Presentation at the 7th Global Forum of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), Baku, Azebarijan, 25-27 April 2016

1. Media Education Against
Discrimination: A Guide for Teens
Maria Ranieri
Department of Education & Psychology
University of Florence

2. Background

3. «We» vs «The Others»
Representing the ‘people’
A stereotypical representation of the
family by Youth Freedom Ring (Austria)
Othering and discriminating
minority groups
Love of the homeland is not a crime!” (Identitarian Movement Austria)
Example of anti-elitism as reiforcement
of othering discourse (NL, Italy)

4. Five Modules, Fifthy Units
• Module 1- Information reception and production
– Analysing the relationship between “reality” and representation, and promoting active
attitudes towards information production
• Module 2- Audio-visual fiction and ideologies
– Understanding the role of “the Other” in audio-visual fictions, analysing the gender-based
representation in TV-series for teenagers, and leading a production activity against
discriminations
• Module 3- Videogames and citizenship
– Understanding the mechanisms of gameplay, thinking about caricatured discourse about
videogames themselves, and leading a “game” activity about a political situation
• Module 4- Communication and propaganda
– Analysing communication campaigns (advertising, political), understanding the concept of
propaganda, and promoting active attitudes through creation of awareness campaigns
against discriminations
• Module 5- Online activism and networking
– Analyse the digital media impact in public sphere, understanding the new ways of online
activism, and promoting active and participatory attitudes through social networks.

5. On Air Project Presentation 5

6. Step 3. Testing
6

7. 7

8. On Air Project Presentation 8

9. Lessons learnt
• Media literacy education is not a ‘magic wand’, but it can
provide opportunities for education to challenge
discriminatory representations of the others, and solicit
active forms of citizenship particularly through
– the integration of media analysis and production,
– by starting from issues young people feel close to their
experiences of discrimination and
– taking advantage of unplanned ‘teachable moments’.
• Media production should not reduced to a mere
technical application of ICT, but must be seen as an
opportunity to better understand how representations
are generated and to stimulate students to think about
the responsibility of producing public messages
addressing their communities.

10. Lessons learnt
• When dealing with these topics, there is a real risk of
merely limiting oneself to reproducing in the
classroom what usually happens in society, i.e.
‘political correctness’. To go beyond ‘political
correctness’ addressing discrimination issues in
students’ terms is crucial as a starting point to then
move back to a more analytical and critical
perspective.
To access the guide:
http://www.engagementproject.eu/

11. 11
Thank you!
Maria on the Cloud
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