Before you start
Have a look at the following scenarios/roles and choose one that you want to explore with your group. Print role cards accordingly, based on the scenario you choose and the number of participants.
Cut up small pieces of paper, around two A4 pieces of paper per participant, each cut into 6. You will also need blu tack or some kind of tape and pens.
Cyberbullying in school (at least 7 participants)
This situation is set in a school class. One girl in the class, Mary, finds out that some of her classmates created an instagram page called ‘Mary suckz’ and regularly post insults and mean pictures of her.
Roles:
Mary
Mary’s friend (at least 2 people)
Boy who administers the Facebook page against Mary
Another child in the class who knows about the page, looks at it and sometimes shares things/post things on their own account (at least 2 people)
Teacher
International conflict (at least 7 participants)
This situation is set in a group of international friends. You got to know each other at an international seminar and you are in regular contact via instagram. Two of you are from countries that are on the edge of war. The first acts of violence are happening on both sides.
Roles:
Person from country A, sharing their feelings and how they feel threatened by country B
Person from country B, sharing their feelings and how they feel threatened by country A
A peace activist from another country
Friend from another country who believes country A is right and needs their support (at least 2 people)
Friend from another country who believes country B is right and needs their support (at least 2 people)
Refugees (at least 6 participants)
Because of wars all over the world, lots of refugees come to your country. Many actions are organised to help the refugees, which are also shared on social media platforms and talked about in public.
Roles:
Someone who is afraid of this new situation and the refugees, and has lots of concerns (at least 2 people)
Someone who doesn’t like all the ‘good’ people trying to help everyone (at least 2 people)
Anti-racist person who is active in helping refugees (at least 2 people)
What to do
Explain to the participants that you are going to simulate how people talk about a conflict on social media. Explain the conflict situation you have chosen to the group using the explanation in the activity resource, and give each participant one of the role cards. They have two or three minutes to read and think about their roles and develop a character. Then they should introduce their role to the rest of the group, focusing only on their character, and not their strategy or attitude towards the conflict.
For the first round, sit in a circle facing outwards, so nobody can see each other. Everyone gets a pen and a pile of small pieces of paper. Explain that they should imagine that they are all on the same social media platform and they should start to talk about the conflict situation. They have two options to do so:
- They can send private messages to each other by writing them on small pieces of paper. They will write who the message is from and who it is for as well as the message, and the facilitator will deliver it to the write person
- They can send public messages by writing them on pieces of paper and giving them to the facilitator to read them out immediately. They will write ‘public’ at the top of these. You should stick public messages on a flipchart so that others can read them again if they would like to respond. Public messages can also be written as a direct response to another public message.
- Encourage participants not to think for too long before writing things. After 15 minutes this round is over
For the second round, participants stay in their roles, but should now ignore anything that has been said in the first social media round. They effectively start again from the beginning but this time they face each other in the circle and discuss the conflict by talking. As facilitator, you should moderate the discussion
After 15 minutes this round is over. Ask everyone to stand up and shake their bodies to get rid of their roles. In the debriefing, they should be themselves again
Debriefing
- What happened in the two rounds? How were the two rounds different?
- Do you think they were realistic?
- How did you feel in your role?
- Which round did you prefer? Why?
- Have you ever come across cyber-bullying, propaganda or hate speech online?
- Why do you think people use social media platforms in such a way?
- Are there good ways to communicate online? What can do we do when we see bullying online?
Tips for facilitators
With this activity you can easily get into discussions about freedom of speech and whether it is okay to limit it. Make it clear that freedom of speech has its boundaries in cases where it incites hate and is violent towards others.
For more information about hate speech, have a look at the No Hate Speech campaign of the Council of Europe,
www.nohatespeechmovement.org.