Content and Aims
Content and Aims
The aim of the CIVIS Media Foundation is to sensitize journalists in Germany and Europe for the themes of integration and cultural diversity. The organisation contributes to intercultural understanding and to European integration through the activities of the electronic media. CIVIS promotes the innovative and professional treatment of developments in the European immigration society.
To accept the ethnic, cultural and religious changes as reality and to positively shape them, is one of the central tasks of the European societies and politics. The portrayal of this reality is the task of the media. The protection of our liberal-democratic basic order against fundamentalist and extremist attacks is part of this. The portrayal of the new reality is the task of the media.
Migration, integration and cultural diversity increasingly leave their mark on our everyday life. The media, thereby, have a great responsibility. Because the media not only shows the immigration society – it also forms it. The media determine our image of current developments and can make an important contribution to social integration.
Content and Aims
What the media must do!
The media are simultaneously observers, reporters and players. One-sided reporting can easily contribute to a general feeling of uncertainty and does not serve the purpose of enlightenment. Anyone who does not look closely and is not prepared to examine his prejudices and to differentiate, can cause permanent damage to peaceful coexistence.
The CIVIS Media Prize for Integration and Cultural Diversity in Europe has for two decades been recognizing programmes on radio and TV, and since 2010 also on the Internet, which concern themselves in an outstanding way with the themes of migration, integration and cultural diversity – without thereby ignoring conflicts.
Content and Aims
CIVIS seeks prizeworthy programmes
- in which stereotypes and generalised assertions are countered through differentiated statements
- in which offensive terms which are characterised by, or reinforce, prejudices, are not used
- in which people with different-coloured skins or appearance are taken for granted and have a significant impact on the programme.
- in which the realities of the immigrants or a minority, their normal daily life, with all their problems and positive aspects are presented without presenting them as a social problem.
- in which a group merely accepted in society in the fictional area (sport, feature films, series, satires) is presented from a positive point of view, in order to counter their social discrimination
- in which humour is not at the expense of other groups, but rather results from the own reference group
- topical reports which contribute to the understanding of developments and conflicts, also reproducing the personal opinions of the persons involved. Reports in which there is not talk about others, but rather talk with them.
Content and Aims
Integration in all programmes
Not only in the news - also in the area of entertainment - the media conveys an idea of the joint reality in which the viewers exist. This joint idea creates world. Entertaining forms of communication can have a substantial social effect and have a lasting influence on the behaviour of people. The theme of integration and cultural diversity should, therefore, not be restricted to individual genres, but rather be found in all formats, whether in news programmes or in films. Integration and cultural diversity should be part of the main programme on all channels.
CIVIS aims to sensitise the electronic media in Germany and Europe for the themes of integration and cultural diversity and to promote the innovative and professional handling of developments in the European immigration society.
