Generation E

The voice of Mediterranean migration

Jacopo Ottaviani – @JacopoOttaviani

Sofia, 30th June 2015

Giolika Poulopoulou, 25 years, from Thessaloniki in Greece to Berlin, theatre pedagogy

Why E?

  • Europe
  • Expatriate
  • Emigration
  • Exodus
  • Erasmus
  • Exile
  • Escape
  • Easyjet
  • E-mail
  • ...

Objectives

Dive into the generation of young south-european migrants

  • Connect data to stories (and viceversa)
  • Show limits & lacks of existing data
  • Approach the topic from a pan-european angle
  • Publish stories in multiple languages, raise awareness and shape public debate in Europe
  • Fight clichés across Europe
  • Gather a critical mass of users for future developments of the project

Brain drain

vs. 

Mobility

Generation E, in numbers

 

  • 3 main threads
  • 4 data journalists 
    • Sara Moreira (@saritamoreira, Portugal)
    • Daniele Grasso (@danielegrasso, Spain)
    • Katerina Stavroula (@i_catrin, Greece)
    • Jacopo Ottaviani (@jacopoOttaviani, project manager, Italy)
  • 6 languages
  • 10+ media outlets
  • Several countries involved (origins/destination)

Three main tracks

  1. Crowdsourcing stories from young migrants
  2. Interviews of policy-makers, researchers and associations
  3. Data investigation (for each country)

1st launch: 8.9.2014

 

  • Multilingual crowdsourcing campaign
  • Handmade front-end design (to be embedded in newspapers): www.generatione.eu
  • Existing data on migration flows
  • Results: 1,200 stories in one Excel file
  • Preparing the ground for 2nd launch

2nd launch: 24.11.2014

 

  • Major findings based on collected data
  • Interviews to researchers and stakeholders 
  • Fragments of stories
  • Re-launch of the form 
  • 8 interviews in German of migrants living in Germany

Major finding #1 - Driving factors

Major finding #2 - Registration

Major finding #3 - Inclination to return

2,400 stories received

Projects like this do not finish once published.

They begin once published.

List of Generation E Publications

http://www.generatione.eu

Limits & Potentials

  • The sample is not representative of the population
  • Methodology used to build the dataset is not rigorously scientific
  • Still useful to tell stories and find interesting insights
  • Gold mine of narratives and stories and an evidence of official data's lacks

Tools used

  • OpenRefine to clean data (e.g., eliminate duplicates)
  • Datawrapper to make charts
  • Trello to coordinate team, calendar, tasks and share files
  • Google Forms to collect stories (+ custom CSS)
  • Google Drive to share files
  • Doodle to schedule calls (1 call per month)

Future directions

  • "Explode" the project in more destination countries 
  • Involve new countries of origins
  • Publish more stories of migrants ("give numbers a face")
  • Go multimedia, explore new narratives and new formats
  • Experiment some Natural Language Processing on the stories dataset
  • Have fun offline (events, exhibitions, etc.)

What Portuguese young migrants miss the most?

courtesy of Sara Moreira

Thank you!

Questions?

@JacopoOttaviani