Thursday, 24th and Friday 25th May at the Department of Educational Sciences and Psychology of the University of Florence was hold the conference Media Education in the global society. Experiences and transfer of good practices. The event aimed to take stock of the role of media education in the training of the 21st century citizen, with particular reference to the challenges of globalization, interculturalism and socio-cultural inclusion. The aim was to evaluate the pedagogical potential of an area of educational research that can provide analytical tools useful for a more critical reading of communication on hot topics such as immigration, cohabitation, post-colonial citizenship.
The first day of the conference included the presentation of the European project Media Education for Equity and Tolerance (Erasmus + 2016-2018). Professor MariaRanieri and Stefano Rudy Cuomo introduced projects aims and purposes. Andrea Nardi , Francesco Fabbro and Mario Di Carlo presented the results of the testing in Italy and Germany. Donatella Nucci, president of eTwinning Italia, illustrated the potential of eTwinning as an intercultural community of teachers. Lastly, the stakeholders discussed about the sustainability of innovative media education projects.
The second day of the event moved the focus of the conference on communication of interculture in the media, with the contributions of scholars and professionals in the field. Stefano Rudy Cuomo introduced the first session about Communicating differences, during which Andrea Guazzini focused – among other things – on filter bubble and echo chamber’s effect, while Carlo Sorrentino highlighted how recognition is a crucial mechanism to make differences visible. Then, Francesco Fabbro presented Leonardo Bianchi who gave an interactive lecture on how media create fake narrative about migration, thus vehiculating political and ideological values.
