ABSTRACT
This chapter presents insights from participatory research workshops involving young participants in Oslo and Berlin. The workshops were designed to elicit reflections on media formats, ethics, and intercultural dialogue. The carefully structured participatory research process guided the participants through progressively more complex tasks, fostering discussions about the types of digital media spaces that can encourage or discourage political engagement among youth. The outcomes revealed emerging themes illustrating youths' experiences, conditions, and competencies for participation in digital media spaces. In the Oslo case, woke ideologies and cancel culture were crucial factors influencing how they engaged politically in digital media spaces. In the Berlin case, the discussions revolved around heteronormativity and gender politics, influenced by the public debate in Germany and the legal recognition of a ‘third option’ in addition to the two binary genders. The participatory research workshops provide examples of how knowledge on complex situations and relationships can be achieved by engaging participants in doing and making with media-based materials and through participatory exchanges and dialogues between participants and researchers.
