Dates: 23 – 27 April 2018

Country: UK, London

The Media Diversity Institute (MDI) is organising a media camp for 30 participants – journalists, audio visual professionals, and NGO and social activists who will exchange best practices and create innovative media products related to countering online hate speech towards migrants. The media camp will be held in London on 23-27 April as part of the project and campaign #SilenceHate.

The participants coming from all over Europe will work in teams and as individuals. They are expected to design at least 10 media products and/or campaigns about migration issues responding to the ethical challenges associated with reporting on migrants. The media camp will be followed by mentoring and sub-granting for content production.

Published: 15 March 2018

Country: Indonesia

By Eline Jeanne

Indonesia has recently drafted a new penal code, one that looks to depart from the Dutch criminal code drawn up in the colonial era. The bill has not been passed yet, although many officials are confident it will. If this penal code becomes a reality, many minority groups in Indonesia will suffer consequences. One of these groups is Indonesia’s LGBT community, whose members will see many of their freedoms taken away with this new penal code. Specifically, the penal code would criminalise homosexual sex as well as sex outside of marriage. The Media Diversity Institute (MDI) explores the role of the media in a rise of anti-LGBT sentiment in Indonesia.

Published: 13 March 2018

Region: Worldwide

By Eline Jeanne

The iconic yellow spines of National Geographic’s magazines have graced the shelves of households around the world. Covering a range of topics from history to world culture, the magazine has been at the forefront of many important discussions in the past. Perhaps most significant is their upcoming April issue, which is a single-topic issue on race. Not only will this issue explore a variety of important topics related to race, but in it National Geographic explores its own racist past.

Titled “For Decades, Our Coverage Was Racist. To Rise Above Our Past, We Must Acknowledge It”, the piece shares the results found by a historian hired by National Geographic to investigate its coverage of people of colour, both in the US and abroad. The magazine’s reasoning behind running this feature is clear; by exposing their own racist past, they hope to be in the position to urge other to do the same.

Dates: 5-6 October 2018

Country: Belgium, Brussels

After 18 month of active campaigning within #MediaAgainstHate project, several European organisations including the Media Diversity Institute (MDI) held the final conference in Brussels. The conference held on 5-6 March 2018 was attended by around 60 participants from all over Europe including journalists, community media, media regulators, journalists’ unions, IT companies and policymakers.

MDI Executive Director Milica Pesic explained why combating hate speech in the media through #MediaAgainstHate speech project was not only pleasant but successful: “A mixture of stakeholders always gives better results. Through this project we have put together journalists from mainstream as well as from community media, civil society organisations and unions. Fighting hate speech is a long and complex process, therefore fighting it together makes each stakeholder stronger”. Pesic warned that although #MediaAgainstHate project reached its end, “but there has to be a continuation of this important work because the fight against hate speech has not finished yet”.

Published: 23 March 2018

Country: Italy

By Angelo Boccato

The anti-migration and racist politics of the Italian Right, repeatedly echoed by the media, has paid off in the March elections. After a particularly toxic electoral campaign, far right parties such as Matteo Salvini’s League (Lega) and Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’ Italia) managed to collect more than 20% of the votes.

The campaign was dominated by fearmongering and attacks against migrants, scapegoats of Italy’s economic problems. A social media analysis by Amnesty Italy shows that 95% of hate speech in the run up to the elections came from the centre-right and was used by the three main leaders of the coalition (Silvio Berlusconi, Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni).

Published: 8 March 2018

Countries: Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Poland, United Kingdom

Many recent studies show that manifestations of hate speech against migrants and refugees are increasing in Europe. The Italian organisation COSPE gathered eight prominent European organisations under the project and campaign #SilenceHate. The Media Diversity Institute (MDI) together with COSPE, Amnesty Italy and Poland, European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), Karpos, Zaffiria and the Cyprus Community Media Centre will combat and prevent online hate speech against migrants and refugees by developing new and creative counter-narratives.

In April, MDI together with EFJ and COSPE will organise the media camp in London as a 5-day training for journalists, audio visual professionals, and social activists in order to build a counter-narrative on migration. According to the #SilenceHate project’s narrative, the most effective way to tackle hatred is through education and debate.