Media-net-works

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The aim of the media-net-works research project is to promote active citizenship through the acquisition of digital and media competence, combined with intercultural awareness.

Participants are actively involved in creating and maintaining their own transnational communities where they can share knowledge and insights into political, social and cultural collective decision-making. To give the participants experience of these new media of exchange they analyse existing virtual communities. They also reflect on their own behaviour as moderators, contributors or “lurkers” by documenting and questioning their use of these new media and their intercultural behaviour (e.g. dominance, power-distance in a digital environment, etc.). Following a predefined learning curve the participants gain digital, media and intercultural competence in a progressively complex set of project situations. The process begins with learning about the basic concepts behind the new media in general and community-building in particular. Starting from real-life experiences in the field of “networks” the participants identify the rules underlying successful intercultural communication. They then reflect and attempt to apply their knowledge to the creation of successful virtual communities.

The results of the project are hands-on didactical and methodical concepts and training materials for educators at institutions of higher and adult education to train media and intercultural competencies, i.e. a CD-ROM (containing e.g. a multimedia module on nonverbal intercultural communication) and video documentation. The training course will have been piloted internationally and will be judged by the ease with which it can be evaluated and customized by interested institutions. The setting up and running of successful and democratic virtual communities is also seen as a result.

This project is funded by the eLearning Initiative of the European Commission.