Global Children, Global Media: Migration, Media and Childhood
Abstract
Children today are growing up in a world of global media. Many have also become global citizens, through their experience of migration and transnational networks. This book reviews research and debate in the media, globalization, migration and childhood, with empirical research in which children's voices are featured prominently and directly. © Liesbeth de Block and David Buckingham 2007. All rights reserved.
... Through this interdisciplinary approach, we hope to shed light on the nuanced ways in which children navigate and interpret the media landscape, ultimately enhancing the comprehension by adding more subtle details of the role of media in shaping young minds in the context of New Zealand. This study ultimately aims to foster a more informed and critical dialogue surrounding children's media consumption (Block & Buckingham, 2007;Schott & Lealand, 2010;Ville & Tartas, 2010), highlighting the need for culturally sensitive approaches to media research and analysis. ...
... Por meio dessa abordagem interdisciplinar, esperamos lançar luz sobre as formas sutis com que as crianças navegam e interpretam o cenário da mídia, melhorando a compreensão ao acrescentar detalhes mais sutis sobre o papel da mídia na formação de mentes jovens no contexto da Nova Zelândia. Em última análise, este estudo tem como objetivo promover um diálogo mais informado e crítico sobre o consumo de mídia pelas crianças (Block & Buckingham, 2007;Schott & Lealand, 2010;Ville & Tartas, 2010), destacando a necessidade de abordagens culturalmente sensíveis à pesquisa e análise de mídia. ...
... A través de este enfoque interdisciplinario, esperamos arrojar luz sobre las formas matizadas en que los niños navegan e interpretan el paisaje mediático, mejorando en última instancia la comprensión al añadir detalles más sutiles del papel de los medios en la formación de las mentes jóvenes en el contexto de Nueva Zelanda. En última instancia, este estudio pretende fomentar un diálogo más informado y crítico en torno al consumo mediático infantil (Block & Buckingham, 2007;Schott & Lealand, 2010;Ville & Tartas, 2010), destacando la necesidad de enfoques culturalmente sensibles en la investigación y el análisis de los medios de comunicación. ...
This study aims to look at children’s opinions and ideas of representations of cultures in global animated films. The main idea behind this journal article is to give voice to the children that consume those media texts. This paper will highlight children’s answers to online surveys and one-on-one interviews from the second part of the data collection that took place in Aotearoa New Zealand over three years. As a theoretical framework, concepts and theories such as funds of knowledge (Gonzalez, 2005), cultural mediation (Martin-Barbero, 2006), and multiculturalism (Zalipour & Athique, 2016) are used to support the social and cultural landscape in which the research participants lived during the data collection. The interviews with the children aimed to discuss sixteen Disney and Pixar films and their respective twenty-four main characters. The purpose of the conversation was to understand where children think the films’ characters might have come from and, therefore, understand to what cultural background children believe those characters belong to. According to the research findings, some factors can add to children’s comprehensions of representations of culture in the media, such as the schools they attend, and the activities children develop in those educational environments.
... Previous studies on migrant adolescents and media have shown that media production can help construct and negotiate individual and collective identities (de Block & Buckingham, 2007;de Leeuw & Rydin, 2007;Leurs, Omerović, Bruinenberg, & Sprenger, 2018). From a transnational point of view, research has argued that media afford migrants the opportunity to cross borders and maintain their connections with their (parents') country of origin, yet research shows that young migrants often focus more on their local environment, some creating hybrid identities in the process (Rydin & Sjöberg, 2008). ...
... Social media use plays an important role in this identification process (de Block & Buckingham, 2007;Rydin & Sjöberg, 2008). Georgiou (2010), who discusses media and place from a diasporic position, emphasizes that identification takes place on various spatial levels: home, city, national, and transnational. ...
... The first one entails the distinction made between migrants and nonmigrants. Migrants are not a homogeneous group and differ according to their reasons for migration, cultural background, socio-economic status, and the length of time that they have lived in the country (de Block & Buckingham, 2007;Jennissen et al., 2018). Future research should, therefore, take into account the length of residence when investigating the strength of experienced urban identity. ...
In a world of continuous migration, super-diverse cities consist of a multitude of migrants and non-migrants from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Yet one characteristic they all have in common is the place where they currently live. In addition, both groups are active users of social media, especially the young. Social media provide platforms to construct and negotiate one’s identity—particularly the identity related to where one lives: urban identity. This article presents the results of a survey study (N = 324) investigating the relationships between social media engagement and identity construction among migrant and non-migrant adolescents in the super-diverse city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It was found that urban identity was significantly higher for migrants than non-migrants. Certain aspects of social media engagement predicted urban identity in combination with social identity. Finally, social media engagement was found to be positively related to group self-esteem.
... Recent studies have confirmed that continuous and comprehensive media use is increasing among children and youths (Medietilsynet, 2020;Smahel et al., 2020). Several education scholars (de Block & Buckingham, 2010;Dezuanni, 2017;Schofield, 2018Schofield, , 2022 emphasize how these cultural changes lead to people of all ages having an increased need for critical media literacy skills. At the same time, there is reason to believe that the continuous connectivity to a mediated global world contributes to people having a growing need to understand the contemporary global culture and to reflect on how one is part of the world and 3 how global culture plays into the local experience of everyday life (de Block & Buckingham, 2010;Rantanen, 2005;Schofield, 2014a;Vettenranta, 2010a). ...
... Several education scholars (de Block & Buckingham, 2010;Dezuanni, 2017;Schofield, 2018Schofield, , 2022 emphasize how these cultural changes lead to people of all ages having an increased need for critical media literacy skills. At the same time, there is reason to believe that the continuous connectivity to a mediated global world contributes to people having a growing need to understand the contemporary global culture and to reflect on how one is part of the world and 3 how global culture plays into the local experience of everyday life (de Block & Buckingham, 2010;Rantanen, 2005;Schofield, 2014a;Vettenranta, 2010a). The mediagraphy method (Schofield, 2015;Schofield & Kupiainen, 2015;Vettenranta, 2011; see also Koponen, 2020) has shown promising potential when it has been applied as a research method in media studies, in terms of providing knowledge about young people's self-insight and worldviews. ...
This article explores how higher education students express their worldviews and sense of belonging based on a study on mediagraphy as a learning activity. Empirical data are drawn from a study conducted in 2020 with master’s students (n=25, aged 20–30 years) in a Norwegian university. The students collected data from family members and produced short digital stories about their own daily lives juxtaposed against the daily lives of three earlier generations. The mediagraphies were analyzed by narrative analysis in a process of reflexive interpretation. A key finding is how the stories involve global imagination , a mode of thought that entails envisioning the world, placing oneself in it, and relating to other people on a global level. To give a coherent insight into the mediagraphy project, a clip accompanies the article, presenting one student’s mediagraphy. The findings show that, as a learning activity, mediagraphy can potentially be a bridge between everyday experiences and academic discussions related to media influence, ethics, and literacy.
... As we have argued earlier, the adoption of a visual methodology, even if it holds the same pitfalls as traditional methodologies, can push us to reestablish some balance in the relationships (without being too naive!). To counter the "male gaze", the "colonial gaze" (Edwards, 1992(Edwards, , 1997 and other forms of social control, we present visual methodologies as a tool to restore agency and power for participants, notably for immigrants, for women (Pereira, Maiztegui-Oñate, & Mata-Codesal, 2016;Weber, 2019), and for youth Buckingham & De Block, 2007). Visual methods are often portrayed as ways to democratize research. ...
... Using videos in anthropological research with children and young people has gained prominence over recent years (CHICAM, 2007;de Block & Buckingham, 2007;Queirolo Palmas, 2015). Similar to more established visual formats such as drawings and pictures, videos can be used both as field notes (Grau Rebollo, 2008) and as working tools to be employed during interviews, focus groups, or in the creation of personal diaries to elicit otherwise unexpressed thoughts and meanings Marcu, 2019;. ...
The figures 7.1 and 7.2 in Chapter 7 were inadvertently published without permissions from copyright owners. It has now been updated with correct images that were taken from public domain.
... As we have argued earlier, the adoption of a visual methodology, even if it holds the same pitfalls as traditional methodologies, can push us to reestablish some balance in the relationships (without being too naive!). To counter the "male gaze", the "colonial gaze" (Edwards, 1992(Edwards, , 1997 and other forms of social control, we present visual methodologies as a tool to restore agency and power for participants, notably for immigrants, for women (Pereira, Maiztegui-Oñate, & Mata-Codesal, 2016;Weber, 2019), and for youth Buckingham & De Block, 2007). Visual methods are often portrayed as ways to democratize research. ...
... Using videos in anthropological research with children and young people has gained prominence over recent years (CHICAM, 2007;de Block & Buckingham, 2007;Queirolo Palmas, 2015). Similar to more established visual formats such as drawings and pictures, videos can be used both as field notes (Grau Rebollo, 2008) and as working tools to be employed during interviews, focus groups, or in the creation of personal diaries to elicit otherwise unexpressed thoughts and meanings Marcu, 2019;. ...
This open access book explores the use of visual methods in migration studies through a combination of theoretical analyses and empirical studies. The first section looks at how various visual methods, including photography, film, and mental maps, may be used to analyse the spatial presence of migrants. The second section addresses the processual building of narratives around migration, thereby using formats such as film and visual essay, and reflecting upon the ways they become carriers and mediators of both story and theory within the subject of migration. Section three focuses on vulnerable communities and discusses how visual methods can empower these communities, thereby also focusing on the theoretical and ethical implications of migration. The fourth section addresses the issue of migrant representation in visual discourses. The fifth and concluding section comprises of a single methodological chapter which systematizes the use of visual methods in migration studies across disciplines, with regard to their empirical, theoretical, and ethical implications. Multidisciplinary in character, this book is an interesting read for students and migration scholars who engage with visual methods, as well as practitioners, journalists, filmmakers, photographers, curators of exhibitions who engage with a topic of migration visually.
... As we have argued earlier, the adoption of a visual methodology, even if it holds the same pitfalls as traditional methodologies, can push us to reestablish some balance in the relationships (without being too naive!). To counter the "male gaze", the "colonial gaze" (Edwards, 1992(Edwards, , 1997 and other forms of social control, we present visual methodologies as a tool to restore agency and power for participants, notably for immigrants, for women (Pereira, Maiztegui-Oñate, & Mata-Codesal, 2016;Weber, 2019), and for youth Buckingham & De Block, 2007). Visual methods are often portrayed as ways to democratize research. ...
... Using videos in anthropological research with children and young people has gained prominence over recent years (CHICAM, 2007;de Block & Buckingham, 2007;Queirolo Palmas, 2015). Similar to more established visual formats such as drawings and pictures, videos can be used both as field notes (Grau Rebollo, 2008) and as working tools to be employed during interviews, focus groups, or in the creation of personal diaries to elicit otherwise unexpressed thoughts and meanings Marcu, 2019;. ...
A common consequence of sticking to a research topic for a fair amount of time is that it starts colonising your everyday life to a point where you may find yourself asking questions to every new acquaintance as if they were participants in your project. Your friends may become tired of your constant interrogations, but unknown people might simply take you as someone with a peculiar sense of curiosity. I believe this is what recently happened to me when coming back from a conference and decided to call an Uber driver at Lisbon airport. This chapter explores some of the functionalities mental maps offer to migration research. Mental maps (or cognitive maps) have long helped understanding how individuals use and perceive local space. Yet, as a visual method, mental maps may be produced and analysed in distinct ways. This chapter navigates through existing research employing mental maps and argues for an interactive approach to mental map analysis, in which the researcher-participant engagement becomes as fundamental as the actual visualisation produced. Based on fieldwork with migrants in Lisbon, Portugal, the chapter illustrates the methodological potential of mental maps for yielding information about the ways migrants actively mobilise urban resources.
... As we have argued earlier, the adoption of a visual methodology, even if it holds the same pitfalls as traditional methodologies, can push us to reestablish some balance in the relationships (without being too naive!). To counter the "male gaze", the "colonial gaze" (Edwards, 1992(Edwards, , 1997 and other forms of social control, we present visual methodologies as a tool to restore agency and power for participants, notably for immigrants, for women (Pereira, Maiztegui-Oñate, & Mata-Codesal, 2016;Weber, 2019), and for youth Buckingham & De Block, 2007). Visual methods are often portrayed as ways to democratize research. ...
... Using videos in anthropological research with children and young people has gained prominence over recent years (CHICAM, 2007;de Block & Buckingham, 2007;Queirolo Palmas, 2015). Similar to more established visual formats such as drawings and pictures, videos can be used both as field notes (Grau Rebollo, 2008) and as working tools to be employed during interviews, focus groups, or in the creation of personal diaries to elicit otherwise unexpressed thoughts and meanings Marcu, 2019;. ...
The following text aims at analysing a posteriori the organisation of a public gathering on international migration which took place in Marseille in 2018, and brought together scientific, artistic and militant practices. We first describe the craft of this event. Then, we reflect upon the theme of this book section - collaboration. We ask to which extent hybrid practices, that is the de-compartmentalising of social sciences, art and activism, enable the deconstruction of sensational and de-humanised representations of migrations. Finally, we question the limits for these collaborations, when power hierarchies may reactivate.
... As we have argued earlier, the adoption of a visual methodology, even if it holds the same pitfalls as traditional methodologies, can push us to reestablish some balance in the relationships (without being too naive!). To counter the "male gaze", the "colonial gaze" (Edwards, 1992(Edwards, , 1997 and other forms of social control, we present visual methodologies as a tool to restore agency and power for participants, notably for immigrants, for women (Pereira, Maiztegui-Oñate, & Mata-Codesal, 2016;Weber, 2019), and for youth Buckingham & De Block, 2007). Visual methods are often portrayed as ways to democratize research. ...
... Using videos in anthropological research with children and young people has gained prominence over recent years (CHICAM, 2007;de Block & Buckingham, 2007;Queirolo Palmas, 2015). Similar to more established visual formats such as drawings and pictures, videos can be used both as field notes (Grau Rebollo, 2008) and as working tools to be employed during interviews, focus groups, or in the creation of personal diaries to elicit otherwise unexpressed thoughts and meanings Marcu, 2019;. ...
In his seminal work, Berger (1972) introduces ‘ways of seeing’ as the ways in which meaning is given to the things which are depicted that stand for something. Image-based ethnography has long been interested in these meaning construction processes, namely representations. The ethnographer, or the researcher – as part of the meaning-making process – produces and/or reproduces ways of representation, along with the research design and the outcome. Then the question arises: is a reflexive representation possible? The three chapters in the fourth section of this volume offer thoughts to provoke answers to this question and evoke a theoretical discussion on the dialectical relation between migration and the representation of it, through research. The concluding chapter of this section reflect on key methodological, ethical and theoretical issues connected to the ways of representation and the role of the researcher.
... As we have argued earlier, the adoption of a visual methodology, even if it holds the same pitfalls as traditional methodologies, can push us to reestablish some balance in the relationships (without being too naive!). To counter the "male gaze", the "colonial gaze" (Edwards, 1992(Edwards, , 1997 and other forms of social control, we present visual methodologies as a tool to restore agency and power for participants, notably for immigrants, for women (Pereira, Maiztegui-Oñate, & Mata-Codesal, 2016;Weber, 2019), and for youth Buckingham & De Block, 2007). Visual methods are often portrayed as ways to democratize research. ...
... Using videos in anthropological research with children and young people has gained prominence over recent years (CHICAM, 2007;de Block & Buckingham, 2007;Queirolo Palmas, 2015). Similar to more established visual formats such as drawings and pictures, videos can be used both as field notes (Grau Rebollo, 2008) and as working tools to be employed during interviews, focus groups, or in the creation of personal diaries to elicit otherwise unexpressed thoughts and meanings Marcu, 2019;. ...
This paper aims at discussing the value of researcher-generated visual methods in studying migration. It focuses on photography as a data collection method, and the problem is presented in the context of researching urban and rural arenas of exercising transnational belonging by migrants and their descendants in new and ancestral homelands. Photography is approached here as a sensorial experience mediating a relationship between the researcher and the participants. The author argues that the relationships occurring around photo-taking in the field are as important as the data collected intentionally. Moreover, the chapter discusses ethical questions prompted by the employment of visual methods, problematizing them in a context of different social, cultural and national settings. With this chapter, the author attempts to answer a question whether researcher-generated visual data can open new angles of analyses of migrants’ life-words and how the employment of visual methods can influence theoretical perspectives within migration studies.
... As we have argued earlier, the adoption of a visual methodology, even if it holds the same pitfalls as traditional methodologies, can push us to reestablish some balance in the relationships (without being too naive!). To counter the "male gaze", the "colonial gaze" (Edwards, 1992(Edwards, , 1997 and other forms of social control, we present visual methodologies as a tool to restore agency and power for participants, notably for immigrants, for women (Pereira, Maiztegui-Oñate, & Mata-Codesal, 2016;Weber, 2019), and for youth Buckingham & De Block, 2007). Visual methods are often portrayed as ways to democratize research. ...
... Using videos in anthropological research with children and young people has gained prominence over recent years (CHICAM, 2007;de Block & Buckingham, 2007;Queirolo Palmas, 2015). Similar to more established visual formats such as drawings and pictures, videos can be used both as field notes (Grau Rebollo, 2008) and as working tools to be employed during interviews, focus groups, or in the creation of personal diaries to elicit otherwise unexpressed thoughts and meanings Marcu, 2019;. ...
The three chapters in this part of the book have quite different starting points, objectives and questions. This makes them rich and allows a dialogue between the authors on a meta-level: not in the methods of description or analysis of the daily life of migrants, or the representations in their new lives, but in the one that questions the choices made by the producers of images to account for this reality, immaterial, intimate and profound.
... Prior youth development studies were mostly framed by the theory of lock-step, universal developmental stages (Cosaro, 2005). Adolescence was largely viewed as a transitory period from immature childhood to socially competent adulthood (Erikson, 1959). ...
... Adolescence was largely viewed as a transitory period from immature childhood to socially competent adulthood (Erikson, 1959). The sociocultural approach has challenged this linear view, offering a critical perspective arguing that children actively shape their own development through participating in cultural processes (Cosaro, 2005;Rogoff, 2003). The sociocultural lens also carefully considers the intersection of contexts such as among gender, race, and class (Cooper, García Coll, Thorne, & Orellana, 2005;Deutsch, 2008), or across local, national, and global scales (Arnett, 2002;Suárez-Orozco, 2004), thus acknowledging the complexity of identity constructs. ...
This paper argues that transnational new media space is an important developmental context for migrant youth who have multiple social networks across geographical and cultural locations. Informed by the ecological model of development and literacy studies, this paper examines Korean migrant adolescents’ sense of self and belonging in relation to the three intertwined identity categories – nationality, race, and ethnicity; and the role of new media in youth’s identity negotiation and representation. Using an ethnographic case study design, this paper analyzes adolescents’ identity work reflected in their verbal interviews and multimodal new media literacy practices. Findings suggest that despite the complexity of youths’ identity as seen in their shifting meaning of being Korean across national, ethno-cultural, and racial contexts, youths actively reconstructed and shared a fuller range of their identity constructs drawing on the resources and linguistic tools in transnational new media.
... The development of skills is also emphasized in the present project, particularly skills related to media production and understanding of the media culture. Lately, education scholars (de Block & Buckingham, 2010;Dezuanni, 2017) have emphasized how the increasing current dominance of media culture in society have contributed to the need for people to develop critical media literacy skills. Hoechsmann and Poyntz (2012, p. 1) emphasize both creative and critical aspects of what they call media literacy 2.0: media literacy is a set of competencies that enable us to interpret media texts and institutions, to make media of our own, and to recognise and engage with the social and political influence of media in everyday life. ...
The paper reports on an empirical case study that explores innovative teaching practices in higher education, including digital, physical, and blended learning activities. The study followed the cross-disciplinary Master’s course ‘Experts in teamwork’ at NTNU in Norway. Students from different fields of study worked with practical assignments based on real-life challenges formulated by an external collaboration partner, which included actors from the health care department, the school management, and the ICT management in the local municipality. The students also gained experience with creative media production and worked with various digital tools and software, such as Zoom and Teams for video communication and various creative software for creating postersand other media content. The findings show that the students experienced the project as motivating, highly educational and relevant to working life. It seems that digital tools contributed to flexibility, particularly for interactivity with the external partners and for group work. Both for students and the teachers the use of screens and software like Zoom and Teams opened for new ways of thinking about collaboration and provided an extended learning space and increased learning potential. However, screens also imply limitations, for example in terms of communication noise, possible passive forms of participation or even withdrawal from some of the students. Moreover, practices that include digital, physical and hybrid learning activities are highly complex, which require that the activities are particularly well planned and thoughtfully organized. The learning situation is therefore characterized by increased demands and expectations -for both students, teachers, and the institutions.
... Children have become more and more important, not only as consumers themselves but also for their purchasing influence. On the other hand, as Buckingham & De Block (2007) articulate, such global media influences have contributed in creating a sort of discontinuance in terms of cultural and moral values. "Commercial forces are seen to have disrupted the process of socialisation, upsetting the smooth transmission of cultural values from one generation to the next. ...
The concept of childhood, and particularly considering the social and cultural construction of childhood, has not received enough focus in the ongoing debates on globalization and its consequences. Yet, essential elements of globalization are omnipresent in the guise of new discourses around childhood, which have become particularly resonant transnationally. A lot of international treaties or conventions, such as the United Nations Children’s Rights Convention (1989) shape national and local realities of children worldwide based on global conceptualisations of childhood, which are based mainly on western ideals of what it means to be a child. Applying such global notions of childhood in different contexts around the world often does not consider local realities and cultural ideologies of childhood, and indirectly does more harm than good. Childhood constitutes an essential and very delicate nexus in the continuously changing realities. Since childhood occupies a symbolic space where the consequences of globalization can be reflected, it cannot be left unconsidered. Not only childhood comprehends the basis of cultural connection, but it is the main mechanism of social recreation. Building on postcolonial and critical whiteness studies, the paper tries to analyse a few aspects relating the westernization and construction of the global child ideal and presenting an overview of the impacts of children global policies towards shaping local childhoods.
... Hun programmavoorkeuren waren duidelijk ingegeven door Angelsaksische, veramerikaniseerde populaire cultuur en benadrukken voornamelijk tieneridentiteiten (bv. Tufte, 2001;de Block & Buckingham, 2007;Dhoest, 2009b). Dit laveren tussen vele culturele locaties zorgt ervoor dat jongeren (1) van verschillende werelden kunnen proeven, (2) meervoudige, hybride identiteiten of nieuwe etniciteiten kunnen construeren (bv. ...
... Apesar das pesquisas sobre migração transnacional já investigarem intensamente os adultos migrantes, como nas suas relações familiares e redes de apoio, quando olhamos para crianças ou jovens e, especificamente, suas imbricações com os processos educacionais raramente eles são o foco. Ainda precisamos muito percorrer para ter um detalhamento de como as crianças e jovens experimentam a vida transnacional (BLOCK; BUCKINGHAM, 2007). ...
Esta pesquisa está situada no contexto das migrações transnacionais recentes e da educação de imigrantes em Florianópolis/SC. Tem como proposição central identificar, com as narrativas de jovens migrantes sobre suas trajetórias de vida e suas vivências na escola, os desafios e as possibilidades (pistas) para a construção de uma educação sensível, que considere os diferentes contextos e demandas, por meio da Educação Intercultural e em Direitos Humanos. Para isso, foi realizada uma pesquisa qualitativa explorando o contexto da migração internacional em escala global e local, os direitos humanos e suas relações com as pessoas migrantes, as características da migração de crianças e jovens, os percalços do acesso à educação escolar, os embates da interculturalidade e uma análise das matrículas de migrantes nas escolas de Florianópolis (2016-2019). Foi posto também para discussão as disputas narrativas sobre as migrações e as potencialidades da comunicação intercultural para os processos educacionais. Por fim, foi feita uma apresentação de um projeto de acolhimento a estudantes migrantes em uma escola pública de Florianópolis e uma análise de produções narrativas de duas estudantes migrantes, que se utilizaram de diferentes linguagens. Diante do emaranhado de dados que emergiram das narrativas de seus processos de inserção na escola, sendo migrante e jovem, foi observado a importância de ser considerado alguns indicativos, como: as características de suas famílias transnacionais, as rotas percorridas, as redes envolvidas, as projeções de futuro, os dilemas da comunicação intercultural, as expectativas na chegada, os sentimentos de medo e também de felicidade, a construção de amizades, os agenciamentos, os embates com a cultura escolar e os obstáculos diários de acesso ao direito à educação. Os resultados apontaram, então, como o acesso à educação escolar para migrantes ainda é perpassado por violações de direitos e como as vivências escolares nesses contextos envolvem diferentes dimensões sensíveis do ser humano que precisam ser levadas em conta. Por isso, para que as futuras narrativas com, sobre e por migrantes na escola possam ser construídas tendo a escola e o país de acolhimento como um espaço de novas e melhores oportunidades de vida, é essencial que a educação, o espaço escolar e a comunidade envolvida, sejam movimentados em consonância com as demandas dos jovens oriundos de movimentos migratórios plurais, de forma a garantir sua trajetória educacional e sua plena existência como um ser de direitos.
... A large body of research discusses the importance of a diverse universe of images in children's media related to gender, race, and ethnicity (Bishop, 1990;Dill-Shackleford et al., 2017;Götz & Lemish, 2012;Rivera & Valdivia, 2013). There is also a significant body of research on migrant-children's consumption and use of media in the context of globalization and transnational migration over the last two decades (de Block & Buckingham, 2007;Elias, 2013;Elias & Lemish, 2011;Katz, 2014). However, little is known about how children's media depict immigration and how such depictions may play a part in shaping children's feelings and views on immigration and refugees. ...
In the wake of an intensifying hostile environment towards migrants and refugees in the US and Europe, children’s picture books play an important role in shaping children’s understanding of migration and attitudes towards migrants. How do contemporary children’s books depict migration? This article discusses the findings of a thematic analysis of 40 picture books about migration, published between 2015 and 2019 in the UK and the US. We found that these books typically present successful migration stories where children move from unfortunate circumstances in their home countries to happier lives in the host countries. Host countries are mostly located in the global North and migrants are generally welcomed with generosity and hospitality. We also found that the books give important attention to historical contexts. However, while children’s picture books concerning migration contribute to enhancing children’s understanding of migration in some ways, they concurrently erase difference and injustice, and thus miss an opportunity to broaden children’s knowledge and appreciation of the plurality of cultures, experiences, and places and the urgent need to respect and protect them.
... We believed that part of the problem for the limited understanding of the father-child relationship in families and its connections to child development, was because it is methodologically demanding to capture processes of child development, particularly from the child's perspective. Although the child's perspective is now widely acknowledged in social science literature (Christensen, 2004;De Block & Buckingham, 2007) as part of recognising children's rights as human beings to be positioned with a voice, it is actually relatively rare in studies of father-child interactions (Milner & Chawla-Duggan, 2018); and rarer still in cross-national research. Researching these interactions and their relation to child development, therefore requires contextually and dynamically sensitive methods that allow possibilities for capturing processes of development, the child's perspective in father-child relationships and family situations. ...
The paper presents a visual methods approach from a cross national methodological project that used digital visual technologies to examine young children's perspectives in father-child interactions. The approach combines capturing the dialectic with visual reflexivity. The notion of ‘capturing the dialectic’ specifically by analysing conflict to gather the child’s intention as their perspective, is underpinned by finding the contradictions in a situation of which children are a part. Visual technologies and in particular digital film does this, because it can identify difference, as it observes and captures the dialectic process. Researchers collected between 5–10 hours of film footage and twenty-four film elicitation interviews from young children and their fathers in twelve families within England, Hong Kong, Norway and India. In the study, participants took footage of routine father-child interactions chosen by the children; and researchers sampled the footage for situations of conflict and emotionally charged moments in order to capture the dialectic. Researchers then conducted film elicitation interviews with the children and fathers, which were recorded for the purpose of visual reflexivity. This visual methods approach can support social science researchers to address differences in representation and truth, for a better understanding of a young child’s perspective in cross-national projects.
... Therefore transnational migrant children's roles as connectors to people and places can be important in new/receiving cultural contexts and heritage/ sending contexts. Transnational migrant children's connections to people and places across borders have received some attention recently, particularly because of the increased accessibility and popularity of information communication technologies (ICTs) (de Block and Buckingham 2007;Ní Laoire et al. 2011). Migration itself has been described as an "everyday rupture" for children (Coe et al. 2011) -a process that disrupts their everyday, mundane social activities -and from recent research (King-O'Riain 2014; Komito 2011; Komito and Bates 2009) it seems important to consider the ways in which migrant children's connections to people and places are maintained and perhaps forged, through the use of ICTs (see Fig. 2). ...
... Ces jeunes adoptent une lecture critique lors de leur réception médiatique. Est-elle alimentée par leur statut de spectateurs transnationaux, caractéristique et qualité conférées par de Block et Buckingham (2007) aux jeunes « issus de l'immigration », exposés à une pluralité de médias des pays d'accueil et des pays d'origine ? Si les deux jeunes n'évoquent pas les consommations d'information d'actualité des médias des pays d'origine, ils se réfèrent à d'autres formes d'information extra-européennes et déclarées journalistiques au moins pour une partie d'entre elles. ...
... Children have become more and more important, not only as consumers themselves but also for their purchasing influence. On the other hand, as Buckingham & De Block (2007) articulate, such global media influences have contributed in creating a sort of discontinuance in terms of cultural and moral values. "Commercial forces are seen to have disrupted the process of socialisation, upsetting the smooth transmission of cultural values from one generation to the next. ...
The concept of childhood, and particularly considering the social and cultural construction of childhood, has not received enough focus in the ongoing debates on globalization and its consequences. Yet, essential elements of globalization are omnipresent in the guise of new discourses around childhood, which have become particularly resonant transnationally. A lot of international treaties or conventions, such as the United Nations Children’s Rights Convention (1989) shape national and local realities of children worldwide based on global conceptualisations of childhood, which are based mainly on western ideals of what it means to be a child. Applying such global notions of childhood in different contexts around the world often does not consider local realities and cultural ideologies of childhood, and indirectly does more harm than good. Childhood constitutes an essential and very delicate nexus in the continuously changing realities. Since childhood occupies a symbolic space where the consequences of globalization can be reflected, it cannot be left unconsidered. Not only childhood comprehends the basis of cultural connection, but it is the main mechanism of social recreation. Building on postcolonial and critical whiteness studies, the paper tries to analyse a few aspects relating the westernization and construction of the global child ideal and presenting an overview of the impacts of children global policies towards shaping local childhoods.
... Some interesting findings have also emerged from the studies of childrens involvement with popular culture and the new media. For instance, although children are habitually perceived as victims of consumer culture, some studies have shown that they can decipher advertising tactics (Sternheimer, 2003), play subversively with toys by transforming and even rejecting predetermined scripts (McDonnell, 2000), and use TV shows and other popular culture texts as effective tools for establishing friendships (Block & Buckingham, 2007). As Buckingham (2000) noted, consumer culture should not be understood as simply a means of manipulating children's authentic needs, but as a "flexible terrain" on which they create their own identities (p. ...
... In the case of ethno archaeological tracking, the data is suitable for structural questions about the frequency and spatial distribution of activities in the home (Ochs et al., 2006). Such methods can raise important questions to gather the children's perspective, but knowing that children's lives are framed by broader structural forces, it is still possible to overplay their power (De Block and Buckingham, 2007); so: ...
Although existing notions of reflexivity address the positionality of researchers, they rarely consider the processes through which methods and methodologies can come about. This study builds children’s reflexivity into the research design. Drawing on footage from a pilot visual ethnography of paternal engagement in home environments, we show first, that at one level, building children’s reflexivity into data collection and analysis, allows us to look at the relationship between the child, technology and the subject of their images; thereby establishing a position from which their perspective is produced. We found that their age and the particular visual technology used, shaped how the children positioned themselves and in turn, the kind of representations we gathered. As this was a collaborative study with a film maker and also involving discussions of film findings with teachers; a more general level reflexive analysis allowed us generate different viewpoints from which their perspectives were produced.
... Ces jeunes adoptent une lecture critique lors de leur réception médiatique. Est-elle alimentée par leur statut de spectateurs transnationaux, caractéristique et qualité conférées par de Block et Buckingham (2007) aux jeunes « issus de l'immigration », exposés à une pluralité de médias des pays d'accueil et des pays d'origine ? Si les deux jeunes n'évoquent pas les consommations d'information d'actualité des médias des pays d'origine, ils se réfèrent à d'autres formes d'information extra-européennes et déclarées journalistiques au moins pour une partie d'entre elles. ...
La recherche présentée ici se penche sur la représentation médiatique de la diversité contenue dans 68 courts métrages produits par des adolescents montréalais, dans le cadre d’un projet d’éducation cinématographique et interculturelle nommé Clip ton 514. Elle aborde la diversité au-delà de la question de la diversité ethnoculturelle, avec une préoccupation par rapport à d’autres dimensions de la diversité, comme l’âge, le sexe et le rôle social des personnages représentés à l’écran. Afin de saisir cette représentation de la diversité, une analyse de contenu de type mixte a été réalisée. Nos résultats montrent que les cinéastes adolescents ayant participé au projet Clip ton 514 avaient un souci pour la question de la diversité, dans toutes ses dimensions. En conclusion, nous insistons sur l’importance de mettre en valeur la question de la diversité dans le cadre de toute activité d’éducation aux médias.
... Ces jeunes adoptent une lecture critique lors de leur réception médiatique. Est-elle alimentée par leur statut de spectateurs transnationaux, caractéristique et qualité conférées par de Block et Buckingham (2007) aux jeunes « issus de l'immigration », exposés à une pluralité de médias des pays d'accueil et des pays d'origine ? Si les deux jeunes n'évoquent pas les consommations d'information d'actualité des médias des pays d'origine, ils se réfèrent à d'autres formes d'information extra-européennes et déclarées journalistiques au moins pour une partie d'entre elles. ...
Aside from going through the usual negotiations of identity in adolescence, diasporic youth need to negotiate identities on different levels, not only with regard to growing up, but also taking into account their parents’ and grandparents’ past. This paper addresses representations of (young) Turkish Germans in the 2011 film Almanya – Willkommen in Deutschland, and observes the ways in which the film investigates questions of identity, language, and citizenship. The notions of identity, language and citizenship are employed as steering concepts throughout the analysis. It is argued that the film responds to dominant sociopolitical discourses to some degree but that it can also be considered as an intervention into these.
... Therefore transnational migrant children's roles as connectors to people and places can be important in new/receiving cultural contexts and heritage/ sending contexts. Transnational migrant children's connections to people and places across borders have received some attention recently, particularly because of the increased accessibility and popularity of information communication technologies (ICTs) (de Block and Buckingham 2007;Ní Laoire et al. 2011). Migration itself has been described as an "everyday rupture" for children (Coe et al. 2011) -a process that disrupts their everyday, mundane social activities -and from recent research (King-O'Riain 2014; Komito 2011; Komito and Bates 2009) it seems important to consider the ways in which migrant children's connections to people and places are maintained and perhaps forged, through the use of ICTs (see Fig. 2). ...
Recent research on family migration and transnationalism has indicated that living family life across borders has become a regular feature of migrant family life which can result in children encountering changes, often multiple, in their circumstances and environments. Much of this research has supported the inclusion of children’s voices and emphasized the significance of migration in children’s lives. A children-inclusive approach to studies of transnational family migration allows children’s varying roles in migratory processes to be revealed; it also enables examination of these processes from children’s points of view. This chapter presents a review of the ways in which children have been and can be included or overlooked in studies of transnational family migration and explores what difference migration can make to the ways in which children experience transnationalism. The focus of the chapter is on the perspectives and experiences of children who migrate themselves. The findings of three separate studies with transnational migrant children and their families are used to highlight and discuss the differing ways in which children are ascribed, transact, and perform differing roles in processes of transnational family migration. The empirical data was collected by one of the authors (Tyrrell) from studies focused on families who migrated from Central and Eastern Europe to the Republic of Ireland, families who migrated from Spanish-speaking countries to the United Kingdom, and families of “highly skilled” migrants who migrated to and within European countries.
Worauf muss die Forschung ihren Blick richten, um in einer sich wandelnden Mediengesellschaft die Rolle der Medien im komplexen Prozess der Sozialisation zu erkennen und den Bedeutungen dieses Wandels in der interpersonellen wie auch in der medienvermittelten Kommunikation gerecht zu werden? Ziel dieses Artikels ist es in erster Linie zu diskutieren, wie eine Annäherung an das Forschungsfeld der politischen Sozialisation Heranwachsender, die mit den Nachrichteninhalten aus unterschiedlichen medialen Kanälen verknüpft ist, möglich ist. Wissen über die Rolle der medienvermittelten Nachrichten für die politische Sozialisation von Kindern und Jugendlichen ist zunehmend wichtig. Es stellt sich die Frage, ob es sinnvoll sein könnte, wieder eine Verbindung zu den grundlegenden Vorstellungen von politischer Sozialisation herzustellen und diese Ideen in einem Modell mit den gegenwärtigen Konzepten von ‚Digitalisierung‘, ‚Mediatisierung‘, ‚Glokalisierung‘ und Globalisierung‘ zu rahmen.
The Zimbabwe urban grooves music is an urban contemporary musical genre that fuses local and global rhythms and beats and is popular with youth. Afro diasporic genres such as Jamaican dancehall and the Euro-American rap and rhythm and blues (R&B) are appropriated by the youthful artists who sing predominantly in local languages (Shona and Ndebele) about the lived Zimbabwean experiences. Despite the dominant vernacular lyrics, there is a significant fusion of the vernacular languages and English language. The artists also employ figures of speech drawn from vernacular proverbs, idioms, and contemporary Zimbabwean experiences as well as global cultural practices. Thus, language syncretism is a notable characteristic feature of urban grooves. The language syncretism also involves “lexical innovation” as musicians resist limitations of formal grammatical rules of both the local Zimbabwean languages and English; hence, there is a prominent use of slang in urban grooves. This article examines the role of language syncretism in urban grooves musical lyrics. The discussion postulates that there is a remarkable interaction between language syncretism in urban grooves music and Zimbabwean youth experiences and identities which are significantly shaped by the intersection between local and global encounters.
Using ethnographic data, this article aims to analyse the provision of informal care by asylum-seekers in Sweden and how this intersects with the(ir) asylum process. The article argues that asylum-seekers are framed by the Swedish welfare system and immigration authorities as ungrievable and deportable, which not only impedes their access to formal care systems and values, but also creates a strong need for informal care. Further, it is suggested that the informal care provided by asylum-seekers should be included in current debate on informal care and its impact on people’s lives.
Utilising data gathered through ethnographic fieldwork this article investigates (a) how asylum seekers portray family life in relation to their decision to flee their country of origin, and (b) how asylum seekers’ ways of doing family life intersect with the Swedish migration context. Analytically, the article leans on sociologically informed theories of family practices and a conceptual discussion on deportability . The results show how family life among the participants is reconstituted both in terms of geographical closeness and distance, and in terms of ideas about a previous family life in the country of origin and hopes for a possible future in Sweden. The insecurity and the strains placed on people and their family bonds by current migration policies, and the risk of deportation, are interpreted as a specific form of administrative violence that cuts into family practices, serving to maintain physical and emotional distance between family members and break down social bonds.
The use of audio-visual methods as a source of data for social inquiry has gained momentum, especially in research with migrant children and young people. For many youth scholars, photos and videos are used both as field notebooks and as working tools that can be employed during interviews or in creating personal diaries to unearth feelings and thoughts that otherwise would remain unexplored. However, producing, viewing and examining visual data together also creates the conditions to develop the collaborative potential that is inherent in the relationship between researchers and young participants. Building on a multi-sited ethnography with a group of Romanian Roma adolescents with different mobility experiences, this chapter offers a theoretically-informed empirical account of the failures, negotiations, and opportunities disclosed by the use of participatory video-making in ethnographic research with underprivileged young people “affected by mobility”.
Going to school and getting an education can both be important and tenuous for young people who, because they are refugees, are experiencing a precarious and fragile life. It is often considered an effective catalyst for integration, for future success in life, and as a possible haven. At the same time, schooling and education aimed at newly arrived refugee children and young people are rife with challenges. In this chapter, we use ethnographic data to investigate how young unaccompanied people talk about school and school life in relation to racism, and administrative violence. How the young people act, react to, and reflect on their education and schools are affected by how they are perceived and treated by society at large. Being labelled, questioned, and rejected can be considered elements of administrative violence. Another related form of violence affecting these young people is racist violence, both physical violence and violence expressed through institutions, such as schools. We argue that the school system must adapt to these young people’s wishes, experiences, and challenges, without homogenizing and reproducing inequalities and violence aimed at them. Further, racism must be addressed and fought methodically, on the policy level and locally within the schools.
As youth media creation programmes proliferate, educators and practitioners are learning how to develop stories that interrupt hegemony and point to new ways of being. This research, carried out in an ethnically diverse middle school, highlights the way digital storytelling as an applied theatre praxis brought complexity to student work. The role of a Media Wish List and students' propositional digital stories have implications for the way educators and practitioners approach digital storytelling with youth, and how applied theatre processes can be leveraged to enhance digital storytelling in classrooms.
In this chapter, I challenge the functionalist view of informal science education and instead, through “a lens of multiples,” attend to youths’ diverse forms of meaning making of science and self in science; and how these processes are charged by and grounded in placemaking (entanglement of feelings with materials, bodies, and multiple ways of knowing, being, and becoming in STEM). I do so through two case studies, first, a video production project in ArtScience, a club that is part of a Saturday school that reaches out to elementary school level children and families with histories of recent immigration; and second, a joint video project about a girls-only afterschool program by now young women of color who no longer participate in that program. I show how the two projects took for granted the heterogeneity of forms of engagement with science and identities as insiders to science and thereby became critical sites of critique and transformation of informal science education and visions of who can do and be in science, mediated in part also by the researcher who as a collaborator contributed to that transformation. As such, the chapter challenges visions of colored youth as disposable through a discourse on multiples.
As the present work is prompted in part by the scale of children’s displacement across the Arab region and demographic change in Europe, we start the final chapter by comparing theory and practice in the use of screen media to provide visibility for children experiencing disruption and uncertainty. We consider two documented projects designed to promote refugee and migrant children’s participation in media-making, in the context of ideas about children’s participation generally. We then go on to sum up the book’s findings about the cross-regional encounters it explored in relation to provision of screen media for children, its production and the policies behind it, and how recognising that children are stakeholders in production processes and decision-making could improve media visibility for all children.
The growing importance of sustainable development constitutes a challenging trend for education. Universities create study programs and organize extracurricular activities in order to prepare future generations of professionals as well as political and social leaders for responsible actions toward sustainable development. The main objective of this article is to investigate how universities in Poland develop educational programs and extracurricular activities to enable students to shape sustainability competencies. The study employed a triangulation of research methods including a literature analysis, desk research analysis of the universities' educational programs, and quantitative research among students. The findings suggest that Polish universities attempt to shape sustainable development-oriented competencies not only through formal sustainable development education, but also via non-formal activities toward social and environmental challenges. The research results have practical implications for universities and can support the advancement of educational programs related to sustainable development.
Constructions of migrant children and young people within research and policy in host societies often emphasize their (lack of) “integration” (or belonging) in host society contexts, more so than their experiences as transnational migrants with complex senses of belonging. Hegemonic assumptions of migrant children as being different and “not-belonging” in host society contexts often reproduce, and are reproduced by, public fears around difference, social conflict, and anxieties about the future. The research and data cited in this chapter were generated as part of a project exploring the experiences of children moving to, and living in, Ireland. The chapter focuses in particular on the ways in which migrant children and young people in Ireland construct different senses of belonging in and across multiple scales as part of the negotiation of their social and cultural identities as migrants and as children/young people. Migrant children and young people form attachments and detachments which often challenge assumptions that are made by others about whether or to what they should belong. As part of these arguments, the chapter explores the complexity of migrant children’s and young people’s lives through a particular focus on their consumption of global consumer culture as part of processes of belonging.
This student book discusses issues of journalism ethics within a broader concept of how we understand, negotiate and embody ethics in western culture. The work of Charles Ess on ethics and digital culture as well as the work of Michel Foucault on governmentally have been influential in how the terms and debates discussed in this book are conceptualised.
This chapter starts with the life story of Helen, who escaped Eritrea to Sudan when she was 17 years old. Helen’s life story goes against the dominant discourse, which presents migrant girls’ motivations mainly in terms of helping the family, sacrificing themselves for their parents and siblings, or escaping political regimes, and having no other choice. As a result, migrant girls are oftentimes presented as victims of constrained circumstances. Notwithstanding the importance of poverty and human rights violations, the girls’ narratives reveal more complex and multifaceted decision-making processes. They show elements of agency, as well as pressures, in the choice to migrate and in the way the decision to do so is taken. The stories presented and analyzed in this chapter show that girls’ choices can result from diverse factors: the struggle to survive versus following their own aspirations and desires. This chapter contributes to the theoretical debates on children and young people’s mobility and agency.
This chapter discusses a study that examines the extent to which Asian American individuals' acculturation, enculturation, and demographic background contribute to their use of online ethnic media, as well as the extent to which Asian American individuals with different ethnic self-identities may differ in their online ethnic media consumption. Data for this study is drawn from a survey questionnaire (N = 574) conducted 2015, with respondents representing different immigrant generational status from multiple Asian ethnic groups in the United States. Results broadly highlight the influence role of acculturation and enculturation behind online ethnic media consumption and contribute to a greater understanding of the Asian American experience in the digital and globalized media environment. Implications and recommendations for future studies are discussed.
A debate on masculinity and immigration rose across Europe in 2015 after an incident with sexual harassments taking place in Cologne, Germany. The incident refuelled a debate positioning unaccompanied young men as a possible threat. This article is based on a research project where we during this time ethnographically followed 20 young men, having arrived in Sweden as ‘unaccompanied’ minors. The aim is to examine how the young men themselves talk about, reflect on and negotiate masculinity and gender during this period. The article concludes that masculinity cannot be approached as something stable easily being inherited or transferred from one’s origins. One difference for ‘unaccompanied’ young men is how conflicts or tensions emerging in relation to issues of gender and masculinity tend to be interpreted differently, and publicly, putting the young men in a ‘gendered situation of questioning’.
This paper is a "manifesto" for incorporating children into deliberative democracy. Although the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) emphasizes children’s right to participation in the process of democracy, their activities and voices still do not receive the attention they merit. There exists a widespread skepticism reinforced by notions of socialization and remediation about children’s capacities, knowledge, experiences, and interests in democracy, and this leads to a conceptualization of children as “future citizens.” Drawing on the recent scholarship on deliberative democracy, particularly the deliberative system framework, this article reconsiders the capacities and actual contributions of children in democracy, and suggests reconceptualizing children as “deliberators.” The perspective of deliberative system in particular helps us to notice the agency and deliberative capacity of children not only in “empowered” decision-making spaces but also in the context of previously unnoticed various democratic activities.
Bu çalışmada, arama motoru Google’da 2001-2015 yılları arasında en sık aranan anahtarsözcükler tespit edilerek son 15 yıllık süre içinde küresel düzeyde egemen durumdaki popülereğilimler sorgulanmıştır. Sorgulama, Google Trends sitesindeki “Evrensel” kategorisinde yeralan veriler kullanılarak yapılmış, kültürel küreselleşmenin Türkiye’deki etkilerinin küreselsonuçlarla farklılık gösterip göstermediğini anlamak için “Türkiye” kategorisindeki verilertemelinde de benzer bir çalışma gerçekleştirilmiştir. Analiz sonucunda, başta ABD olmak üzereBatılı ülkelerde egemen popüler kültür öğelerinin internet erişimine sahip dünya nüfusunu etkisialtına almış olduğu, dolayısıyla küresel düzeyde hâkim popüler kültürün dünya ülkelerininçeşitliliğini yansıtan bir mozaik sunmaktan ziyade homojenleşme eğilimi gösterdiği ve araştırmasüresinin başlangıç ve bitiş yılları (2001 ve 2015) arasında bu durumda Batılı ülkeler lehineküçük de olsa (p=1.80) bir farklılaşma yaşandığı tespit edilmiştir. Çalışmanın ortaya koyduğubir diğer tespit ise, Türkiye’de şu anda Batı merkezli homojen bir kültürden söz edilemeyeceği,yerel öğelerin popüler kültür eğilimlerinde büyük bir ağırlık taşıdığı, ancak yerel öğelerdenarındırılmış sonuçlarda ağırlıklı olarak ABD merkezli kültürel öğelerin yer aldığı şeklindedir.
Our study focuses on Sesame Street and sets out to examine how Sesame Workshop, as a ‘non-profit’ organization targeting children, has been able to continuously transform and make itself relevant in a predominantly commercial children’s television landscape dominated by transnational ownership structures. The analysis includes an investigation of Sesame Workshop’s mission statements, organizational structure, annual fiscal reports, promotional material and other written sources from the 1970s to the 2010s. We focus on the Workshop’s own arguments and reasons for why their ‘non-profit’ status was, and still is, better at taking care of children’s interests than the for-profit companies. These understandings are held up against the, at times, very commercial logic guiding the workshop’s business model, and analysed within the economic and political context of children’s television in the United States and the Workshop’s key international target markets. Our theoretical framework draws upon insights from work on political economy and children’s media and comparative media systems.
This article advances my thoughts on a social‐aesthetic approach within the field of youth and social research. These reflections are not primarily grounded in traditional approaches of visual sociology and anthropology but emerged from the context of media‐educational youth research in Germany. The main assumption of this article is that qualitative youth and social research in particular, which has audio‐visual self‐productions as the object, should—in view of the increasing influence media has on our perception and the way how the reality is experienced—be open to concepts of subject‐related self‐presentations. First I make an attempt to formulate a social‐aesthetic theory which focuses on the media‐ethnographical exploration of symbolic milieus. Next, I introduce projects run by media‐educational youth researchers in Germany, emphasizing the question of conceptions and methods when working with adolescent video self‐productions. The final section reflects upon the quality, the validity and the hermeneutics of self‐produced videos.
This paper sets the scene for the research presented in the rest of this IJMS issue. It begins with a discussion of Globalization in which the phenomenon of the Internet is located. The argument is that, no matter how disputed aspects of Globalization may be, greater interaction is indisputable, with inevitable consequences for language practice. The second section considers the spread of English in the world and recounts the history of the Internet and its genesis in the English-speaking world. Then, in a review of the literature, the case is made that despite the initial assumptions by some that the Internet would serve to strengthen English as the international language par excellence, current research seems to be showing that matters are evolving in a far more nuanced manner. Thus, although it is true that English was the main medium of the early Internet, it is increasingly the case that the Internet is now a communication space for other language communities, both ‘big’ (e.g. Spanish, German, Japanese) and ‘small’. These conclusions in the recent literature are confirmed by the findings of the present research project, reported in the four other papers.
