Migrant children's digital stories: Identity formation and self-representation through media production

This article starts out from the European research project Children in Communication about Migration (CHICAM). It addresses questions about intercultural communication via the internet and about media production as a vehicle for personal expression and identity formation among excluded youth groups. The article starts out from a cultural theoretical perspective linked to an empirical analysis, which is based on a series of selected productions made by 12 to 14-year-old refugees. The productions represent various programme genres and formats. The use of visual language such as representational conventions are highlighted in order to find out how identities are (re)created in the process of media production. The article touches upon these productions as they reflect not only experiences in dealing with cultural tensions between the 'old' and the 'new' world, but also their views on their future life and on the conditions that they find crucial in developing themselves.