Category: 2008

THE NATION’S STUDENT ESSAY CONTEST
Sponsored by the BIL Charitable Trust to recognize and reward the best in student writing and thinking.
We’re looking for original, thoughtful, provocative student voices to answer this question:
What have you learned from a personal experience that the next president should know before setting the agenda for the country?
Essays should not exceed 800 words and should be original, unpublished work that demonstrates fresh, clear thinking and superior quality of expression and craftsmanship.
We’ll select five finalists and two winners–one from college, one from high school. Each winner will be awarded a $1,000 cash prize and a Nation subscription. The winning essays will be published and/or excerpted in the magazine and featured on our website. The five finalists will be awarded $200 each and subscriptions, and their entries will be published online. Entries (only one per student) will be accepted through May 31, 2008. A winner will be announced by September 4. Please send entries to studentprize@thenation.com.
Eligibility
The contest is open to all matriculating high school students and undergraduates at American schools, colleges and universities. Submissions must be original, unpublished work (the writing can have been published in a student publication). Each entrant is limited to one submission. Entries will be accepted through May 31, 2008. A winner will be announced by September 4, 2008.
Submissions can be e-mailed to studentprize@thenation.com. Please include the essay in the body of the e-mail. All e-mailed submissions will be acknowledged. Each entry must include author’s name, address, phone number, e-mail and short biography and school affiliation – and say “student essay” in the subject line.
Please email studentprize@thenation.com for questions.
__________
Habiba Alcindor
Communications Coordinator
The Nation
33 Irving Place
8th Floor
New York City 10003
(212) 209-5416
(212) 982-9000 fax
www.thenation.com/student

My Community Matters
April 24, 2008 6-8 pm
Chicago Children’s Museum
700 East Grand Ave. at Navy Pier
FREE ADMISSION
Please join us to celebrate My Community Matters, a collaboration among Street-Level Youth Media, Chicago Children’s Museum, and partnering Chicago public schools. Street-Level is leading a series of workshops with Chicago public school students to produce media about their communities. These media pieces feature the rich, diverse voices of Chicago’s young people and are showcased on a rotating basis in the installation’s video and audio booths.
This project was made possible with the support from
the Chicago Community Trust, National Endowment for the Arts, Northern Charitable Trust, and Target.
The cityscape murals and installation were designed using artwork by students from the Mark Sheridan Math and Science Academy.
See you there!
Street-Level Youth Media educates Chicago’s urban youth in media arts and emerging technologies for use in self-expression, communication, and social change. Street-Level’s programs build critical thinking skills for young people who have been historically neglected by public policy makers and mass media. Using video and audio production, computer art and the Internet, Street-Level’s youth address community issues, access advanced communication technology and gain inclusion
in our information-based society.

Project New Media Literacies a research initiative within MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program. Our central goal is to engage educators and learners in today’s participatory culture. It is our belief that young people need to both make and reflect upon media and in the process, acquire important skills in team work, leadership, problem solving, collaboration, brainstorming, communications, and creating projects.
Join NML’s Online Focus Group
You’ve been asking and we’re ready to share NML materials! Our goal is for educators to download and test our learning modules in your classroom or after-school program and provide us feedback from both you and your
students.
Help us improve our materials and
provide us a basis for evaluating and understanding the impact of our work.
Digital Media Ethics
Join the conversation!
This week, the MacArthur Foundation’s Spotlight Blog hosts a five-part series of posts about the collaboration with Howard Gardner’s GoodPlay project and our mutual interest in ethical issues around digital media.
We encourage you to comment on the blog and give us feedback.
NML Transparency
We encourage you to subscribe to our RSS feed and comment on our blog, and let us know what you think about the ways we’re doing research.
On our blog you’ll also find relevant news and commentary about developments in the media literacy field, interviews with NML staff, notices about our speaking engagements, and cross-posts to and from MacArthur’s digital media and learning community as well as other blogs in the CMS community.

The Rashawn Brazell Memorial Scholarship
Empowering the Next Generation of Scholars and Activists
The Rashawn Brazell Memorial Scholarship aims to provide a sustainable
tribute to Rashawn Brazell, a 19-year-old Brooklyn native who was brutally
murdered in February 2005. With each year the award is offered, we encourage
a new wave of New York City high school students to reflect upon Brazell¹s
legacy of selfless service and to think critically about the impact of
intolerance and violence on their communities.
The scholarship will be awarded annually to a college-bound student of color
who resides in New York City. Although the award is not need-based, it is
need-sensitive, meaning we strongly encourage applications from students who
experience financial hardship. The scholarship is available to high school
seniors, recently graduated students (within 1 year of graduation) and
recent GED attainees (within 1 year) who have been accepted to an accredited
undergraduate program.
Selection will be based on the student’s interest in the struggle against
racism, sexism, homophobia and other forms of oppression, as well as their
commitment to creating peace in the community by affirming and celebrating
diversity.
Scholarship Features:
Scholarship winners will receive a one-time award of $1500 in the summer
prior to their freshman year. Because this award is paid directly to the
selected scholar, the student (and his/her family) may decide to apply it to
tuition, living costs, books or other college-related expenses.
In addition to the monetary award, selected scholars also have the
opportunity to be paired with a RBMS mentor. Throughout the year, mentors
and students maintain regular contact to establish an ongoing dialogue about
how to face the challenges that students often encounter in their community
service and scholarly pursuits. Moreover, mentors provide emotional support
at a crucial time in the lives of our scholars, as they begin to develop
both their professional and personal visions.
Scholarship Details:
Applications must be postmarked by June 15, 2008.
Late applications will not be considered.
DF Files available for download:
* Application Form:
http://rashawnbrazell.com/files/2008_RBMS_Application.pdf
More Information:
http://rashawnbrazell.com/scholarships/
http://rashawnbrazell.com/files/2008_RBMS_Application.pdf

Asia Society and The Goldman Sachs Foundation are pleased to announce the 2008 Youth Prizes for Excellence in International Education. Up to five winners will be selected to receive up to $10,000 each as well as an all-expense paid trip to New York City in November 2008 to receive their prize.
The 2008 competition asks students to create an in-depth written essay or multimedia feature examining a social or economic issue that has relevance to them in a global context. In the essay category, students will compare and contrast how the issue affects their community and a community abroad, as well as create recommendations for what lessons the two communities could learn from each other. In the multimedia category, students will explore how a global problem or challenge affects their life as an individual, as a member of their local community, and/or as a global citizen.
Please visit http://askasia.org/students/gsfprizes.html for the contest questions, eligibility rules, guidelines and helpful hints, and submission instructions. The deadline for applications for the Youth Prizes is Thursday, June 12, 2008.
The 2007 winners of The Goldman Sachs Foundation Prizes for Elementary/Middle Schools, High Schools, States, and Media/Technology Organizations have just been announced! Please visit http://www.internationaled.org/prizes/ for more information about the 2007 winners and for the announcement of the 2008 cycle of prizes in early autumn.
Sincerely,
The Goldman Sachs Foundation Prizes Team

Gala Screening: Our City, My Story
May 2, 2008 at 6 p.m.
Fourth Annual program heralding the vision of NYC youth-made media!
To be held at AMC 19th Street (890 Broadway)
Reception to follow at Chelsea Museum of Art (556 West 22nd Street)
Please RSVP to:
apeoples@tribecafilminstitute.org
TRIBECA Film Institute

Annual Print Subscription
The print journal of Youth Media Reporter compiles all the web issues into one resource along with 8-10 “special features” articles that are not available to the web, which are intellectual and scholarly analyses of the field. To ensure YMR remains an accessible resource for the entire field, we have decided to offer YMR on a sliding scale ranging from $49.99 to $149.99 depending on organizational type and operating budget. Special rate for students.
• A student (with no organizational affiliation), [Price=$25.00, shipping waived]

• An individual (with no organizational affiliation), school or a non-profit organization with an operating budget less than $500,000 [Price=$49.99+s&h]

• A non-profit organization with an operating budget of more than $500,000 [Price=$99.99+s&h]

• An institution (libraries, universities, foundations) or commercial organization [Price=$149.99 +s&h]

You can also subscribe via check and send to:
Ingrid Dahl
Youth Media Reporter
Academy for Educational Development
100 Fifth Ave, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10011
All checks should be made out to The Academy for Educational Development.
2CheckOut.com Inc. (Ohio, USA) is an authorized retailer for goods and services provided by Academy for Educational Development.

It’s not easy being a teen these days. Young people between the ages of 16-18 experience the highest rate of violence in the country quickly followed by 12-16 year olds. Beyond the heightened risk of violence and violation, young people in underserved communities daily combat inadequate schools, municipal neglect, increased exposure to drugs, gangs, domestic abuse, increased incidents of teenage pregnancy, parental neglect and they often coexist antagonistically with authority figures, particularly local police (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/,Bourgois, 2003). And young people of color are particularly likely to experience violence—which includes murder, rape, sexual assault, robbery, and abuse.
Not surprising, when these young people start to make media, they create pieces that often reflect trauma and disclose personal traumatic narratives. These complex revelations may make a practitioner, who, not trained as a psychologist or social worker, feel unprepared to appropriately respond to and cope with the personal stories of young people. Fortunately, youth media practitioners do not have to act as junior psychotherapists. By simply giving young people a safe space to explore and make sense of what has or is continuing to happen to them, practitioners can help provide a powerful healing component to the process of making media and finding meaning.
The Dynamics of Disclosure
Everyday we talk to communicate, share, and even, process emotions. Talking about personal incidents has been shown to bring about both physical and psychological benefits, which suggest that we may be innately compelled to disclose deeply personal incidents in our lives—particularly the more traumatic and emotionally charged the information (Harber, Cohen, 2004). Emotional disclosure is often followed by self-reports of relief, a sense of closure, and a greater understanding of the incident relayed and also corresponds with immune function (Pennebaker & Beall, 1986, Pennebaker & Susman, 1988, Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser, & Glaser, 1988).
For young people, there are very few spaces or opportunities to disclose personal information let alone traumas. Youth media programs can fill this need. They not only encourage young people to speak but teach them that what they have to say is of value. This process shouldn’t be thwarted but rather nurtured.
A large part of what we are doing when we recount, disclose and confess is attempting to make meaning of daily events and past occurrences and incorporate them into the broader narrative of our lives and deeper understanding of how the world operates (Stiles & Brinegar, 2007, Janoff-Bulman, Yopyk, 2004, Silver, Boon, & Stone, 1983). This becomes a particularly pressing need when the events are shocking, traumatic and counter to our daily assumptions about how the world works (Janoff-Bulman, Yopyk, 2004).
For example, being sexually violated by a family member, experiencing a sudden loss of a loved one, or witnessing or being the victim of a violent assault can all represent occurrences that will initially violate our belief in a fair and orderly world. Talking about these experiences can often represent the beginnings of a larger process of assimilation and is a crucial precondition for the healing process.
Indeed, many researchers and psychotherapists have found that individuals who use more descriptive language when describing traumatic events and are able to build a more cohesive narrative of the event report a greater sense of relief and healing (Honos-Webb, Harrick, Stiles, & Park, 2000, Pennebaker, 1993). Youth media is a perfect medium for such growth because young people are encouraged to use an array of media tools with which to piece together their stories and find meaning in the chaos of victimization.
The healing process in the wake of victimization is long, delicate and complex and can involve many years of work. Youth media practitioners should have ready access to mental health clinics in the event that the situation feels overwhelming or risky. Practitioners ought to keep in mind that when a young person discloses traumatic information it represents a desire to make meaning of confounding events. Being an empathic and accepting listener can act as a powerful healing agent and does not require years of training.
Leading Practices and the Helping Relationship
The vast majority of disclosures are not those revealed on the therapist’s couch but rather between friends, lovers and family members. Potentially, these kinds of relationships are what the late Carl Rogers, psychoanalyst and leader of the humanist movement within psychology, coined as helping relationships (Rogers, 1961/98). For Rogers, paramount in the helping relationship is not years of academic training but rather empathy, compassion and unconditional positive regard. While youth media practitioners are not counselors, psychiatrists or social workers, they aim to support, listen, and engage young people. In providing unconditional positive regard and building trust with youth in crisis, practitioners can be ideal participants in helping relationships.
At the heart of Rogerian theory lays a fairly basic but very powerful assumption: “If I can provide a certain type of relationship, the other person will discover within himself the capacity to use that relationship for growth, and change and personal development will occur” (Rogers, 33, 1961/98). For Rogers, healing can occur quite naturally “off the couch” provided there are certain preconditions present in a relationship in which at least one of the participants is interested in cultivating the inner strengths and resources of the other.
Unconditional positive regard—which Rogers defined as a total and complete acceptance of the other person as a valid and separate individual of unconditional worth—is crucial to the helping relationship. What this means for practitioners is a willingness to allow young people the dignity and space to find their own meaning based on their experiences and regard the expression as true, valuable and as worthy of respect. It also means that we ought to avoid moral and diagnostic evaluations/judgments as well as giving advice of how to change or heal. In this way, the extension of unconditional acceptance allows young people to continue to find and express their own reality, making growth possible.
While there is wonderful simplicity in what Rogers suggests, this extension of unconditional acceptance can be challenging and requires mindfulness. Passing judgment, feeling distrustful of what someone may be telling us, or shutting out ideas and beliefs that are counter to our own—or counter to how we would like to see the world operate—can happen very quickly and block effective channels of communication long term. Unconditional positive regard is a challenge for us to be mindful of these tendencies, to open ourselves up to the experiences and realities of others, and to give young people the dignity to be their own, unique selves.
Utilizing our Tools
In creating media, young people’s voices reflect the broader sociopolitical climate in which their experiences are forged. Inequity, subversive forms of racism and sexism, and heightened exposure to drugs, neglect, assault, rape and murder are sociopolitical realities that bleed into their every day experiences and becomes irreparably bound to their personal narratives and their search for meaning and value.
While youth media practitioners may not have the same tools and training as a therapist or social worker, the tools they do have at their disposal—the approaches to empower young people to express their voices through the creative and artistic process of media making—are powerful agents of healing. Talking about and making sense of trauma and pain through story-telling and disclosure is a crucial stage in the healing process. Youth media practitioners need to be aware that as young people express themselves using writing, art, music, web, radio and/or video, the process of personal narrative building and meaning-making can in fact help young people map their own process of violence and healing.
Brooke Hansson has a BA in Psychology from The New School for General Studies and has completed several graduate courses at The New School for Social Research. Brooke focuses on the interface between individual realities and broader political, historical and socioeconomic forces and the byproducts of social inequity and lack of access to life-sustaining resources. She lives in Jersey City, NJ and is currently working on several independent research projects.
References
Harber, K., Cohen, D.J. (2007). The emotional broadcast theory of social sharing. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 24, 4, 382-400.
Honos-Webb, L., Harrick, E. A., Stiles, W. B., & Park, C. L. (2000). Assimilation of traumatic experiences and physical-health outcomes: Cautions for the Pennebaker paradigm. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 37(4), 307-314.
Janoff-Bluman, R., Yopyk, D. (2004). Random outcomes and valued commitments: existential dilemmas and the paradox of meaning. In J. Greenberg, S. L., Koole, and T. Pyszczynski (Eds.), Handbook of experimental existential psychology (pp.35-53). New York: Guilford.
Pennebaker, J. W. & Beall, S. K. (1986). Confronting a traumatic event: Toward an understanding of inhibition and disease. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 95, 274-281.
Pennebaker, J. W. & Susman, J. R. (1988). Disclosure of traumas and psychosomatic processes. Social Science & Medicine, 26, 327-332
Pennebaker, J. W., Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K. & Glaser, R. (1988). Disclosure of traumas and immune function: Health implications for psychotherapy. Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, 56, 239-245.
Pennebaker, J. W. (1993). Putting stress into words: Health, linguistic and therapeutic implications. Behaviour Research & Therapy, 31, 539-548
Rogers, C. R., (1961). On becoming a person: A therapist’s view of psychotherapy. New York, N.Y., Houghton Mifflin Company.
Silver, R.C., Boon, C., Stone, M.H. (1983). Searching for meaning in misfortune: making sense of incest. Journal of Social Issues, 39, 81-102.
Stiles, W. B., Elliott, R., Llewelyn, S. P., Firth-Cozens, J. A., Margison, F. R., Shapiro, D. A. & Hardy, G. (1990). Assimilation of problematic experiences by clients in psychotherapy. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 27, 411-420.

It is no secret that mainstream media plays on the fears, hopes, and anxieties of young people to sell products. As a result, young people are inundated with archetypes and negative stereotypes in mainstream media that affect how they form their identities, make decisions, and create their own media.
Youth media, from its very inception, was designed to counter mainstream messages by empowering young people to express their stories. However, it seems young people are increasingly drawing on negative archetypes from mainstream media and producing media messages that support the status quo.
Youth media practitioners need to critically analyze how young people internalize and reiterate mainstream ideologies and how our sometimes-formulaic youth-produced work can evolve in order to compete in a media saturated environment.
Resisting the Re-invention of the Wheel
Youth arrive at Community Television Network—our after school program in Chicago—plugged into their i-pods, texting on their cell phones, and clicking over to visit MySpace and YouTube when they have an opportunity. Theirs is a media savvy generation, raised on hundreds of cable channels, video games that seem to mirror reality, and the endless possibilities of the Internet.
Yet the young people we work with do not lack the capacity to tell new stories that eschew mainstream ideologies. Though as few as 1% of Internet users contribute content to sites where they consume content, youth media makers are perfectly situated to fight against the forces of consumer culture, stimulating the instinct to create.
While traditional youth media narratives tend to—ostensibly, at least—counter mainstream images of violence and sexism, the end product sometimes works to support the status quo. As youth media workers, it is our daily challenge to find creative ways to engage youth in the telling of their own stories, as independent from the mainstream as possible. So instead of gangsta’ and pregnant teens, we ought to focus on activist teens, artist teens, honor roll teens, or college-bound teens. To paraphrase a colleague of mine: as media makers, we (and our youth) are privileged with the capacity to hold a magnifying glass to our society. It is up to us to decide where to point it. As practitioners, we must nurture critical perspectives, stress positive solutions, and interrogate negative archetypes.
The Plight of the P.S.A.
The public face of any youth media organization is the content it creates and distributes, but this content needs to please funders. Traditionally, funders of youth media tend to favor messages that are immediately recognizable as being socially conscious. There is no better example of this kind of work than the Public Service Announcement (P.S.A.)—narratives that many youth media organizations produce because they often come with funding. P.S.A.s are explicitly cautionary tales that discourage negative behavior. But this in fact, reaffirms the “pregnant teen” or “gang member” archetypes that populate such narratives, stripping our videos of their capacity to foster social change—inadvertently restraining young people’s impulse to tell new stories.
At a panel discussion about youth media at the recent NAMAC conference in November 2007, the P.S.A. was called out. A brief but spirited discussion ensued; some youth media practitioners argued for the demise of formulaic, message-laden videos. After all, if these videos bore the adult youth media workers to tears, then imagine how quickly the eyes of teen audiences would be glazing over. Other youth media practitioners argued that these 30-second commercials-for-a-cause are practical production exercises—lighter fare that won’t stretch shrinking attention spans.
Of course, making socially conscious work doesn’t have to entail making a P.S.A. From hip-hop videos to an amateur-wrestling match, to a video blog from a Brazilian tango fanatic, the content on YouTube spans the globe and encompasses every interest.
While recent technological advancements like YouTube have revolutionized the production, distribution, and consumption of amateur video content, the overtly didactic, socially conscious videos that are the legacy of the early youth media movement continue to dominate the landscape. By restricting the scope of our youth-produced work to the trusty P.S.A. (and other similar content), youth media practitioners risk alienating our increasingly media-savvy audience, many of whom were seemingly born with remote controls in their hands.
However, socially conscious does not necessarily mean routine or boring. For example, a colleague of mine purchased 15 “disposable” video cameras (he reformatted them to be reusable), distributed them to his sixth-grade youth, and asked them to shoot 30 minutes of new footage of their own lives every week. This footage was later used to create personal documentaries. As this kind of technology becomes more accessible, the practice of youth media will expand beyond the walls of our organizations. Youth media practitioners and funders need to facilitate this kind of exploration.
Recommendations to the Field

As youth media practitioners, we need to reflect on our approaches to empowering, supporting, and training young people to make media. And we cannot fall prey to the pressures of funders or re-emphasize negative archetypes of young people in the mainstream. The following recommendations will be useful as the field evolves in synch with an ever-increasing digital age.
Train young people in media literacy education, civic and problem solving skills to think outside the box. Training young media makers involves more than just instructing youth how to focus a camera or hold a microphone. Cultivating independent voices requires extensive media literacy education that fosters critical thinking, problem solving, and civics training. With the right support, young people are eager to investigate issues and nurture a critical eye. Models for this kind of personal development are widely available, and should be implemented in any youth media curriculum.
Rid youth media of archetypes that are perpetuated in the mainstream and challenge them in the youth media process. For example, find creative ways to engage youth as they tell new stories as independent as possible from the mainstream. If youth media is to continue to empower young people, it will need to cultivate rich and diverse perspectives. We must engage our audiences with compelling messages that truly reflect the hopes, anxieties, visions, and dreams of their generation.
Encourage youth-created solutions to issues that young people face every day. If our goal is social change, then achieving this goal necessarily involves young people and their inventive ideas. Presenting social ills without providing insightful solutions is like whining into a megaphone. However, when young people devise and present solutions to these problems, they challenge the dominant ideology of the mainstream that too often stigmatizes issues like poverty and racism as endemic.
Follow young people’s footsteps. Young people may be bored by the P.S.A., but what captures their attention are sites like YouTube and MySpace. The youth media field would benefit greatly from a site modeled after YouTube that allows youth to post their own videos in a space free from advertisements and adult intrusion. Such a site could also integrate social networking components like those on MySpace. As this kind of technology becomes more accessible, the practice of youth media will expand beyond the walls of our organizations.
What Next
When youth create media, they are not the only ones who benefit, and the potential for social change is enormous. As practitioners, it is in our best interest to serve young people, by encouraging new and innovative media approaches and actively re-generating our own institutional approaches to youth media. We need to be brave and honest about youth media and whether our work meets the true needs of the young people we serve. In a media saturated society, supporting young people to produce and capture alternative representations of their identities and culture is paramount to keeping true to our roots. As for finding the financial resources for this work, we must encourage funders to join us outside of the box and trust that they will follow our lead.
Tom Bailey is the program director for Community TV Network in Chicago. He also makes narrative and documentary films and teaches media studies at Harold Washington College.
References
Arthur, Charles. “What is the 1% Rule?” Guardian. 20 July 2006. www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/jul/20/guardianweeklytechnologyssection2

Young people build social skills and positive relationships through media technology, specifically the creation of radio and TV programs. It is through these positive relationships that young people begin to see possibilities for themselves beyond the low expectations set by the media and community. “Media. That’s what it took, [to] really get me to ask questions and get to really know other people and what they’re all about,” says Jason, a high school student that participates in the Youth Media Workshop at the University of Illinois based WILL AM-FM-TV.
The excitement of using technology and the possibility of making a TV or radio program prompts young people to apply for the Youth Media Workshop (YMW). After five years of working with youth in the YMW, our experience has shown us that the positive relationships created are as important, if not more important, than the media technology skills gained by young people. Youth media programs must focus on building these positive relationships as the basis of their work and improve upon not only young people’s lives, but those within the community.
Youth Media Workshop
Since 2003, WILL AM-FM-TV, the public broadcasting service of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has taught potentially underserved African-American youth how to make radio and TV programs through YMW. The YMW connects local young people in middle school and high school—the Hip-Hop generation—to older local African-Americans from the Black Power and Civil Rights generations. YMW participants interview these older residents and turn their interviews into media products that are broadcast on WILL, archived in public and local school libraries, and shared in the community at local events.
Building relationships between young black youth and their communities is important, said Bikari Kitwanna, author of The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture. Said Kitwanna, “If young people…turn their backs on Blackness, if they do nothing but engage in self congratulatory narratives and music about themselves…or that they have any future by talking negatively, then they are not our future; they are our fate.” Youth media programs and adult allies are part of the solution.
YMW uses media technology as the hook to get youth involved and engaged. But our focus on positive peer-to-peer and youth-to-adult relationships provides young people a living reflection of self identity that counters the negative media images that too often define youth and the black experience.
Media Stereotypes of Black Youth
Students who participate in YMW are well aware of media images of African-Americans especially in Hip-Hop videos. When asked how males are portrayed in Hip-Hop, Veronica answered, “Hard core, uneducated, always using slang words, like they can’t talk. And it downplays them a lot, like they’re very ghetto and loud [and] just don’t care.”
Media has a profound effect on the self-image of African-American youth who consume twice as many hours of television a day compared to their white peers. In their article, “Cultural Collisions in Schools,” Floyd D. Beacham and Carlos R. McCray (2004) suggest that television is an important part of many African-American youth’s lives. Black youth, in particular, watch seven to eight hours of television a day, as compared to four and a half hours for white youth (Browder, 1989). Additionally, in the Beacham and McCray article, Lawson V. Bush (1999) notes, “negative images presented in all of the media conspire with many hours of television viewing to produce a negative effect on Black children’s self-image.” Rather than be defeated by these statistics, through YMW, young people use video and radio to tell the history of local school desegregation and African-American social activity through the stories of people who lived through it.
When asked what effect these media images have on themselves and on attitudes about African-Americans, Veronica added:
“I would say that it makes [young people] think that they have to be hard and loud and tougher than the next kid, so they always have to prove something to somebody else. I think that adults just hate the way that people are coming up today now, because now they’re going against everything that they’ve worked for. Everybody has always tried to tell kids to go to school and get an education, and don’t stay in the ‘hood. You know, get something better for yourself. And all of the videos are showing us in the ‘hood, selling weed, selling dope, smoking and drinking all the time. And it’s not the right thing to do.” When young people have the opportunity to interact with their community, craft their own media, and represent their collective identities, positive change is bound to occur.
Intergenerational Dialogue
In one YMW project, teens videotaped a community meeting featuring filmmaker Byron Hurt and a screening of his documentary, “Hip-Hop Beyond Beats and Rhymes” that challenged media stereotypes of masculinity, misogyny and homophobia. They’ve produced a video about attempts to revive a community drum corps for African-American youth as a way of providing leadership for black teens. Because of the inter-generational relationships they’ve developed through the program, their social skills and level of confidence have improved, as well as their grades.
As interviewers for a media project, participants are allowed to be curious and ask questions of adults. When given a choice of whom to interview, many of the participants chose former teachers that they had already established relationships with. YMW provides a safe zone for students to learn about more about themselves through the experience of others.
For example, Yakera, an 8th grade participant saw herself differently after interviewing and editing the oral histories of older African-Americans in her community. She explains, “A lot of these people that we interviewed, they were told to take shop and cooking and stuff. They were told they weren’t college material. So this project, in hearing all those other people’s stories, [I am] going to make sure I [am] college material.” The YMW created a pathway between Yakera’s generation and the Civil Rights and Black Power generations by using media as the intersection point. These kinds of intergenerational relationships give young people aspirations beyond the expectations that seem to surround them.
Keri, a college journalism major and mentor to youth media students, observes that being in a media project gives students permission to talk to adults in their community in ways they would otherwise not have thought of. She explains, “One of the students, Jason, interviewed his saxophone teacher. Normally he just goes there to have his lesson for a half hour or an hour. [Getting] to ask him about his personal life and what he’s doing and how he got to be where he is—[lets young people connect with teachers they] see every day but they never get to ask them these questions.” Giving young people permission to talk with their elders in deeper ways, even those with whom they have existing relationships, is vital to their development.
Older adults in the community who have no relationships with young people absorb the same media stereotypes about young people as others do. But by capturing the oral histories of older African-Americans through the YMW and donating these interviews, transcripts and radio and TV programs to local libraries, young people are showing older adults in the community how they are giving back to the community. For example, a parent and community member who taught team building skills to YMW students on weekends had this to say about the importance of engaging youth through media: “I think it’s important…[for] the community—the awareness [that] there are some students trying to do some good…we have to get behind them and [support] them.”
Peer-to-Peer Alliances
Young people need a space to work together across the oppressive lines that racism operates with teachers, peers, and the community. In moderated discussions with local African-American youth, they explain how their African-American peers often give negative feedback when they participate in activities considered “white,” such as band, drama club and the school newspaper. By pairing graduates of the YMW with current YMW participants, a pathway for positive peer-to-peer relationships is formed that reinforces and supports a culture of communal learning. These peer connections have the potential to continue throughout their academic experience, continuing to create and build new relationships among African-American peers.
A teacher who mentors eight African-American male students in an after-school radio project modeled after Story Corps explains how relationships between students of color have changed for the better:
“A lot of these African-American kids didn’t know each other, didn’t particularly like each other. And by being in this program together, they’ve really managed to [say], “Ok, that guys ok now.” I’ve found that these guys really feel they are brothers on some level. They feel a strong connection with each other. There are kids that I have been teaching for two and three years who have talked more in this program than I have heard them talk in the entire time I have known them. For whatever reason, they can let their guard down and they can let themselves come out. A lot of these kids come to school they put their hood up they walk through school and they try to get out as soon as possible. To actually give them an opportunity to take their hood down, be themselves around other people that they can feel safe around. That’s a really good thing.”
Peers who take on a leadership role also take note of this change. For example, a former program participant who came back a second year to help teach a new group of Youth Media Workshop students said: “Being a peer educator taught me that I have to step up my game, I have to have a positive attitude when I come into the working facility because I have young students [that] look up to me in order for them to stay focused and do what’s needed.” The positive relationships between adults and young people from interacting in media projects can lead to opportunities for larger leadership roles for young people in the community.
For example, YMW participants presented their findings at school board meetings and advocated for themselves and their program. Their public presentations brought them visibility and credibility and was one factor that lead to an $8,000 contribution by the school district to the YMW.
When the YMW wanted to bring NY filmmaker Byron Hurt to Urbana, IL for a public screening and panel discussion of his film, “Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes,” adults in the program encouraged a student to write Mr. Hurt a letter describing the YMW and inviting him to come to Urbana. The student’s letter was one of the main reasons why Mr. Hurt, who was only screening his film in major cities at the time, came to Urbana, a mid-sized city in the cornfields of Illinois.
Similarly, when Melba Beals, author of “Warriors Don’t Cry,” and one of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African-American students who integrated Little Rock Central High School in 1957, came to campus to give a talk during the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board decision, adults in the YMW took a few young people to her talk and book signing. One student was so moved by the experience that she started an in-school book reading club for girls that she named, Books Before Boys. As a result, the YMW affilated teacher provided classroom space for the club and supported the school’s decision to purchase copies of Ms. Beal’s book for participants in the book club.
Positive Links
In exit interviews with student participants in the YMW, male and female students consistently say the program boosted their social skills and self-confidence; leading to friendships among their peers. They name these experiences as their most valued achievements.
Media and technology are the hooks that catch the attention of underserved young people to youth media programs. But the hook is just a starting point to a greater end goal. Young people desperately need positive relationships. Youth media fills an important step in truly amplifying youth voice by connecting the many voices that have never had the opportunity to connect with compassionate teens.
Young people can re-create their own representations of their culture and identities if practitioners consciously create pathways that connect youth to one another, to adults, and to community members. The positive relationships that develop have the power to alter the harmful messages in a heavily saturated media climate.
Kimberlie Kranich, co-director the Youth Media Workshop since its inception in 2003, is outreach coordinator for WILL AM-FM-TV. She has 19 years of experience in radio and TV production, and leads WILL’s community outreach efforts. She received a master’s in broadcast journalism from Northwestern University.
Dr. Will Patterson, founder and co-director of the Youth Media Workshop, is the associate director the University of Illinois African American Cultural Center. A native of Champaign, he grew up in the same neighborhoods as many of the students in the Youth Media Workshop. He has a doctorate in educational policy studies from the University of Illinois, a master’s in curriculum and instruction from Illinois State University, and a bachelor’s in broadcast communications from Columbia College in Chicago.
References
Beachum, F. D. & McCray, C.R. (September 14, 2004). “Cultural Collision in Urban Schools.” Current Issues in Education [On-line], 7(5). http://cie.asu.edu/
Kitwana, Bikari (2002). The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture. New York: Basic Books.
Bush, L. V. (1999). Can Black Mothers Raise our Sons? Sauk Village, IL: African American Images