How can integration of often marginalized groups such as immigrants be advanced with the help of digital media? Can participation and inclusivity in digital communities contribute to increased integration in society? In this webinar, we will hear about the work conducted in young Norwegian adults with immigrant background and online communities as a way of enhancing inclusion and citizenship.
Webinar: Media Literacy and Marginalized Groups, Lessons Learned from Norway
10:00-10:45, CET
Speaker: Carol Azungi Dralega, Associate Professor at the NLA University College in Kristiansand, Norway
Host: Maarit Jaakkola
Did not receive the link? Mail mia.jonsson.lindell@nordicom.gu.se!
The objective of this webinar series is to focus on current research and ongoing projects related to media and information literacy (MIL) in different counties. The first three webinars will deal with the Nordic countries. This is the third lecture and it will end the series. The series will be continued by monthly talks from European countries beyond the Nordics, see the programme.
Speaker
Carol Azungi Dralega, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the NLA University College in Kristiansand, Norway, where she teaches MA courses in Global Journalism. She holds a BA (Hons.) in Mass Communication (Makerere University, Uganda), as well as MPhil and PhD in Media Studies (University of Oslo, Norway). She has previously worked as a senior researcher at the Western Norway Research Institute (9 years) and also as a journalist and sub-editor for Uganda’s leading dailies.
Her overall research interest revolves around issues of media and digital representation and inclusion of marginal communities and groups such as women, youth, and immigrants. Her research on video games was inspired by the exponential growth of video games consumption over the years. With the focus on immigrant youth in Norway and their video game habits, the interested was in understanding how the youth use video games to navigate and construct often intersecting identities such as gender, religion, age, ethnicity, location and diasporic experiences in their everyday lives. Here, the notions of inclusion, exclusion, ownership, participation, presumption and so on are explored. Also, the nature and models used in video game regulation within family contexts are explored as well as cultural and digital media literacies and challenges the new media offer digital innate and savvy youth and often digital migrant parents. Most importantly her research draws on and meets needs, capacities and experiences that these families have to better understand and regulate video games.
“To ensure real research impact, we embraced multi-stakeholder engagement and dialogical processes that centred on our target-group’s experiences, needs, competences and capacities. This is why we ended up with cartoons, brochures, videos and illustrated texts in different languages as research output accessible both (on)offline.“
Carol Azungi Dralega
Webinar Lecture
This is the recording of the webinar, hold on 7 October 2020. Length: 45 minutes. In her lecture Video gaming and regulation in immigrant family contexts in Norway, Carol Azungi Dralega pursues a culture-sensitive approach to media and information literacy, discussing digital literacies among young immigrants. She concludes that many of the challenges that young people and their parents are facing in the diaspora are connected to language and cultural knowledge.
Showcases
Spillverket for young people outside education
Spillverket is a game development studio for young adults who find themselves outside education, training or employment. One of the main sources of inspiration when starting the game studio was the constructivist pedagogy by Lev Vygotsky. In the video below, Spillverket’s founder Kris Kåring tells about the creative collaboration with the young people who have been engaged in Spillverket’s activities.
Young people on digital games
In the film below, Abel, Obada, Baraa and Akrem – Norwegian young people with an immigrant background – talk about video games and gaming. The film was produced as part of the research project Prevention of problem gaming among non-Western youth: A collaborative project (2019) with a focus on families at the NLA University College. The aim of this research and development project (R&D) was to contribute to preventive knowledge and solution to problems concerning gaming among non-western youth in Norway. With the help of action research, the project intended, in dialogue with actors and families, to develop long-term and targeted solutions with non-western youth and their families. The film is also available with subtitles in Arabic, Tigrinya and Dari.
LIN for the inclusion of minority women
LIN (Likestilling, Inkludering og Nettverk): LIN – Equality, Inclusion and Network is a voluntary multicultural organization that was started in January 2009. LIN is established by women and works for equality and inclusion of minority women. The organisation seeks to catalyst and contribute to the integration and inclusion work through collaborative projects with other public institutions, such as NGOs and government agencies.
Further readings
Materials
Recent academic research
Andreassen, R. & Vitus, K. (eds.) (2015). Affectivity and race: Studies from Nordic contexts. Ashgate.
Dralega C.A. & Corneliussen H.G. (2018). Gaming and identity construction among immigrant youth in Norway: Convergent glocal contexts. In: Hogset, H., Berge, D.M., & Dale, K.Y. (eds.) Det regionale i det internasjonale: Fjordantologien 2018. Universitetsforlaget, 187–205.
Dralega C.A., Seddighi G. Corneliussen H.G. and Prøitz L. (2019.) From helicopter parenting to co-piloting: Models for regulating video gaming among immigrant youth in Norway. In: Ø. Helgesen, R Glavee-Geo, G. Mustafa, E Nesset & P. Rice (eds.) Modeller: Fjordantologien 2019. Universitetsforlaget, 223–241.
Dralega, C.A. & Corneliussen, H.G. (2018). Manifestations and contestations of hegemony in video gaming by immigrant youth in Norway. In: Williams, A.A., Tsuria, R., Robinson, L., & Khilnani, A. (eds.) Media and power in international contexts: Perspectives on agency and identity studies in media and communications. Emerald Publishing Limited, 153–169.
Roth, S. & Stuedahl, D. (2017). ‘You Norwegians think we female Muslims are not free’: Enactment of gendered positional identities during transition stages. Gender and Education, 31(6), 756–773.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks for the preparations of this webinar to Alf Kristian Rasmussen Kåring (Spillverket), Berit Andersen (the Norwegian Media Authority), Torgeir Uberg Nærland (University of Bergen), Cecilia Driciru (Edinburgh), Henry Mainsah (OsloMet University), Anders K. Kjelstrup (Arendal), Sally Reynolds (Media & Learning Association), as well as Jonatan Rolfer, Lianna Halsénius and Martina Wagner (the Swedish Media Council).
Photos: Scandinav
