Glossary

The term labor migration refers to migration that is carried out for employment purposes. States such as Senegal have instituted specific regulation of immigration for employment purposes. Some states of origin play an active role in regulating labor migration and seeking employment opportunities abroad for their nationals.

⇢ see also Brain drain, Migration

References and further reading:

Tandian, Aly, and Sylvia I. Bergh. 2014. “From Temporary Work in Agriculture to Irregular Status in Domestic Service: The Transition and Experiences of Senegalese Migrant Women in Spain.” In Migration, Gender and Social Justice: Perspectives on Human Insecurity, edited by Thanh-Dam Truong, Des Gasper, Jeff Handmaker, and Sylvia I. Bergh, 47–67. Berlin and Heidelberg : Springer. URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28012-2_3.

Category: A

Work Package: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

[AT]

The media described as legacy media are those that engage in traditional mass communication. These media are distributed from a single point of distribution to a fundamentally divided audience and no interaction is possible. In diametrical opposition to legacy media are the so-called new media that, with the rise of the Internet, allow interaction. The rise of the Internet has also meant that media content is less produced by media professionals, but that anyone can create media. This manifests itself especially in the so-called social media where anyone can spread messages. Within the traditional media sector, both print and audio-visual media, new means are also constantly being found to respond to the new market, so that older media are also often branded in the ‘new’ market.

⇢ see also Filter bubble

References and further reading:

Arrese, Ángel, and Jürg Kaufmann. 2016. “Legacy and Native News Brands Online: Do They Show Different News Consumption Patterns.” International Journal on Media Management 18.2: 75–97.

Wagner, Kurt, 2017. Three Major Ways Social Media is Changing Journalism. Illuminate: Bright Ideas from Santa Clara University Leaders. URL: https://www.scu.edu/illuminate/thought-leaders/kurt-wagner-12/three-major-ways-social-media-is-changing-journalism.html. Date of access: September 8, 2023.

Category: A

Work Package: 2, 4, 5

[DC / LH / SM]

The Level Telling Field (LTF) is the key metaphor of OPPORTUNITIES, defining the way we seek to conceptualize and improve narrative dynamics in the public sphere. The concept is inspired by the sports metaphor of the “level playing field.” The Oxford English Dictionary defines this as “a state or condition of parity or impartiality; a situation offering equality of opportunity or in which fairness to all parties is observed.” In global trade, level playing fields ensure that “all countries and firms compete on an equal footing to offer consumers everywhere the widest possible choice and the best value for money” (OECD 2021, n. p.). In analogy to fair trade, level telling fields ensure fair competition between narratives, concepts, and ideas in the public sphere to prevent lies, distorted representations, toxic narratives, or xenophobic propaganda from shaping the public image of migrants and refugees and from influencing migration policies.

Level Telling Fields are playbooks and mechanisms for an open, constructive, and productive debate – the cornerstone of a democratic, pluralist, secular society. They are best viewed as commitments by all participants in a debate to adopt a shared set of premises, to agree on principles and rules, and to define processes and procedures for conducting debates and documenting results. LTF premises include: a) A commitment to a democratic worldview grounded in human rights and a human development paradigm (see Nussbaum 2010); b) Adhering to commonly accepted standards for evaluating claims, opinions, and arguments; and c) Sincerity, i.e. a serious commitment to debate as a democratic means of opinion-building and decision-making. LTF principles include vertical multiperspectivity, an ethics of listening, and perspective taking. LTF processes and procedures depend on contextual parameters such as participants and goals.

An LTF approach to migration insists that all participants in a debate subscribe to these premises and principles, and define a set of procedures designed to ensure a fair conversation, e.g. in the context of a Cross Talk event. The LTF approach requires that a wide range of perspectives (i.e. experiential stories of migration as well as policy narratives on migration) should be represented, and calls for a system of checks and balances to move beyond the toxic debates which have characterized European narratives on migration following the so-called refugee crisis in 2015. Level telling fields can be established locally, in Cross Talk events, but they also have an impact on national and European conversations on controversial issues.

The LTF approach is not limited to migration. It seeks to overcome toxic debates, with a particular focus on institutional and endemic racism, and addresses wide-spread feelings of anger, frustration, and anxiety (see Mishra 2017, Shafak 2020) which are indicative of the closing of public space in a “post-democracy” (Crouch 2004). LTF playbooks and mechanisms continue examining the shifting boundaries of public and private spheres (see Habermas 1992) as well as other consequences of digital communication. They also serve as diagnostic tools for evaluating narrative dynamics in the public sphere and detecting threats to democratic systems of checks and balances across the globe (see Ziblatt and Levitsky 2018).

⇢ see also Cross Talk, Ethics of listening, Multiperspectivity, Narrative dynamics, Stories of migration, Narratives on migration, Perspective taking, Scale

References and further reading:

Crouch, Colin. 2004. Post-Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Habermas, Jürgen. 1992. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Mishra, Pankaj. 2018. Age of Anger: A History of the Present. London: Penguin.

Nussbaum, Martha. 2010. Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. Princeton: Princeton UP.

Shafak, Elif. 2020. How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division. London: Profile Books.

OECD. 2021. “Levelling the Playing Field.” OECD. URL: https://www.oecd.org/trade/topics/levelling-the-playing-field/.

Ziblatt, Daniel, and Steven Levitsky. 2018. How Democracies Die. New York, NY: Crown.

Category: C

Work Package: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

[RS]

Life stories are narratives that individuals or groups (co-)construct to share experiences. Research in narrative studies distinguishes between big stories and small stories in this context. While the term big story mainly refers to the coherent narrative of a person’s self or personal identity, so-called small stories qualify as narratives we tell each other in everyday communication for the purposes of making sense of our experiences and forming collective identities with specific social groups.

A special type of small story is the “broken narrative” (Nünning and Nünning 2016) – stories people tell to come to terms with lifechanging experiences such as a severe illness, a trauma, or other kinds of social, political, economic, or ecological crisis. Since these narratives are associated with a drastic rupture in people’s lives, they display a high degree of tellability; they are frequently incoherent, fragmented, or disorganized (see Hyvärinen et al. 2010). Migrant stories may constitute such broken narratives, especially if they deal with traumatic experiences of war, violence, suppression, or flight. 

⇢ see also Experience, Migrant narrative, Migration and identity, Narrative identity, Tellability

References and further reading:

Bamberg, Michael. 2007. “Stories: Big or Small – Why Do We Care?” In Narrative – State of the Art, edited by Michael Bamberg, 165–174. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

Bamberg, Michael, and Alexandra Georgakopoulou. 2008. “Small Stories as a New Perspective in Narrative and Identity Analysis.” Text & Talk 28.3: 377–396. Georgakopoulou, Alexandra. 2006. Small Stories, Interaction and Identities. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

Hyvärinen, Matti, Lars-Christer Hydén, Marja Saarenheimo, and Maria Tamboukou, eds. 2010. Beyond Narrative Coherence. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

Nünning, Ansgar, and Vera Nünning. 2016. “Conceptualizing ‘Broken Narratives’ from a Narratological Perspective: Domains, Concepts, Features, Functions, and Suggestions for Research.” In Narrative im Bruch: Theoretische Positionen und Anwendungen, edited by Anna Babka, Marlen Bidwell-Steiner, and Wolfgang Müller-Funk, 37–86. Wien: V & R unipress / Vienna University Press.

Ochs, Elinor, and Lisa Capps. 2001. Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday Storytelling. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.

Category: A

Work Package: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

[CG]

In the 1930s, the study of media placed strong emphasis on the powerful effect of media. This was not surprising, given the impact of the Nazi regime’s propaganda. Later, beginning in the 1940s and 1950s, attention shifted to a perspective of limited effects. From that time on, the study of the media has made it clear that a variety of intermediate variables determine how the media exerts influence (see Valkenburg et al. 2016 for a synthesis of the evolution of thinking on media effects). For example, research shows that people like to hold on to their existing ideas rather than absorb information like a sponge (Holt 2018). Arno Slaets et al. (2021) rightfully remark that news users (being one specific example of media users) who are confronted with a multitude of (internally) diverse messages, interpret messages selectively, depending on cognitive interpretation frames that have been shaped by their personal, family, and social life trajectories and are influenced by their current living conditions and social contexts.

⇢ see also Attitudes, beliefs, and values, Frames of migration, News frame

References and further reading:

Holt, Lanier Frush. 2018. “Using the Elaboration Likelihood Model to Explain to Whom “#Black Lives Matter” … and to Whom It Does Not.” Journalism Practice 12.2: 146–161.

Slaets, Arno, Pascal Verhoest, Leen d’Haenens, Joeri Minnen, and Ignace Glorieux. 2021. “Fragmentation, Homogenisation or Segmentation? A Diary Study into the Diversity of News Consumption in a High-Choice Media Environment.” European Journal of Communication 36.5: 461–477.

Valkenburg, Patti, Jochen Peter, and Joseph B. Walther. 2016. “Media effects: Theory and Research.” Annual Review of Psychology 67: 315–338. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122414-033608.

Category: A

Work Package: 2, 4, 5

[DC / LH / SM]