Voices from the Periphery: (De-)Constructing and Contesting Public Narratives about Post-Industrial Marginalization (VOICES)

“后工业主义”在公共和学术话语中经常被理解为腐朽、剥夺、贫困、失业、极端主义和种族主义的代名词。这些对后工业社会的刻板印象和污名化形象通常通过媒体进入一个社会的意识。然而，后工业社区的居民是否认同这些公共叙事，甚至认为自己是局外人，被剥夺权力和不利地位-换句话说，被“边缘化”-是voices项目试图填补的研究空白之一。本项目采用以批判话语理论和社会结构/不平等研究为基础的系统研究设计，旨在对比以精英为中心和以草根为中心的后工业环境边缘化视角：首先，考察媒体在后工业边缘化的公共建构和后工业边缘化身份的形成过程中所扮演的关键角色；第二，通过探索后工业中心居民的主体化模式来对抗这些占主导地位的大众媒介叙事。两个专题工作包将调查五个相互关联的领域来分析文化表现，如边缘化：媒体监管、媒体生产和表现（自上而下的视角）、媒体消费和后工业环境的身份（自下而上的视角）。这项研究将比较英格兰北部（米德尔斯堡、罗瑟勒姆和雷德卡）和德国东部（艾森森<e:2>滕施塔特、魏斯瓦塞尔和劳赫哈默）的三个社区，所有这些社区都经历了历史上形成身份的工业工作的衰落。这些后工业社区的生活现实将通过公民科学的方法具体化，包括定性的讲故事沙龙、深度访谈、焦点小组和日记——最终的目标是提供一个更细致入微的后工业环境的视角，以及他们的自我认知、经历、感受和观点，包括那些可能对一个国家的民主文化产生负面影响的观点。在媒体方面，计划对相关新闻和社交媒体进行批判性话语分析，以及对记者和焦点小组的采访，以确定两国媒体体系中潜在的边缘化驱动因素。通过这种整体、系统和比较的方法，VOICES项目的科学目标是（重新）概念化“媒体边缘化”，使这一概念在未来的社会结构/不平等研究、媒体和传播研究的交叉研究中取得成果。该项目的主要影响是提出建议，以减轻媒体边缘化，并通过各种产出，如数字故事沙龙、播客和报道边缘化的记者指南，为公开边缘化社区的人们发声和倾听。

Summary of the VOICES project'Post-industrialism' is often understood in public and academic discourse as code for decay,deprivation, poverty, unemployment, extremism and racism. These stereotypical andstigmatizing images of post-industrial communities usually enter a society's consciousnessthrough the media. However, whether residents of post-industrial communities identify withthese public narratives, even perceive themselves as outsiders, disempowered anddisadvantaged-in other words, as 'marginalized'-is one of the research gaps that theVOICES project seeks to fill. Using a systematic research design informed by critical discoursetheory and social structure/inequality research, the project aims to contrast an elite-centeredwith a grassroots perspective on the marginalization of post-industrial milieus: first, byexamining the role of the media as key agents in the public construction of post-industrialmarginalization and the formation of post-industrial marginalized identities; and second, byexploring the modes of subjectification of residents of post-industrial centers against thesedominant mass-mediated narratives. Two thematic work packages will investigate fiveinterrelated areas to analyze cultural manifestations such as marginalization: media regulation,media production and representation (top-down perspectives), media consumption, and theidentity of post-industrial milieus (bottom-up perspectives). The study will compare threecommunities in Northern England (Middlesbrough, Rotherham and Redcar) and EasternGermany (Eisenhüttenstadt, Weisswasser and Lauchhammer), all of which have seen thedecline of historically identity-forming industrial work. The lived realities of these post-industrialcommunities will be made tangible through a citizen science approach, including qualitativestorytelling salons, in-depth interviews, focus groups and diaries-ultimately with the goal ofproviding a more nuanced perspective of post-industrial milieus and their self-perceptions,experiences, feelings and views, including those that may have a negative impact on a nation'sdemocratic culture. On the media front, critical discourse analyses of relevant news and socialmedia, as well as interviews with journalists and focus groups, are planned to identify potentialmarginalization drivers within both countries' media systems. Through this holistic, systematicand comparative approach, the scientific aim of the VOICES project is to (re)conceptualize'media marginalization' to make the concept fruitful for future research at the intersection ofsocial structure/inequality research, media and communication studies. The main impact of theproject is to develop recommendations to mitigate media marginalization and to give voice toand listen to people from publicly marginalized communities through a variety of outputs suchas digital storytelling salons, podcasts and journalist guidelines for reporting onmarginalization.