Workshop: "Fear, Anger and Grief – Emotions in Migration Reporting"
What images do we have in mind when we think of migrations to Germany? Which narratives are available and archived? What emotions are generated? What remains hidden? Which stories are not documented for posterity? These questions were explored in a cooperation between project B02 “Journalism and the Order of Emotions”, the Neuen deutschen Medienmacher*innen (NdM) and the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb). The cooperation initially offered professional journalists the opportunity to discuss these questions in the form of a workshop. The results will be made available to the general public via a website in November 2022.
The cooperation aimed to make the emotions produced with and by journalism in the field of migration and refuge – curiosity, empathy, compassion, defensiveness, aggression or threat – explicit and their effects comprehensible. In particular, the workshop series “Fear, Anger and Grief – Emotions in Migration Reporting” addressed the question of which methods are helpful in dealing with the challenges posed by migration reporting. The workshop addressed professional journalists and offered space for exchange with the researchers as well as among colleagues in order to jointly reflect on the role of emotions on the topic of migration in journalistic reporting. This provided formats for discussion in which the impact of images and the selectivity and framing of media narratives were critically reflected upon and contrasted with alternative testimonies. The workshop, which took place on April 28 and 29, was led by Sheila Mysorekar (New German Media Makers) and Dr. Débora Medeiros (Freie Universität Berlin).
The website resulting from the cooperation provides multimedia insights into both the research results and the outcomes of the discussions. Furthermore, it features students’ audiovisual productions from the practical seminars offered at the Institute for Media and Communication Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin , which discuss questions around journalistic practices on topics of refuge and migration.