Since the so-called “refugee crisis” in 2015 at the latest, there has been intense debate about how German society deals with refugee movements, how the causes of flight can be combated and how migrants can be integrated. Above all, media coverage influences which opinions prevail in society on the subject of refugees, migration and integration.

What information children and young people between the ages of ten and 16 receive and how they deal with this information was investigated in a research project at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, which was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research for two years from October 2017.

The central research questions were: How is flight reported on in the media and channels used by young people? How do young people communicate with this content on social networks? In this research project, the content used by young people in traditional and online media on the topic of flight, migration and integration was examined using standardized content analyses as well as the topic-specific communication processes of young people in social media. The research project was part of a joint project coordinated by the JFF - Institute for Media Education in Research and Practice in Munich. Other partners were the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences and the Center for Ethics in Media and Digital Society (zem::dg).

More information on the completed project can be found on the project's official homepage and in the open access publication (see below).