13-03-2024

Like, Comment, Discriminate: Racist Discourse on Dutch Instagram

Social media is becoming an increasingly toxic space for young people in general and for people of color in particular. Most of us agree that we need to put a stop to the normalization of racist content and create a safer, more inclusive online environment for all. But how can we effectively do so?

The Sharing Perspectives Foundation and Build Up believe the answer lies in dialogue. By engaging in open and honest conversations and by posting alternative, unifying narratives, we can foster empathy and understanding while dismantling harmful beliefs and stereotypes. This theory forms the foundation on which we build The Digital Us: an online training program designed to empower young people to intervene in racist discourse on social media.

The Digital Us brings together people who have experienced racism online with those who have not. It offers young people a safe online space to engage in conversations around topics such as ethnicity, representation and privilege. Together, they learn how to best intervene in racist discourse. Bystanders become upstanders, and the burden of addressing online racism is no longer solely on the shoulders of its victims.

This week is an exciting week for The Digital Us as the first group of participants will embark on their learning journey. To be able to guide them not only on how to intervene but also on where to intervene, we carried out a social media analysis. The findings of this research, which focused on Dutch Instagram, unequivocally reaffirms the relevance and importance of The Digital Us, with nearly 4% of the 309,083 comments in our dataset found to be likely racist.

The social media analysis also provides us with valuable insights, including:
– National news media attract the largest number of racist comments;
– News reports about crime are the most common and also attract the most racist comments;
– A disproportionate number of racist comments are posted under messages about Islam;
– Each type of racist commentary follows specific discursive patterns.
For more findings, check out the full report.

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FRAMES conference

After two years of working on the integration and accreditation of blended mobility and Virtual Exchange (VE) in Higher Education with the FRAMES consortium, it is time to present our outcomes at a closing conference. On 30 March 2023, FRAMES is organizing its final event on-site at the University of Siena in Italy. The theme of the event is “Framing Virtual Exchange and Blended Mobility in Higher Education”.

Stimulating virtual international collaboration in education, ‘the Dutch way’

Since last year, the Dutch Ministry of Science, Culture and Education is offering subsidy for Dutch higher education institutions to develop innovative virtual projects that foster collaboration amongst Dutch and international students. Any institution that has been granted this specific subsidy is also offered a range of activities to build capacity for designing effective and successful virtual projects. Let us tell you why this is such an exciting initiative.

Toolkit for Integrating Virtual Exchange in Higher Education

The FRAMES Toolkit provides key information, inspiration, tools and case examples of the approaches that HEIs can take to integrate and accredit Virtual Exchange. The Toolkit is a usefull one-stop-shop for educational professionals working in higher education.

5 Fundamental Tenets Of Virtual Exchange

Virtual Exchange (VE) is a great way to allow for genuine interaction, learning and relationship development between people in geographically distant locations. Through VE, spaces for effective collaboration are created and cultivated. Using sustained dialogue as a pedagogical tool during the virtual exchanges, helps to foster healthy group formation processes, even between physically remote people. In order to sustainably enhance these outcomes and impact, there are 5 fundamental tenets of Virtual Exchange that support this process.

Your different virtual personas

Being in front of someone ‘in real life’ obviously assists in clear communication, as it allows us to pick up on small social cues, to establish eye contact, and to have a clearer sense of prosody, tone, and body language. The truth is that we can still pick up on most or all of these in online dialogue, but this requires those involved to make an effort and use the digital tools at hand deliberately.

"Take care of yourselves and the planet"

Towards the end of the 9-week virtual exchange 'Climate Movements', participants reflect and express their gratitude towards the group for the experience and the learning that happened. Facilitators invite participants to bring a ‘(virtual) parting gift’ to their last online session as a way of saying goodbye and celebrating their achievements. Over the years our facilitators have seen this exercise lead to wonderful expressions from participants, like digital cards and even musical performances. This spring iteration, one virtual gift stood out in particular for its relevance to the subject matter of ‘Climate Movements’.

Innovating European Higher Education with Virtual Exchange

Sharing Perspectives Foundation is joining forces with partners to foster a harmonised implementation and accreditation of Virtual Exchange (VE), as an integral part of (blended) mobility approaches, among European Higher Education Institutions. The FRAMES project (Fostering resilience through Accredited Mobility for European Sustainable Higher Education innovation) aims to make the European Higher Education Area more innovative, intercultural, and resilient.