MATE Pilot Trainings Workshops

A Key Milestone in the MATE Project has been achieved

 

A series of 5 workshops on Hate Speech, namely “Report Racism Workshop” have been conducted at the FH JOANNEUM aimed to help students comprehend how dominant discourses – often carrying bias, stereotypes, and ill perceptions – are formed and reproduced.

The Institute of International Management at FH Joanneum is running a project on fighting hate speech (social media and offline) in relation towards migrants and foreign students.
The project is called MATE, and it is funded by European Erasmus+ Programme. The project is carried out in Austria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Spain, and Sweden:

  • To combat discrimination, hate speech, and promote respect and diversity!
  • To create new methods and opportunities for students of different backgrounds to meet and make university a discrimination-free space!
MATE Pilot Trainings Workshop Series

The main topic of the workshops – Hate Speech – was divided in five subtopics, comprising the five modules of the curriculum and corresponding to important aspects of the “Hate Speech phenomenon”.

More than 90 students of FH JOANNEUM acquired better stances and attitudes towards diversity, skills and competences concerning biased discourse and hate speech.

  1. MATE “Report Racism” Workshop on “HATE Speech” led by Birgit Burböck: through team work and self-reflective exercises, the workshop raised awareness among 20 students on hate speech as a multi-dimensional phenomenon.
  2. MATE “Report Racism” Workshop on “HATE Speech vs. Freedom of Speech” led by Hildegard Liebl: the workshop allowed 20 students to immerse into the notion of hate speech while encouraging them to reflect on the matter, comprehend the essence of free speech and present their opinions based on reasoned arguments and knowledge obtained via the theoretical framework.
  3. MATE “Report Racism” Workshop on “Legal Framework on hate speech” led by Doris Kiendl online: more than 30 students form 15 different countries got familiar with international and European legislation pertaining to Hate Speech online and offline and had an insight into how national legislations address this issue.
  4. MATE “Report Racism” Workshop on “Media Literacy” led by Doris Kiendl online: 30 students from different countries (Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Hercegovina, Spain, Jordan, Singapore, Peru, Pakistan, Iran, South Africa, India) learned how to improve their media literacy skills by providing them with understanding of media role in the anti-immigrant discourse, as well as the technologies employed for that like framing, agenda setting, ‘fake news’ and intentional misinformation.
  5. MATE “Report Racism” Workshop on “Intercultural Communication” led by Birgit Phillips: this training enabled 20 students to put themselves in the shoes of other peple with different cultural backgrounds and encouraged them to reflect and discuss about the best ways to communicate effectively in a diverse context.