Whether migrants are seeking information on their destination country in social networks or their stories are told on connective platforms to make numbers and statistics tangible, to a large extent information and communication take place in digital media. Although digital platforms help to break down geographic boundaries and connect communities, digital media, and especially social networks, reproduce divisions that already exist in the real world. In the context of flight and migration, online segregation seems to be an echo of the realities offline: migrants and refugees struggle with language barriers and media coverage that reproduces stereotypes and prejudices. How can digital media cover the sensitive issue of flight and migration without engaging in a segregating discourse? What tools and formats can help to diminish online segregation, instead bringing together migrants, refugees and receiving communities? How can we take advantage of the internet to bridge this gap and foster dialogue among the different groups?
Participants
Prof Dr Martin Emmer, Institute for Media and Communication Studies, Department of Political and Social Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin
Paul Mihailidis PhD, School of Communication, Emerson College Boston
Ahmed Al Shaikhli, Almortaqa Foundation for Development, Baghdad, currently Scholarship Holder, CrossCulture Programme Refugees and Migration (tbc)
Free entrance. No registration required.
Contact: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), Dr Odila Triebel, 0711.2225.219, triebel@ifa.de
Online Segregation: Digital Media and Migration
