The empowerment of minorities and migrants as media agents is a key issue since these groups have been rarely actively involved in the process of representation in the mainstream media...

1. CASE STUDY
XenoCLIPse
by
Andrea Bellini
This document is part of the overall European project LINKS-UP - Learning 2.0 for an Inclusive
Knowledge Society – Understanding the Picture. Further case studies and project results can be
downloaded from the project website http://www.linksup.eu.
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2. The empowerment of minorities and migrants as media agents is a key issue since these
groups have been rarely actively involved in the process of representation in the main-
stream media. In the global information society, new technologies represent a funda-
mental tool for poor-resource communities in order to engage in communication and
representation processes. However, the quality of contents the we often meet online
are quite poor, fragmented, isolated and this limit the possibility to link or to represent
an alternative to mainstream media. The provision of high technological skills may facil-
itate the empowerment of these groups.
Case profile – XenoCLIPse in a nutshell
XenoCLIPse
Digital video clips by ethnic minorities
Website http://www.xenoclipse.net
Status Finished (2007 – 2009)1
Cilia Willem – Laboratori de Mitjans Interactius, University of Bar-
Interviewed person
celona (ES)
Funded and promoted by… European Commission, eLearning Programme
Combination of formal setting (university) and informal setting
Location of the Learning Activities
(home; streets)
Cultural-ethnic minorities and migrants, associations and interme-
Target group(s) diaries, individuals (every person since the access to the web tools
was free)
The offline courses engaged 15 persons in each country (Spain,
Belgium, Germany, Norway), so a total of 60 persons. In Bar-
Number of users celona, half of the students belong to Roma minority. In Germany,
Turkish people were the main target. The online courses are used
by more people.
Not relevant, though university students were engaged for the ex-
Educational Sector(s)
perimentation of the tools.
Category of the Learning Activities combination of formal, non-formal, informal
Videos are produced by students but are uploaded through the
mediation of the project stuff. Web 2.0 approach can be found
Web 2.0 technologies used...
mainly in the geo-referential database, which provides journalists
with personalized ways to reach referees around the world.
Methods to support inclusion Tutors and mentors
1
The online training tool is still active since the Universitetet i Stavanger, which is a part-
ner of the project, decided to maintain the service on their server.
2

3. Short description and key characteristics
XenoCLIPse is an action-research, a project about race, media and empowerment. After
the successful experience of the consortium’s first collaboration, eCLIPse, this new pro-
ject envisaged empowerment through creating access to new technologies for immig-
rants and minorities. The main tool is digital video and its distribution on the net. The
idea is to allow people who have difficulties accessing new media and technologies to
make and distribute their own information in an easy way and to pass on this knowledge
and skills to their peers. To achieve this, the project opted for a double approach: 1)
Face-to-face and on-line training for target group, and 2) Development of a
directory/address book.
Key characteristics
XenoCLIPse (2007 – 2009; http://www.xenoclipse.net) is funded by European Commis-
sion through the eLearning Programme with 200,000 euro. The partnership includes the
Laboratori de Mitjans Interactius, University of Barcelona (ES; coordinator), XenoMedia
Comunicació-Mugak (ES), Universität zu Köln (DE), Universitetet i Stavanger (NO) and
Universiteit Gent (UG) Gent (BE). The network is extended to a number of associations
such as MiraMedia (Utrecht, The Netherlands), Cospe (Florence, Bologna, Italy), JFC (Co-
logne, Germany), Media Education Centre (Serbia). The project addresses cultural-eth-
nic minorities and migrants; associations and intermediaries as well as individuals (every
person since the access to the web tools was free). The offline courses engaged 15 per-
sons in each country (Spain, Belgium, Germany, Norway), so a total of 60 persons. In
Barcelona, half of the students belong to Roma minority. In Germany, Turkish people
were the main target. The online courses are used by more people.2
XenoCLIPse share good practices with other projects such as Roots&Routes (www.roots-
nroutes.org), eMigra (http://www.e-migra.org/) and Chicam (http://www.chicam.org/)
Dimension of learning and inclusion
XenoCLIPse is a project for the empowerment of minorities as media agents. Its aim is to
improve the naturalisation of the image and representation of ethno-cultural minorities
in the media particularly, and in society in general. The online course has been de-
veloped through a collaborative approach and using audiovisual resource (i.e. several
video interviews were made in Barcelona; Online: http://www.xenoclipse.net/all_video-
s.php?act=4).
Adaptive on-line courses are delivered through de-structuring the access to learning
modules. A voice accompanies the interaction between the user and training tools. This
technique makes the content more accessible, especially for those not used to read or
having difficulty in understanding. For example, the entry 'narrative' is very helpful for
immigrants who are familiar with a European language but not with reading.
2
A proxy indicator of online users is represented by the number of evaluation's ques-
tionnaires that were filled online. At the end of the first round experimentation of the
online course were collected 52 questionnaires. In total, 188 questionnaires were col-
lected from 2007 to 2010. The questionnaire is accessible to the following link:
http://www.xenoclipse.net/evaluation/index.html
3

4. Figure 1: The online course of XenoCLIPse
Media Literacy for cultural and ethnic minorities who have migrated to or are resident in
the European countries involves two different dimensions:
| 'reading': being able to (critically) analyse media messages
| 'writing': being able to produce media messages and distribute them
It is especially the second dimension ('writing', production) that the project wanted to
enhance, by creating a basic but thorough online module on audiovisual production:
www.xenoclipse.net/online_course.php. This course is freely accessible on the web and
is promoted and disseminated addressing associations and organizations related to the
field.
In the offline activity, each partner can adapt contents to its selected contexts and is-
sues. The final goals is to teach people how to produce an interview in a professional
way.
The (e)inclusion approach can be found also in the second activity of the project: the
production of a data base of contacts between journalists and people from minority
groups or different ethno-cultural backgrounds. This ‘address book’ aims to improve the
visibility of minorities in the media on one hand, and promote the involvement of
minority groups as media makers on the other.
4

5. Figure 2: The online course of XenoCLIPse
A directory for each participating country is being created thanks to the involvement of
associations and non-governmental organisations, who have been working on these is-
sues for the last few years. Participants can subscribe at: http://www.xenoclipse.net/ad-
dress_book.php
See also Address book (http://ad.mugak.eu/)
Innovative elements and key success factors
The project combines the sociological dimension (analysing media in society), the edu-
cational dimension (use of new technologies for education), the technological aspect
(digital video for the web) and the psychological dimension (impact of images on the
way people think). The project facilitates media appropriation by immigrants. Video
clips are made by the ethnic minority groups involved in the project (short films, docu-
mentaries, news items… clips) and distributed on the net through a streaming server.
The on-line course is adaptive and accessible. A geo-referential database was implemen-
ted and used to empower immigrants in terms of their visibility in media; this applica-
tion is very original. The projects has effectively contributed to increase the mainstream
media awareness about ‘diversity’.
The involvement of migrants groups and associations and high skilled persons (in tech-
nology and journalism) was a key success factor. Another key success factor was the
awareness campaign that addressed the mainstream media. Indeed, the projects has ef-
fectively contributed to increase the mainstream media awareness about ‘diversity’. In
the second phase, the project organized several seminars and conferences with local
media, which have shown high interest and participation (i.e. TV3). The project thus
demonstrated how mainstream media can play a key role as ‘transformational agents’.
5

6. Problems encountered and lessons learned
The project was designed social networks start to widespread but they weren’t so com-
mon in Spain and in other target countries. Besides, the project’s aim was to address
empowerment through providing high media skills and it was not so clear how to do this
through experimental web 2.0 applications. Furthermore, implementing the online
course in Flash 9 arose some doubts. On the one hand, this choice meant that a plug-in
had to be downloaded by users. The fact that the course is online already implies a cer-
tain level of digital literacy in the end-user, though this is a widespread technology. On
the other hand, the advantage Flash offered was a high degree of interactivity, needed
for the kind of activities the project wanted to include in the module, most of which are
self-corrected exercises. The project manager thinks that at the end of the day, the
trade-off for Flash implementation was positive.
A last point regards the institutionalization of the innovations developed with the pro-
ject. XenoCLIPse has become an essential tools for training activities in the field. The
tools and approached used best match the idea of blended learning.
6

7. Collaborating institutions in LINKS-UP
Institute for Innovation in Learning, Friedrich-Alex-
ander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen,
Germany
www.fim.uni-erlangen.de
Arcola Research LLP, London, United Kingdom
www.arcola-research.co.uk
eSociety Institute, The Hague University of Applied
Sciences, The Hague, The Netherlands
www.esocietyinstituut.nl
Servizi Didattici e Scientifici per l’Università di Firen-
ze, Prato, Italy
www.pin.unifi.it
Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft, Salzburg,
Austria
www.salzburgresearch.at
European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN),
Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
www.eden-online.org
7