European societies are diverse and multilingual due to fluxes of migration over centuries. Diversity and multilingualism are therefore part of the European identity. With the increased arrival since 2005 of refugees fleeing from conflicts...
moreEuropean societies are diverse and multilingual due to fluxes of migration over centuries. Diversity and multilingualism are therefore part of the European identity. With the increased arrival since 2005 of refugees fleeing from conflicts in Syria and other countries, the portrayal of refugees, but also of migrants who have lived in European countries for a long time, is dominated by stereotypes and negative connotations. Migration-related issues have even become the core topic in national elections for right and far-right groups, often in complicity with boulevard media and assisted by the algorithmic logic of social media platforms. But even quality media cope only rarely with the needs of refugees and migrants and seldom try to make their voices heard. This study aims at identifying the needs of refugees and migrants in the domain of media communication and highlights existing and possible responses by community media.
In the first part of the study Salvatore Scifo gives an overview of the concepts of community media as third media sector - beside public service and commercial media - and its definition and recognition by European institutions and UNESCO. Community media are defined as mostly local, independent not-for-profit media which provide access to training, production and distribution facilities. Community media appear mostly in form of community radio. The participatory approach to content production leads to the fact that they manage to include marginalised groups and contribute to community development, social inclusion and intercultural dialogue.
In the second section Jonas Hassemer and Brigitta Busch analyses ethnographic interviews with refugees they conducted in 2017 in Austria. The aim of the interviews was to identify what role media in general and community media in particular play for (recently arrived) refugees and migrants in response to their particular needs and with regard to their human right to freedom of expression, which includes the right to information. Among the central needs expressed, they highlight the role of networks in general – virtual and face to face – as they afford social capital with regard to problem solving (administrative procedures, access to health care and social welfare, housing etc.). Local NGOs, social initiatives and cultural organisations equally play an important role as informal networks that contribute to the shared experiences of newcomers. Access to mainstream media, both as part of the audience and in terms of active participation, is often difficult for newcomers/refugees. As the group of people that is described by the term ‘refugee’ is by far not homogeneous, the barriers encountered are also diverse and are experienced in different ways. Among them are the prevailing monolingual orientation of mainstream media, the lack of meta- knowledge relevant to the local media landscape, and the scarcity of available roles as a result from dominant discourses that assign newcomers certain stereotypical roles while denying them acknowledgement as integral parts of the audience.
These barriers could be overcome by specific projects or more permanent involvement with community media. Because of their open and flexible nature, they offer activities that help bridge language barriers, provide a less constrained space for alternative narratives and self- representation, and accord socially recognised positions for refugees and migrants, where their voices can be heard. As demonstrated in this study, community media can help getting access to knowledge, in particular for coping with the new environment, in establishing local networks and facilitating language learning.
In the third section Nadia Bellardi opens an insight to a series of good practice examples across Europe on how refugees and migrants can get active in community media or have set up their own communicative structures to get a voice and to communicate with the broader society. These examples demonstrate how community media can meet the communicative needs of refugees and migrants by offering training, space for self-representation and offering points of entry to local networks. This bottom-up approach to content production leads in many cases to multilingual media that reflect to a very high extent the linguistic and cultural diversity of the society.
