Intercultural Digital Media Education for Social Inclusion of Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Youth in the Urban Migration Society

Project Information

INCLUDED

Grant agreement ID: 841951

DOI

10.3030/841951

Project closed

EC signature date 15 April 2019

Start date 1 August 2019

End date 21 November 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 174 806,40

EU contribution

€ 174 806,40

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITAET BREMEN
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - INCLUDED (Intercultural Digital Media Education for Social Inclusion of Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Youth in the Urban Migration Society)

Reporting period: 2019-08-01 to 2021-07-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Digital inclusion of marginalized people is one of the major and urgent challenges European societies face today. Existing research on digital inequalities shows that socio-cultural inequalities related to gender, socio-economic, ethnic and racial backgrounds and disabilities are reproduced in digital environments. More contextualized analyses of the dynamics behind these inequalities are needed. INCLUDED contributes to the state of the art in the field of digital inclusion through an in-depth analysis of digital media use of disadvantaged youth in a school located in a socio-economically disadvantaged and highly diverse neighborhood in Bremen, Germany. INCLUDED aimed to scrutinize how schools can empower the socio-digitally disadvantaged youth in the urban migration society in the face of digitalization and diversification of society by bridging intercultural education and digital media literacy education. The study included participatory observations, focus groups with students (13-15 years) and teacher interviews. INCLUDED contributed to the development of a more inclusive approach to media education in diverse societies and provided an in-depth and intersectional understanding of how digital inequalities limit the action possibilities of young people living in the urban migration society.

INCLUDED was designed as a participatory action research and aimed at the development and implementation of teaching modules for improving the intercultural media literacy skills of the students based on their specific needs. These teaching modules are developed in collaboration with the teachers and the students and are freely available online.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The results of INCLUDED were communicated in many international conferences. Some selected conferences include the Digital Inclusion Policy and Research Conference (Online, organized by the University of Liverpool, 2021); Migrant Belongings: Digital Practices and the everyday (Online, organized by Utrecht University, 2021); ECREA, 9th European Communication Conference (Aarhus, Denmark, 2022); ICA 2022 (Paris, 2022); Practices of Digital In- and Exclusion in Everyday Life (Groningen, 2023); ECREA Digital Media and Migration Section Conference (Rotterdam, 2023). The researcher was also invited to give keynotes and talks in different workshops and conferences including the workshop “Speak Up. Media for Inclusion”, (Utrecht, 2020); PhD workshop “Designing research to generate social impact: Amplifying diverse voices in media research” (Groningen, 2023) and a keynote at the 40. Forum Kommunikationskultur: “Un|Sichtbarkeiten? Medienpädagogik, Intersektionalität und Teilhabe” (Bielefeld, 2023).

Publications:

Published papers:
Bozdağ, Ç., Neag, A., & Leurs, K. (2022). Editorial Introduction: Inclusive Media Literacy Education for Diverse Societies. Media and Communication, 10(4), 248-255. (Open access). https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v10i4.6625

Bozdağ, Ç. (2022). Inclusive Media Education in the Diverse Classroom: A Participatory Action Research in Germany. Media and Communication, 10(4), 305-316. (Open access). https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v10i4.5640

Leurs, K.; Bozdag, C.; Neag, A; Sprenger, S. (2024). Participatory action research and media literacy. Toward engaged, accountable, and collaborative knowledge production with marginalized communities. In P. Fastrez and N. Landry (Eds.) Media Literacy and Media Education Research Methods: A Handbook, (pp. 62-79). Taylor and Francis.

Neag, A., Bozdağ, Ç., & Leurs, K. (2022, July 18). Media literacy education for diverse societies. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.1268

Edited special issue:
Bozdag, C., Neag, A. and Leurs, K. (Eds.) (2022) Special Issue “Inclusive Media Education” published in Media and Communication (SSCI), 10(4).
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/issue/view/328

To be published in 2024:
Bozdag, Cigdem (2024): Digital inclusion through distribution of iPads during the Covid-19 pandemic? A participatory action research in a German secondary school. In: Carmi, Elinor & Yates, Simeon (Eds). Digital Inclusion. International Policy and Research. Pp. 124-139. Palgrave Publishing. Open Access.

Bozdag, Cigdem; Karakasoglu, Yasemin (under review). Multilingual media repertoires of young people in the migration society. A discussion on media education. Global Studies of Childhood.

Outreach activities

Podcast Series “Let´s Talk about Media and Communication”
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/wp/lta/embracing-diversity-media-education-for-culturally-diverse-students

Article in Digitales Deutschland
“Kompetenzen für digitale Teilhabe in einer diversen Gesellschaft”
https://digid.jff.de/magazin/diversitaet/kompetenzen-digitale-teilhabe/

Events
International Workshop “Inclusive Media Education for Diverse Societies” organized by Cigdem Bozdag, Annamaria Neag, Koen Leurs and Alex Smit, 11. and 12. November 2021, University of Groningen, the Netherlands.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project achieved significant scientific milestones through its conceptual and methodological contributions, as well as collaborations with international scholars. Under the framework of INCLUDED, the researcher advanced the understanding of digital media environments for young people in understudied and marginalized communities. This was achieved by conducting an in-depth and contextualized study within a secondary school situated in a socio-economically disadvantaged and diverse neighborhood.
Employing a participatory action research design, the project aimed to empower young people by enhancing their digital literacy. Collaboratively developed learning scenarios with teachers and students included student-centered methods, encouraging experimentation with media, production of digital content, and critical reflection on their roles in the digital society. Consequently, the project had a positive impact on the digital literacy of the participating youth. Teaching resources created during the project were further developed in collaboration with Thomas Kieckbusch (Stabstelle Digitalisierung, Bremen) and are accessible online, making the results applicable to other educators working on media education in diverse classrooms.
In terms of conceptual contributions, the project enriched the field of media education by incorporating perspectives from intercultural education. It specifically focused on transnational and multilingual media use among young people (see Bozdag & Karakasoglu, 2024), addressing how these repertoires can be integrated into the school context. In collaboration with Annamaria Neag and Koen Leurs, and drawing on experiences from the INCLUDED research field, the researcher played a key role in developing a conceptual framework and critical approach for inclusive media education in diverse societies (see Bozdag, 2022; Bozdag, Neag, Leurs; Neag, Bozdag, Leurs, 2022). The collaborative efforts of the three researchers significantly increased the visibility of discussions surrounding inclusivity and diversity within the realm of media literacy and education.
Furthermore, the researcher contributed to methodological discussions in the field by emphasizing the importance of adopting qualitative and participatory approaches for media literacy research and education (see to Leurs, Bozdag, Neag, and Sprenger, 2024).

Image by Renée van den Kerkhof: https://www.neetje.nl/ Drawing by Renée van den Kerkhof based on th