead to afinal version of the articles;Phase – Conclusion ( min): in this phase, students individually evaluatetheir work and then compare their evaluations with the rest of the classto assess the potential of the debate as a tool to foster participation inschool life.

Learning scenario


This is an example of an exercise from Module , Unit relating to arole–play game aimed at promoting students’ understanding of theconcept of rights in a context that requires them to confront diversity.


The role–plays consist of a simulation in which participants interpreta role and tell a story by acting according to predefined rules. Then,it is followed by a brief reflection on what happened during thesimulations. In our case, we propose three role–playing games in theclassroom.

Take a box, write all your names on some slips of paper (onename for each piece of paper) and then put them in the box. Drawthe players randomly who will interpret the three different situationsoutlined below. Observers should pay attention to what happens andtake notes about it during the course of the game.

Role–playing no.

Characters: A teacher of History and a student named Arthur.Situation: Arthur is a smart guy, he likes reading and studying

History in depth. He is not very disciplined ... he spent the entire lasthour of the lesson reading a magazine about the Middle Ages. Theteacher scolds him. She calls him to the chair for an oral test. Arthuranswers the questions perfectly but the teacher gives him just a C (orsufficient) as a mark in order to punish his behaviour. Hence, Arthurgets angry and starts an argument.

Action: The players have – minutes to simulate the interactionbetween the teacher and Arthur.

Debriefing: Who is wrong and who is right? The teacher, Arthuror both? Discuss these questions briefly and write your observationson the blackboard or on a sheet of paper.

Role–playing no.

Characters: A student named Mary, a student named John and ateacher of Literature.

Learning scenario

Situation: Mary is a girl with dyslexia and she has difficulty withreading: she tends to reverse syllables. As a result she reads slowlyand incorrectly. The teacher tries to help Mary in school activities bysuggesting that she uses a speech program that converts a readingtask into a listening task. Although John is not affected by any dis-abilities, he asks the teacher to use this program to learn faster andmake less effort. The teacher denies John’s request and he gets angry.The episode leads to an argument in which Mary also intervenes toexplain her point of view.

Action: The players have – minutes to simulate the interactionbetween the teacher, John and Mary.

Debriefing: Who is wrong and who is right? The teacher, John orboth? Discuss these questions briefly and write your observations onthe blackboard or on a sheet of paper.

Role–playing no.

Characters: A student named Ali, a student named François, aMaths teacher.

Situation: Ali is a North African boy who recently arrived inFrance from Morocco. He is experiencing some difficulties both withthe French language and mathematics. The Maths teacher asks toFrançois, a particularly gifted student in mathematics, to study withAli in order to help him. François is not convinced at all and rejectsthe teacher’s request in front of Ali saying that “Ali is a foreigner, hedoesn’t know anyone, he speaks bad French and ultimately he is justa son of immigrants”.

Action: The players have – minutes to simulate the interactionbetween François and the teacher as well as the reaction of Ali.

Debriefing: Who is wrong and who is right? The teacher, Françoisor both? What can Ali do? Discuss briefly and write your observationson the blackboard or on a sheet of paper.

. Conclusion

Promoting students’ awareness of their rights is a fundamental as-pect of citizenship education. Media can be seen as the public spherewhere this exercise takes place. Of course, this does not mean thatthe democratic exercise of citizenship necessarily needs media but

Learning scenario

media today are crucial for democratic citizenship as means to cir-culate their own opinions and participate in social and political life.The learning scenario presented here solicits students to make theirvoices heard respecting the others and arguing personal points ofview. However, in order to make it more effective some elementsneed careful consideration. Firstly, if the topic of digital activismis too difficult for the target, the teacher should provide additionalexplanations and more examples. Secondly, if the activity based onrole playing is too long with three situations to be played and de-briefed, the teacher should reduce the activity engaging studentsin one or at most two situations. In addition, if the situations aretoo far from students’ experiences, it is suggested to adapt themconsidering the specific national context where the intervention istaking place. For example, rather than considering the case of Alicoming from Morocco to France (see Box no. ), the teacher maychange the countries and therefore refer to national policies towardsdiscrimination at school. Thirdly, if the Internet connection is notalways working, the teacher should print some resources on digitalactivism and some examples of a Students’ Charter. Finally, teachersmust carefully reflect on the context of the class where they arecarrying out the teaching in order not to reproduce discriminationthemselves or abuse the asymmetric power relationship occurringbetween them and the students. For example, rather than workingon a students’ charter they may suggest students discuss a Charterof Teachers’ Rights and Duties.

Sources

OECD (), Citizens as Partners. Information, Consultation and Public Par-ticipation in Policy Making. Retrieved on December , from http://www.ezd.si/fileadmin/doc/_AKTIVNO_DRZAVLJANSTVO/Viri/Citizens_as_partners_hanbook_oecd.pdf.

V S. (), Classifying Forms of Online Activism: The Case of Cyber ProtestsAgainst the World Bank, in M. MC and M. D. A (eds.), CyberActivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice, New York, NY, Rout-ledge.

http://www.ezd.si/fileadmin/doc/4_AKTIVNO_DRZAVLJANSTVO/Viri/Citizens_as_partners_hanbook_oecd.pdf




Conclusion

S J, D K, I O

This book comes as a result of a two–year collective work of researchteams from seven European Union member states (Austria, Belgium,Bulgaria, France, Italy, Slovenia and United Kingdom) as a part of thee–Engagement Against Violence (eEAV) Project.

The unique combination of research approaches and civic engage-ment activities, of analysis and intervention, guaranteed the successof the initiative.

In the first part of the project the research efforts were dedi-cated to understand in–depth how populist actors use new mediaacross Europe through a multi–method interdisciplinary approach. Amassive amount of comparable data on populism as a European phe-nomenon was collected while at the same time the national, regionalor local contexts and specificities were also taken into consideration.This research provided the empirical and theoretical basis for thedevelopment of online tools and resources addressing young peo-ple as well as their teachers. During the second half of the project,following a participatory approach, a large number of young peopleand teachers took part in media and citizenship education exercises.The chapters of this book have presented some of the main resultsand analysis of this rich and long term work.

Structurally, the publication followed the overall logic of theproject. The first two chapters adopted two interconnected ap-proaches. Firstly, Chapter analysed through in–depth interviewswith party representatives and supporters the motivation for joiningand the role in the populist movements of young people and theirmain political message. Secondly, populist communication strate-gies were investigated in Chapter through the analysis of framingpopulism.

From the analysis carried out in the early chapters, two mainapproaches emerged: the first is linked to the process of othering,developed into a strategy of “fighting the enemy”; the second demon-

Sophie Jehel, Denitza Kamenova, Ildiko Otova

strates the three main layers of creating and naming “the other” anddeveloping the process of othering, i.e. “the other” – as a memberof a minority group (ethnic, religious, migrant, sexual, etc.), “thepolitical other” — anti–elitism, the supra–national “other” — euro–scepticism.

However a deeper look demonstrates that these layers are notisolated, but are constantly interconnected and tend to fuel, feed andrecreate each other, each one of them crossing easily in– or out– ofthe other.

The most common example of othering is related to immigrantgroups. Migration is also the main target of communication strategiesconsidering that migration and migrants are by far most prevalenttopic in the texts analysed. The message is very coherent, i.e. mi-gration is a threat: for “our” security, for European identity, for thewelfare state. Here the dichotomy us–them is extremely sharp andfrom it derive two other main oppositions:

— the sub–layer of the greater migration othering issue which isIslam and the confrontation Islam–West, which by itself andfor its importance could even be regarded as a separate, forthlayer of othering;

— the transition of this layer to the layer of the political otherand the anti–elitism.

Populist groups and movements tend to connect their criticismof migrants (minorities) to the behaviour of political elites who areguilty of not protecting national citizens, their interests and nationalidentities.

A very interesting finding which shows very clearly the link be-tween these two layers of othering is provided in Chapter . Theresearch, mainly based on the analysis of online texts, found that forthe two diagnosis main frames, i.e. “immigration/migration” and“politicians not working for the people/elite threats”, the proposedprognosis main frame is the same: “anti–migration”. The emphasisand impact of migration on modern societies, analysed in the contextof crisis and producing a pronounced populist discourse is more thanevident. “Anti–migration” appears to be the recipe, the solution tothe problem, underlined by the populist discourse.

Another line of conceptualising populist othering is through thelenses of the antagonism between people and elites/establishment. It

Conclusion

has a strong ideological component and is related to the left ideologythreat, liberal ideology threat, capitalism, globalisation threat, formercommunist regime — populist messages have their specific character,depending on the national context. For instance the Slovenian caseshows the blame, projected onto the past communist regime forcontemporary problems. In France, “gauchisme” (leftism) is blamedfor introducing relativism and destroying the basis of traditionalsociety.

These two main conflicting oppositions, that is us/them (themigrants) and us/them (the elites), are linked with the bigger andmore complex supra–national othering: euro–scepticism. Differingfrom anti–elitism, euro–scepticism is more prone to vary in regard tonational contexts. And even though the attitude towards the EU hasits wider range of connotations, generally in a political perspective,the older and “more financially contributing” countries are moreinclined to euro–scepticism than the new members. But put in themigration mirror, then euro–scepticism becomes more coherent: itis seen through the negative lenses of failed politics and even moreas a system, which presents more opportunities to migrants in spiteof natural rights to us–the–people.

Although it can be argued that some forms of populist otheringand narratives are tailored to fit the political situation, and are shapedby the national contexts, some very important patterns, as shownabove, can be found and are predominant in all countries, groupsand movements, which were analysed — especially focusing ontheir communicative online strategies. Seen in that perspective andbearing in mind that some of these movements are important players,presented in the parliament at national and even European level, itis very important to recognise their position to shape national andEuropean policies.

In a context where populisms and hate speeches spread widelyacross the web, urgent actions are needed to give young peopleintellectual equipment and to reinforce their empowerment to dealwith discriminatory discourses and practices. This is one of the mainconcerns of the e–EAV project.

Media education could offer attractive means for a citizenshipeducation connected with the media environment which is partof young people’s life (Buckingham, ; Frau–Meigs ). Thesecond part of the project was based on four main hypotheses:


— citizenship education implies sharing and respecting valuessuch as fighting against discrimination and being able to de-fend human rights;

— media education effectiveness depends on a combination ofanalysis and production;

— media users by themselves cannot produce media awareness;— teachers need educational tools for them and their students

to engage themselves in such media education.

In order to meet these goals the e–EAV project proposed twotypes of media education experience and tools. The first consistedof five e–books enabling teachers to conduct media education intheir classrooms for hours. The second was an e–learning platformallowing teachers to acquire professional training in media education.The two types of educational contents were created by the Universityof Florence (IT) and Media Animation (BE) and were tested throughan action research process in all the countries involved in the project.

The e–EAV e–books proposed a range of material addressing stu-dents aged – with the aim of raising their awareness against discrim-ination, deconstructing hate speech and negative stereotypes towards“the others” and enhancing young people’s participatory skills.

The modules (Information Reception and Production; Audio–visual Fiction and Ideologies; Video games and citizenship; PoliticalCommunication and Propaganda; Online Activism & Networking)consisted of units each, allowing teachers to work with theirstudents on very different media contents: news, audiovisual fiction,video games, political communication, and the web. The educationalmaterials are balanced between serious content and media expressionand fictional. The serious contents are more familiar to teachers, andbelong to more traditional activities in the media education field. Thefictional contents are less common in such activities but are linkedmore directly to young people’s media practices. Each module wascomposed of units focused on analysing media content, explainingsome aspects of media functioning and the logic of some programmegenres but exploring also the use of stereotypes regarding gender,ethnicity, disability. The remaining units were devoted to helpingteachers and students to produce articles, screenplays, to imaginegames, or to develop an anti–discrimination campaign.

The e–EAV experience allowed testing of the educational tools inclassrooms on a large scale, with students, teachers, educators

Conclusion

and researchers of the e–EAV team. The observation of the expe-rience implied a common methodology. The researchers were mostof the time in classrooms and were able to observe for themselves theteaching process and the reactions of the students. They also analyseddifferent texts written by the students, pre–tests, post–tests, but alsothe content produced by the students themselves. They conductedinterviews with the teachers after the working sessions.

The conditions governing the experiment were very strict: theresearch team was committed to producing the different tools, organ-ising the testing in classrooms and writing the reports in a one–yearperiod. Teachers and educators faced different issues compoundedby the time constraint: lack of equipment or problem with the In-ternet connection, the need to adapt the units to the disciplines andtarget groups. But teachers also reported three affordances linkedto the design of the project: flexibility and adaptability, diversity ofthe topics, attractiveness of the visual material enhancing students’participation.

The learning results are very positive, even if their confirma-tion would need some long term research. Students’ acquisition ofnew knowledge about media and discrimination was reported byall research teams at different levels both across and within part-ners’ countries. Young participants developed varied levels of criticalthinking towards the media. But the ability to interpret strategiesof othering performed through the media and to understand thelink between othering and discriminatory behaviour is more diffi-cult to acquire. If young people are easily able to recognise gender,ethnic and racial stereotypes embedded in different media content,some have more difficulties when the stereotypes are set inside theirfavourite formats, and they are more able to understand the linkbetween negative stereotypes and discrimination when they can iden-tify them in their own life experiences.

Media production oriented activities often turned into engag-ing learning situations but they required more time than what wasplanned and teachers are more or less used to them depending ontheir own disciplines. The experimentation suggested that groupwork and collective discussions are crucial to develop critical and re-flexive thinking. Simulations, role–play and gaming enabled studentsto think of the consequences of their behaviour and engage withethical considerations relating to their actions, but need more timeand engagement from the teachers themselves.


The e–learning platform was the second type of educational toolproposed by the e–EAV project. The structure of the platform wassimilar to that of the e–books. It was composed of modules onthe same topics dealt with by students and each of them included units, focused on media analysis and on media production, with abalanced content between theoretical and practical information.

The time constraints were very tight: teachers were asked touse the platform between May and November , for at least hours and to answer three surveys. Despite this, the recruitment ofteachers was a success: users registered on the platform, wereactive participants. Many of them would like to use the platform inthe future. The surveys gave the research team a much better insightinto the teachers’ expectations and the characteristics of teachersable to engage in media education activities.

The majority of participants were already convinced by the needfor media education in education and underlined the lack of trainingand teaching tools. This project was one of the first initiatives interms of media education activity through an e–learning process.Surprisingly, interest in media education was not higher amongyounger teachers. Most participants were between and yearsold, with an average of years. Many teachers underlined the needfor self–discipline and the time–consuming aspect of the trainingprocess, but they appreciated the information, tips and tools in aready–to–use format that the platform provided.

The observation of their e–learning activities show they preferworking on media analysis rather than media production. They chosemainly the information, audio–visual and communication modules.Video games and social network topics remain less attractive toteachers.

This result confirms the usual teachers’ interest for serious mediacontent that is closer to their own media consumption and to theirother educational practices. They feel less comfortable with youngpeople’s media culture especially with video games. The lack of gen-erally speaking media education training can also explain teachers’quest for the lowest investment in terms of time and the easiestmaterial to use.

Teachers who were already aware of discrimination did not rad-ically change their view after using the platform but the e–EAVexperience enabled them to find new insights on how to work onthis topic. Those who had not much experience of discriminatory

Conclusion

discourse analysis became more aware of it and better prepared toaddress it in the classroom.

The platform also offered different ways to share contents andexchange ideas. Teachers mentioned social tools as welcome anduseful in the co–design process, but little use of these opportunitieswas actually observed. It would probably need more time and betterstrategies to engage teachers in a community of media educationwith teachers and educators based in different countries and to pro-mote their confidence in the future of the platform and the interestof their exchanges.

With these two main types of tools, e–books and platform, thee–EAV project enabled teachers and educators to engage with theirstudents against discrimination and involved critical thinking aboutmedia content and communication strategies. The more innovativemethods of media education in terms of content or activities arenot the most attractive for teachers. The need for media educationtools has to be met with various paths, theoretical and practical, andwith diversified media content, news and fictional, audiovisual andonline. Discussions with students and teachers led to opening variousavenues of research. Many suggestions of new content, adapted tothe different teaching situations could be explored in future projectsin order to make the activities more effective and inclusive.

One of the strongest outputs of the project is the understandingof young people not only as a target of the populist movements’ com-municational and electoral strategies but also as an important actor.An actor who has the power to combat hate speech practices, theprocess of othering, discrimination and violation of the fundamentalprinciples of human rights.

The first two chapters analyse in–depth the negative phenomenonof populism, naming the main victims of othering but also give a fur-ther understanding of the process of banalisation of the hate speechin the mainstream political discourse. This tendency is even moredangerous in the digital context.

Therefore, as underlined in the final chapters, a critical citizenshipis of high importance in terms of methods to combat and tackle thesechallenges. The e–EAV project attempted to give a possible wayto develop tools for education of active and responsible Europeancitizens.


References

e-EAV Reports

B V. & P M. (), e-EAV Case Study Report – Slovenia (Here is Slove-nia).

B E., F F. & R M. (), e-EAV Case Study Report – Italy.

B A. & P E. (), e-EAV Case Study Report – France.

G C., V P., O A., T P., B D., O O.,S R., C B., W A., D N., V D., C- C. & C J. (), e-EAV Case Study Report – Belgium.

K D., O I. & I V. with the collaboration of K A.and S E. (), e-EAV Report on testing phase results – Bulgaria.

K A., K D., S E., O I. & I V. (), e-EAV Case Study Report – Bulgaria.

K S.A., L G. & L B. (), e-EAV Report on testing phase results– UK.

L G. & L B. (), e-EAV Case Study Report – UK.

M S. & S B. (), e-EAV Report on testing phase results - Austria.

R M. & F F. (a), e-EAV Report on testing phase results - Italy.

––––– (b), e-EAV WS Synthesis Report.

S B. & M S. (), e-EAV Case Study Report – Austria.

Š I., B V. & P M. (), e-EAV Case Study Report – Slovenia (NovaSlovenija)

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Contributors

Paul de Theux is Director of Media Animation. He also manages the resourcecentre in media education of Media Animation and is member of the governmentalhigher board for Media Education of the Brussels Wallonia Federation (CSEM –Belgium). He is teaching assistant at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) and ateacher at the Institute of Higher Studies of Social Communication (IHECS). He hasa Master of Communication and History (UCL). Author of collective publicationsabout media literacy, he is also a member of institutional and associative boards.

Francesco Fabbro, PhD in Education, is a junior researcher at the University ofFlorence. His main research interests are Media and Citizenship Education, MediaActivism and Critical Discourse Analysis. He has worked on several research projectson the uses of digital media by young people and social movements in Europe andeducational practices aimed at tackling racism, sexism and homophobia throughthe promotion of social and political empowerment both in schools and in informalsettings of learning. On these topics he has published a number of articles indifferent scientific journals and has worked with youngsters and teachers/educators.He also collaborated as a researcher and author to the production of a set of shortdocumentaries on the state of youth in Europe.

Sophie Jehel is a Maitre de Conférences at Université Paris , CEMTI. Her mainresearch interests lie in media practices and the role of media in the socialisationof young people, media ethics, media regulation and media education. Among herrecent publications are Parents ou médias, qui éduque les préadolescents? Enquête surleurs pratiques TV, jeux vidéo, Internet, radio (Toulouse, Erès) and several articles:«Sociabilités numériques des jeunes et mobilités. L’ascenseur social numériqueest–il crédible?» (in Rapport INJEP ); «Culture numérique et éducation aux médiaset à l’information la triple responsabilité de l’école» (Conférence nationale culturesnumériques, éducation aux médias et à l’information, table–ronde n°, Ministèreéducation nationale/IFE–ENS Lyon – mai , http://emiconf-.ens-lyon.fr/tables-rondes, published by CNDP in ); «La téléréalité, une fabrique deboucs émissaires?» (in F. Chauvaud, J.–C. Gardes, C. Moncelet, S. Vernois (eds.),Boucs émissaires, têtes de Turcs et souffre–douleur, pp. –, Presses Universitaires deRennes).

Denitza Kamenova is a Doctor of Political and Intercultural Philosophy. She isalso experienced as a journalist, editor and political analyst in some of the mostinfluential media in Bulgaria. She was awarded the Robert Schumann Award for topquality media coverage of EU policy and policy–making. Her research on Africanimmigrants and refugees in Bulgaria remains up till now the only research inBulgaria on this topic. Her main interests are in the fields of immigration, integration,

http://emiconf-2013.ens-lyon.fr/tables-rondes

http://emiconf-2013.ens-lyon.fr/tables-rondes

Contributors

cultural and religious diversity, nationalist and extremist movements, media andmedia social psychology.

Steven A. King obtained a BA (Hons) in Economic and Social History from theUniversity of Kent and a PhD in historical demography from the University ofLiverpool. He is a member of the ESRC Peer Review Panel, edits the journal Familyand Community History, and is a former winner of the Pasold Prize for research intotextile history. In he was appointed as Director of the University of LeicesterCentre for Medical Humanities. Prof King’s research interests span the period fromthe seventeenth to twentieth century and cover topics as varied as poverty/welfareand historical demography through to women’s suffrage.

Gabriella Lazaridis is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Politics and In-ternational Relations. Her current research interests revolve around internationalmigration, multi–sited governance and policy making and policy implementation,including national and transnational migrant networks. She is currently authoringa research monograph titled Crossing Boundaries: International Migration in Europe.Among her latest publications is the edited volume Security, Insecurity and Migrationin Europe (Ashgate, ).

Anne–Claire Orban de Xivry is a trainer and project manager in the internationalrelations sector of Media Animation (Brussels, Belgium). In her various roles ascoordinator of a Youth Organisation of Media Education, as media trainer, as onlinecommunity facilitator, has developed a wide range of expertise in the field of MediaEducation, especially concerning young people and their web practices. She alsotaught “Uses and web: challenges and future” at the Institut des Hautes Etudes desCommunications Sociales (IHECS, Brussels).

Ildiko Otova has a PhD from New Bulgarian University, where she was a laureateof the Mozer Scholarship for excellence in the study of Political science and civilcourage. Her main teaching and scientific interests are in the fields of migration,mobility, integration, populist and nationalist parties, citizenship and Internet politics.Member of CEMRES (Centre for migration studies) at the New Bulgarian University,she works as a researcher in different national and European projects.

Mojca Pajnik was awarded her PhD by the Faculty of Social Sciences, Universityof Ljubljana in . She is a senior research associate at the Peace Institute andassistant professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana. Fields ofher research include globalisation, citizenship, media, migration and gender studies.She is author of Prostitution and Human Trafficking: Gender, Labour and MigrationAspects (), co–editor (with Giovanna Campani) of Precarious Migrant LabourAcross Europe () and (with John D. H. Downing) of Alternative Media andthe Politics of Resistance: Perspective and Challenges (). She has publishedmany articles in peer review journals, and since has been the editor of thePolitike Symposion series at the PI. She has coordinated several research projects oncitizenship and migration.

Maria Ranieri, PhD in “Telematics and Information Society”, is an Associate Pro-fessor of Educational Methods and Technology at the Department of Education andPsychology, University of Florence (IT). Since she has been working in the field

Contributors

of educational technology, technology–enhanced learning and e–learning. Her mainresearch areas include theory and methodology relating to media and technologyin education, as well as work around teachers’ practices and students’ learning. Herpublications include more than forty papers/chapters on these topics and sevenbooks on learning methods and technologies. She is a member of SIPED (ItalianSociety of Pedagogy) and of the executive council of MED (The Italian Associationof Media Education).

Birgit Sauer is a professor of Political Science at the Department of Political Scienceat the University of Vienna. Her research interests include: Gender and Gover-nance/Critical Governance–Studies, comparative gender equality policy–studies,racism, politics and affects. She has been a partner in several EU projects; currentlyshe is leading the research project “GENIA” (Gender in Academia in Austria) to-gether with Johanna Hofbauer and the project “Affective Labor in Labor marketadministration” (both funded by the Austrian Science Foundation). Recent publica-tion: Does Federalism Impact Gender Architectures? The Case of Women’s Policy Agencies inGermany and Austria, «Publius: The Journal of Federalism», (), pp. –, togetherwith Sabine Lang.

Iztok Šori, PhD, is a researcher at the Peace Institute in Ljubljana, where he cur-rently cooperates on research projects on contemporary populism in connectionto racism and othering. Other fields of his research experience and bibliographyinclude gender equality, prostitution, trafficking in persons, migration, politicalrepresentation, reconciliation of private and professional life and being single as alifestyle.

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