Some Good Reasons for Participating in this Project

Leading the training of journalists and other communication jobs up to the topic of minorities/multicultural societies means to take at last a long overdue duty: socially committed science.
There are topics that are important for all societies claiming quality but which are not dealt with sufficiently in communication research and training. Such topics are e.g. environment, health, work, religion and - minorities.

Topical Orientation

Most concepts of journalist training see their function in imparting the craft of journalism which is used and improved by the trainees in the interest of media companies and in the interest of their own careers. That is why journalists sometimes get in touch with many topics without being 'infected' by them. For topics concerning crisis this superficial representation is definitely not sufficient for an adequate public mediation and understanding. Maybe this coverage of minorities in the interest of media companies stimulates all the more the formation of stereotypes and resentments. That is why one must especially take care that the degree of affinity (problem consciousness, sensitiveness) of the participants towards the topic minorities must assume high proportions.

Cooperation with Practice

In order to reach high efficiency of training and to sensitize media companies for this topic, the training program will be realized in close cooperation with relevant organizations (minority groups) and media companies.

Intercultural Learning Community

The cooperation of different universities of different countries (with specific different democratic histories and characteristics) should impart transcultural perspectives to the participants from the beginning. Besides, the students should obtain an experience of crossing frontiers by the intercultural mixture of educational institutions (increasing creativity, experience of commumnity, taking off cultural arrogance).

New Media

Realizing these education modules, the new media (internet, intranet, video conferencing, telelearning etc.) will play an important part: individuality, intersubjectivity, interactivity, multimediality - and all this in the context of the trends of liberalization and globalization - are characteristics of the new media worlds which crucially change the structures of public communication. These changes should/will be for the benefit of small groupings or minorities respectively.

Mediation

The training program itself should meet the claim of mediation. This means that developing communication channels between minorities and societies should be a characteristic of this program.  

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