Lecture 1: Globalization and diversity – linking global processes to increased diversity in the respective countries

This lecture on globalization and diversity focuses on how globalization, including war and climate changes, generates more diversified societies via increased flight and migration. Dependent on how deeply the session leader wants the students to dig into the subject, the lecture can be split in two parts with a brake in between. Below are main points presented, for the session leader to elaborate on.  

 

Understanding global and transnational processes 

    

Examples:

  • Global warming: We live in an “overheated” world (Eriksen 2016), with total interconnectedness. What we do in one country, affects people elsewhere. A conflict between economic growth and earth sustainability.
  • Migration: 86 per cent of all refugees were taken in by low or middle-income countries. IDPs (internally displaced persons) represent a large proportion. A small minority of the refugees come to Europe. Polarized views among European leaders and citizens.
  • War and terrorism: Often times failure to see the connection between refugee ‘flows’ and Western interference in the Middle East and beyond, plus how the war situation may have contributed to increased terrorism. Has the WoT (war on terror) lead to increased conflict?
  • Globalization of media and their influences on diversity: What we publish in an imagined “national public sphere” may create stirs elsewhere, (re: the cartoon crisis starting autumn 2005)
  • A case: The travelling cartoon (Eide in Nordicom Review 2009) 

      

Othering and marginalization as terms

 

  • “Other” and “othering”, a construction of something distant or not so distant “other” that differ from an inclusive “we” in various ways. The history: Foucault’s story on European lepers, ‘lunatics’ etc.
  • Who is allowed (by journalists, media) to speak? Speaking for “the other”/representation by ‘proxy’?
  • The history of exclusion and marginalization of ethnic and other minorities (disabled, sexual minorities): pogroms against Jews, etc.
  • Laws and practices (“old” and “new” minorities).
  • Racism and extinction: the Nazi experience and growth of Neo-Nazism. Roots?
  • War memories: the diversity of history writing (ex. Norway and Russian and Serbian prisoners of war: Norwegian institutional responsibility long ignored).

  

  

Minority discrimination and stereotypes – a historical perspective

  

  • Jews and Roma as cases (stories to illustrate: The Feldmann case 1942-1947, Eide 2010).

    
    

Roots of migration in the last decades  

   

  • Wars and armed conflict.
  • Political oppression (general or towards specific groups).
  • Religious persecution (minorities).
  • Climate change (climate refugees still not recognized in any UN convention)
  • Lack of prospects for the future
  • Risks for migrants and refugees: smugglers, xenophobia, strict migration policy

  

  

The terrorism threat and its background

   

  • Roots: war, marginalization, humiliation, extremist religiosity, etc.

 

Authors:
Elisabeth Eide, Professor, Faculty of Media and Journalism, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences (Norway)
Anders Graver Knudsen, Phd, Faculty of Media and Journalism, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences (Norway)

An online manual on intercultural understanding, ethics and human rights to be used by teachers and students in journalism education. Read more.

Email : post@journalism-edu.org

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