Forty-four leaders in the youth media field, including practitioners, young professionals, youth producers, academics and funders kicked off the 2009 National Youth Media Summit by drawing simple cartoons with big ideas. Groups of participants worked collaboratively to develop 4-panel storyboards illustrating their shared goals for the Summit. The following videos highlight each group’s work. The collective message was clear: youth media practitioners attending the Summit hoped to inspire collaboration and inclusiveness in the field, looked forward to new learning opportunities, and aimed for concrete next steps that would continue to move the field forward in the following weeks and months.
Youth Media Mashup
Building a Sustainable Youth Media Field
Youth Media and Zing! Zap! Pow!
Youth Media as a Beehive
Youth Media and Sea Monsters
Youth Media Before & After
The 2009 National Youth Media Summit was supported by the McCormick Foundation and the Academy for Educational Development. The Summit took place from August 5-7 in Lake Forest, Illinois. Many thanks to all of the participants for their hard work, concentration, and invaluable contributions to the field.
Category: 2009
Twin Cities Lessons Shared
Lessons shared by John Gwinn from Mitzgi Institute at Native American Summer Media Camp.
Twin Cities • Volume 3 • Issue 4
Letter from the Editor
Welcome to YMR’s Twin Cities Volume 3: Issue 4, where practitioners in the Twin Cities investigate youth media practice and share their insights to the field. With support from the McCormick Foundation, these practitioners and their colleagues met on June 17 at St. Thomas University to discuss the most pressing challenges of their work.
Following this meeting, contributors wrote and revised drafts that were reviewed by a local peer, a member of YMR’s national peer review board, and AED/YMR staff, as a means to engage a youth media rich and yet underrepresented region to the field.
The topics covered in this issue include:
• Supporting young people to responsibly engage with Web 2.0 tools within our programs;
• Supporting young girls to critique media, avoid stereotypes, and act out new identities;
• Reflecting on the Twin Cities Youth Media Network: a model of local, regional youth media network;
• Learning from the tools and practices of journalism to engage young people in story-telling and local political change;
• Learning from artists and media art educators that apply a creative, inventive, and experimental aspect to teen media makers;
• Seeing how the Youth Video Exchange Network functions as a pipeline for the field to increase our efforts and those of the young people we serve.;
• Viewing successful partnerships between high schools, universities, and youth media educators that encourage Somali youth in the Twin Cities—who have been marginalized by news media—to create better news and media vehicles that accurately represent their perspectives and local communities; and
• Supporting the long-term development of girls.
A warm thanks to all thirteen contributors for their dedication and hard work:
• Anthony Brunner, Peter Kirschmann, Mary Pumphrey and Oanh Vu (Americorps members in St. Paul)
• Rebecca Richards Bullen (TVbyGIRLS)
• Joanna Kohler (TCYMN, Kohler Productions)
• Lynda McDonnell (ThreeSixty Journalism)
• Nancy Norwood (Perpich Arts High School)
• Nicola Pine (Saint Paul Neighborhood Network)
• Catherine Squires & Maureen Schriner (University of Minnesota)
• Barbara Wiener (TVbyGIRLS)
• John Gwinn (Mitzgi Institute/Phillips Community TV) * Vodcast (forthcoming)
A special thanks to Kelly Nuxoll, YMR’s writing coach for her stellar coaching and edits as well as to YMR’s Peer Review board for giving helpful feedback to each writer.
Many thanks to Lynda McDonnell, YMR’s peer review board member based in St. Paul at ThreeSixty Journalsim, who was instrumental in organizing and leading the cohort. She explains:
“As financial pressures on the non-profit sector build, local youth media organizations need to find ways to collaborate, share resources and learn. The Twin Cities has a vibrant media, arts and education scene. In Joanna Kohler’s accompanying article in this issue, the Twin Cities Youth Media Network is an example of how practitioners in the local youth media community work to support one another.
Most of the contributors to this issue of YMR are part of TCYMN–professionals from varying backgrounds in the arts, filmmaking, education, cable television, and academia. The accompanying articles in YMR represent how Twin Cities youth media educators operate, our challenges and success stories, and our shared commitment to giving young people skills, power and voice.”
We welcome you to join the conversation for each of these articles using YMR’s “comment” feature. You can also send feedback or comments directly to idahl@aed.org. If you are interested in posting a pod or vodcast response, please contact YMR’s media crew or email idahl@aed.org.
To reserve your copy of YMR’s annual print journal (Volume 3), you can subsrcibe and purchase via credit card or by check.
Warmly,
Ingrid Hu Dahl, Editor, YMR
Youth Media Reporter is managed by the Academy for Educational Development
Youth Work and Web 2.0 Buzz: Mentor Buzz
Youth Work and Web 2.0 Buzz: Mentor Buzz
Many thanks to Anthony Brunner, Peter Kirschmann, Mary Pumphrey and Oanh Vu, Americorps members in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The Power and Impact of Gender-Specific Media Literacy
“Fifty-seven percent of girls and 59 percent of boys say the female characters in the television shows they watch are “better looking” than the women and girls they know in real life…Seven out of ten (69%) say they have wanted to look like, dress, or fix their hair like a character(s) on television…Both girls (62%) and boys (58%) say the female characters they see on television usually rely on someone else to solve their problems, whereas male characters tend to solve their own problems.”(1)
For many, this is not new news. We know that media emphasizes stereotypes and gender roles. But in the youth media field, we don’t always account for how girls, specifically young girls, are bombarded with images of women as powerless, passive victims noted primarily for their bodies and sex rather than their minds and capabilities.
Youth media organizations that focus on girls have seen the positive effects of gender-specific media literacy training—it changes girls’ relationships to themselves, their bodies, and each other. However, these organizations’ effects are limited unless the field as a whole takes to heart the impact of media on girls. Until then, youth will continue to re-create harmful stereotypes in their own media—they might say they do not identify with say, a tall, blond model, yet she continues to show up in their films. It is up to the field as a whole to help students critique media, avoid stereotypes, and act out new identities.
Why Girls?
Gender stereotypes are a part of our daily lives. From bus stops, billboards, schools, work, even bathrooms, youth are constantly absorbing messages that media throws at them. “Studies estimate that, counting all the logos, labels and announcements, some 16,000 ads flicker across an individual’s consciousness daily.”(2) Girls as passive, boys as active, boys with trucks and super heroes, girls with Barbies, dollhouses and kitchens: constantly interpreting these social messages, youth are trying to fit into the stereotypical gender messages showing traditional roles of men and women.
To avoid the inundation of images we protect ourselves by avoiding the flood of information and moving into a state of automaticity. The problem with this is the conditioning that occurs while our minds are on autopilot. “The media condition us to habitual exposure patterns to the messages they want exposure for. This increases the risk that we will miss many of the messages that might have value for us [and] accept [without challenging] the meaning they present.”(3)
Sadly, the constant exposure of sexualization, objectification and images of gender stereotypes directly contribute to girls’ lack of self- and body-confidence, as well as depression and eating disorders. As a result, girls who do explore media tools often use these to mimic overt sexualization, sending or posting videos/images of themselves to a predominantly male audience. In effect, the behavior reinforces this harmful gender role stereotype.
Eileen L. Zurbriggen, PhD, chair of the APA Task Force and associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz says it well: “We have ample evidence to conclude that sexualization has negative effects in a variety of domains, including cognitive functioning, physical and mental health, and healthy sexual development.”(4) The persuasive influences of the media have been linked to negative health outcomes, such as eating disorders and poor body image, anxiety, and violence.
The images in the media are powerful and pervasive. As a Reel Grrl producers shares, “I know that I shouldn’t compare myself with women in magazines or on TV, but it’s hard not to. They make me feel ugly.”(5) As a field, we cannot ignore the role media plays on girls’ lack of confidence and poor self-esteem.
So what can youth media programs do? Youth media practitioners need to incorporate creative ways to encourage thinking beyond socialized gender norms. Girls, especially, must be given a space to critically explore and use media tools to break down the roots of stereotypes and gender role-play. If we do not provide the tools necessary for critical examination of these norms and a space for young people to create different messages and alternate identities in media-making, our efforts to support youth media will be incomplete.
We need to evaluate where girls see themselves and how media reflects those ideals. Do they support or repress them? How can girls create their own messages to accurately reflect and support how they feel, act, and aspire to be?
Through girl-specific media literacy, an analysis of images and critical discussions, girls take the power from media to define them and put it into their own hands. Through girl-specific youth media programs, the media that girls use and create are instrumental to their developing sense of themselves, the world, and of how and who they should be.
Breaking Out of the Mold
“The influence of the camera is huge. And to be able to just take that and make your own message, I think, has really proven something to me,” says the producer of the Reel Grrls film The Wall of Shame.(6) This powerful film challenges teenage girls to talk back to the mainstream advertisers and their demeaning images of women. Girls pull ads from magazines, write on them and critique their messages. This offers a way to recognize their objectification, sexual exploitation and gender stereotypes.
The film explains and questions, “Every day we are bombarded with thousands of advertisements. But what exactly are the advertisers trying to sell us? Are they simply trying to sell a product or is the product inconsequential and the real objective is to sell us a mindset that would make us, the public, more eager consumers?” Looking at existing media, the girls in the film talk about how they feel about themselves in relation to what they are (or are not) seeing. “We are able to recognize the kind of images that we feel like we are supposed to be like but we know we don’t have to be.”(7) Making the connections between social issues and how media perpetuates them helps girls to not just receive these messages—working to take them apart and critique them in a very poignant way, they are able to choose how they see them. To see the film, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXLu1p15Rvw
Girl-Specific Youth Media
Girl-specific youth media programs like TVbyGIRLS, Reel Grrls, and Beyondmedia Education, provide gender-focused media literacy education. Their overarching missions are creating stories and messages that show creative, compassionate, involved and thinking girls and women. They provide mentoring and leadership programs that use the tools of media and analysis to combat the defeating and limiting messages young people receive everyday.
In these girl-specific programs, girls:
TVbyGIRLS
• Explore how visual images evoke emotions and become the visual vocabulary for their unique storytelling.
• Support one another in collaborative working models and in individual leadership styles, and develop more confidence to share their ideas and be open to different ways of thinking.
• Create film projects that use a strong intellectual inquiry and share their authentic stories with their peers, families and communities.
• Receive individualized mentoring relationships with women media professionals. TVbyGIRLS encourages the development of self-expression and critical thinking.
Reel Grrls
• Watch popular TV shows, PSAs and commercials, then fill out critique forms. The forms ask participants to notice technical effects, as well as what message the media is trying to get out, who the message is aimed at and whether the message is effective. These are things they ask girls to think about and write down before coming up with their own project ideas.
• Understand the “language of media”: Types of shots, rules of framing and shot composition. They highlight these rules by letting youth shoot and then looking at the footage together.
• Analyze ads in magazines that are interesting/upsetting to them and come up with questions based on those ads. They then conduct street interviews with people using the ad, asking the same questions.
Beyondmedia Education
• Use images that are inclusive, realistically depicting the diversity of women in the world.
• Understand the role of art in the world as presenting the broadest range of images, such that each person has the opportunity to see her or his reflection somewhere in that mirror.
• Strive to break down boundaries that are maintained through so-called “professional standards” controlling expression and containing resistance.
These organizations are girl specific; however, the activities and technical exercises can be directly adapted for non-girl specific organizations as well. In fact, it is encouraged, as the effects of these programs have been profound.
Mentors and parents, for example, see more confidence, leadership, and critical thinking in the girls. There is a shift in how girls see themselves as well as the world around them. “My daughter’s level of self-confidence shot up after being in the program. To have your child experience personal growth, that’s what stands out strongest about what the program offers.” –Reel Grrls parent.
Youth producers from these organizations report that: “Reel Grrls gave me the ground to stand on and know myself for the first time as a real filmmaker. And I haven’t wavered a bit.” -RG grad, who has just finished film school and completed her first feature.
Maddy from TVbyGirls says, “I think the importance of TVbyGirls is that we make films in such a different style that people really stop and pay attention. We don’t blend in as just another voice saying, “Do this, do that.”
Likewise, Annie from TVbyGirls explains, “I’ve become so much more aware of the importance of youth voice, especially girls’ voices, and how we can have an impact using the media. I love that we can tell real stories and open people’s eyes.”
In short, when youth are media literate they are more capable of steering through the media world and embracing and building the life they want, rather than letting the media create the life they want for them.
Suggestions for the Field
As youth media educators we have a responsibility to discuss the power and impact of our creations and how they inform viewers. Media educators, male and female, need to provide media literacy curriculum that makes young people aware of how gender norms, stereotypes, and sexualization impacts girls and young women. Regardless of mission or youth focus, youth media organizations can:
• Offer gender-specific youth media literacy programming. Organizations like MediaWatch offer lectures, videos and links to further media literacy resources. In addition, JUST THINK and the Center for Media Literacy offer curriculum and free hand outs.
• Attend a gender-studies or gender-focused media literacy class through a local youth network or university. Invite a graduate student in this field or a speaker to help the staff develop gender-specific media literacy skills.
• Start a Media Literacy Group. Gather interested people monthly and discuss best practices, share a media literacy reading list and report and discuss current events.
• Ask youth to think not only about the images they’re using in their work, but how they’re representing themselves—their family, race, town, and gender. Encourage them to take responsibility for their work and to be resourceful in how they’re portraying their characters, each other and themselves.
Deconstructing media messages reveals a valuable link between sexism, gender stereotyping and maintaining the male-dominant status quo. The ultimate step is to use young people’s root awareness of media messages to encourage and support youth media that more closely resembles young people’s reality than idealized, received, or constructed images. The more people who make media that debunks stereotypical norms, the more likely those norms will change.
Rebecca Richards Bullen is the associate director of TVbyGIRLS. Formerly a coordinator and producer with Twin Cities Public Television, she has over 15 years of production experience. Rebecca has been a media and leadership mentor for more than 7 years. A current steering committee member for the Twin Cities Youth Media Network, she is dedicated to expanding the access to authentic and diverse stories by youth, especially girls. She is also the proud mother of 2 terrific children and expecting a third in November.
References
(1) Reflections of Girls in the Media: A Content Analysis Across Six Media and a National Survey of Children. Conducted for the Kaiser Family Foundation and Children Now.
(2) The Bribed Soul: Ads, TV and American Culture. How advertising transforms both our experience and identity into a “sponsored life.” By Leslie Savan.
(3) Media Literacy, third edition. W. James Potter, pg. 13.
(4) APA Press Release February 19, 2007: Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. Executive Summary.
(5) Reel Grrl participant.
(6) Reel Grrls, “Wall of Shame” video.
(7) Reel Grrls, “Wall of Shame” video.
The Twin Cities Youth Media Network
The Twin Cities Youth Media Network (TCYMN), which began in 2000, is the longest running network of youth media organizations in the country. TCYMN began meeting without funding, in 2007 gained funding, and has recently lost funding. Nevertheless, it will survive. TCYMN provides a case study for organizations and regions grappling with transitions in their funding models.
The History of TCYMN
Founding members of TCYMN are media practitioners from a variety of media genres, including experimental, documentary, music, narrative and installation. The original members were Dan Bergin from Twin Cities Public Television, Kristine Sorensen from In Progress, Nancy Norwood from Perpich Arts High School, Witt Siasoco from the Walker Art Teen Program, Mike Hazard from The Center for International Education, Nicola Pine from St. Paul Neighborhood Network, John Gwinn from Phillips Community Television, and Teresa Sweetland from Intermedia Arts. Dan Bergin explains, “The more formal connecting began after the 2000 NAMAC conference in the Twin Cities. We noted how connected the youth media groups from New York, Chicago, and Seattle were and thought we should be able to organize.”
As a result, TCYMN youth media practitioners met informally, eventually pulling together a screening of youth work from across their organizations. The screening developed into the annual All City Youth Film Showcase that premieres at The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis every fall.
The members were diverse in their approaches and communities served, but they all shared the passion for youth media. Additionally, members began to see their individual work improve because they were sharing best practices and experiences among other youth media practitioners.
Staying up-to-date on the other organizations provided the information and encouragement to tell youth about other programs and expand the youth’s experiences. Slowly, the Network developed ideas to expand their work into a Public Television production, a website, marketing and networking for educators and practitioners, as well as to hire a part-time coordinator.
Funding
In 2007 TCYMN received funding for a two-year initiative to actualize these ideas and begin expanding the network beyond the founding members. The network saw an explosion in productivity. Membership increased from seven to eighteen youth media organizations. Attendance at the All City Film Showcase began to reach capacity, and TCYMN began to establish a clear presence with a website, monthly newsletter, one-hour Public Television Broadcast production airing throughout the state with DVD duplication, and attendance at “Straight Shot Youth Media Summit” in May 2009. http://www.tcymn.net/summit
With this work came formalized meetings, an executive committee, clear policy on membership, agendas and benefits. The increased structure also created transparency and a central location for housing knowledge so it was less likely to become lost with transitions among organizations. It was now clear how others could be members and what they could expect with that membership. Furthermore, the structure created easy entry points for diverse staff from member organizations to become involved. For example, Americorps members or other new practitioners could join the monthly meetings and help with TCYMN projects. Nicola Pine reflects, “I felt like we [were on] a freight train full speed ahead—[we were] extremely productive and focused on our goals.”
At the same time, there were challenges. For example, TCYMN struggled to find the balance between the coordinator’s responsibilities and an appropriate level of work among the members to ensure members’ investment and evidence of need for their participation. However, with funding, the Network increased transparency and access to this community of knowledge, collaboration and shared opportunities for youth.
A Shift in Funding
TCYMN’s two-year funding came to a dry end in June 2009 because of a shift in focus areas for our funder. Temporarily, while TCYMN pursues new funding, members will move back to an all-volunteer run group and scale back Network-wide activities. However, TCYMN sits poised to continue with or without funding because of its strong roots and spirit of collaboration that began without funding in 2000. These roots, which connected youth media organizations and practitioners in the Twin Cities, nurtured relationships across genres, communities and organizational size.
The root of TCYMN’s existence is, first, the shared belief in the power of teaching media to and with youth. We know this is done better when we connect as a field, regardless of funding. Founding TCYMN member Nicola Pine explains, “The network really is an affinity group [of] committed artists and educators who share a belief in the power of media to change young lives.”
Funding exploded the productivity and reach of TCYMN, created structure, transparency, and a central location for knowledge in the field for the region—but not without the strains on informal relationships that come with more defined structures. For the broader field of youth media, TCYMN represents a successful, decade-strong model of community, cross-organizational support and maximizing opportunities for youth and practitioners within a local, regional network.
Twin Cities Youth Media Network
www.TCYMN.net
Joanna Kohler is the coordinator of TCYMN. She runs her own production company Kohler Productions and has been telling powerful stories through documentary video and audio projects since 1999. www.KohlerProductions.com
Youth Journalism: Connecting Lives with Public Policies
Young Americans’ news consumption has declined markedly over the past decade, causing widespread concern about their apathy and ignorance of public affairs. In a 2008 survey by Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, for example, about a third of people between the ages of 18 to 25 said they got no news on a typical day, up from 25 percent in 1998.
The survey also found that only 10 percent of those with social networking profiles regularly get news from these sites. Other research suggests that teens avoid news in part because the steady diet of conflict and crisis makes the world seem too threatening. They don’t believe they have the power to change it.
As educators, we know that young people are looking not just to find their voices but to find their power. Becoming knowledgeable about public affairs and being able to find information, check facts and set out diverse viewpoints empower youth to enter public debate and help shape public thinking and decisions about issues that are important in their lives. By helping teens examine the connection between their lives and public policies, youth media educators can help create both engaged citizens and enlightened producers of news. Otherwise, without informed, engaged citizens, how can democracy survive? And how will government be forced to better serve the young, the poor and the marginalized if those citizens do not take action?
Based on my experience directing ThreeSixty Journalism, a youth journalism program serving mostly low-income and minority teens in the Twin Cities, I am convinced that youth media practitioners can help teens develop a healthier appetite for news of what’s happening in the world and a more critical eye toward the media they consume. Along with teaching technical skills, creativity and self-expression, we should feel responsible for helping build citizens.
One needn’t be a journalist to learn and teach these skills. In the age of the “citizen journalist,” plenty of good, on-line resources are available to help teach the rigor and pleasure of asking questions, checking facts and writing articles that inform and engage others. In the youth media field especially, the tools and practices of journalism mirror the fundamental concept of story-telling, engagement, and local political change.
Connecting Stories to Public Issues
Helping young people create a bridge between themselves and public debate requires adult leaders who know both what’s going on in our teens’ lives and in the larger, social and political sphere. The reward for helping young people connect the dots can be twofold: greater knowledge and critical thinking skills among our teens; and a more informed, powerful voice of youth in public policy discussions on everything from high-stakes testing to sex education policy.
It is always humbling to see the wide gap between my journalist’s knowledge of current events and that of the 14- to 20-year-olds we work with. In our two-week residential camp in June, for example, most of the teens had only a general idea of the violent street protests raging in Iran– where citizen journalists produced some of the more important coverage via Twitter message, YouTube videos and cell phone photos.
But several of the teens knew every twist in the saga of Jon and Kate Gosselin, stars of “Jon and Kate Plus 8,” who had announced they were divorcing. Never having heard of them, I was shocked to find the Gosselins on the cover of People magazine the following week. For many of our teens, pop culture overwhelmingly dominates their media diet.
I want students to know and care more about what is happening in the world around them, from St. Paul to Tehran. But I need to know more about their media as well. The more adult leaders know about the media our students consume, the more we can seize opportunities to tie pop culture events to deep issues closer to home. Chris Brown’s admission that he beat Rihanna provided an opportunity to look at dating violence among our youth, for example.
Still, few teens arrive wanting to write about pop culture. They come with ideas related to their own experiences. A teen mom wants to write about teen pregnancy. A young man with Attention Deficit Disorder (otherwise known as A.D.D.) wants to write about his conflict over whether to keep taking pills that increase his concentration but also make him lose weight and have trouble sleeping.
We value those personal ideas because the urgency teens feel to tell them is a powerful motivator and because other teens respond strongly to authentic personal stories. But contributing to the public conversation includes more information and perspectives than the strictly personal. Young people can ask questions, get information and seek other viewpoints that will deepen their own understanding and that of other teens. Self-expression, the core of many youth media programs, is important but insufficient. Along with learning to speak up, teens should learn to listen to different viewpoints, assess the evidence, challenge assumptions, write clearly and change their minds. Journalistic skills can help achieve that.
Getting teens excited about gathering facts, interviewing sources and venturing from the personal to the political is not always easy. Especially since most teens come to youth media with two types of writing experience—the highly personal, such as diaries or poetry, and the highly academic, such as term papers.
But teens live with the consequences of countless public policy decisions—from immigration laws to school budgets, testing policies to drinking laws. Youth media can help young people look beyond the personal and see how public policy affects their lives and how they in turn can influence those policies.
For example, when teens cite lack of access to contraceptives as one reason for rising pregnancy rates, youth media makers can look at how well public health policies, health care insurance and in-school clinics serve their peers. This brings a new perspective to the public debate and empowers teens to be active citizens, not helpless bystanders.
Citizen-Journalistic Tips for the Field
Here are some tips on how to encourage teens in youth media programs to take themselves, their ideas and their role as storytellers and citizens seriously:
Encourage teen media producers to aim high. For example, interviewing mayors, legislators and principals in addition to their peers; reading newspapers, academic research and papers; and, legislative briefs along with Facebook pages and blogs.
Point out that they are serving an audience of other teens. What information do their peers need to make good decisions? Why should they care about the story? How can the author or media-maker serve them? Getting positive feedback from other teens during the editorial process and once the story is published is a powerful motivation to continue.
Encourage teens to think of themselves as storytellers and citizens. Educators ought to distill a sense of responsibility to stay informed about what is happening in students’ communities. In addition, encourage students that they have the right to ask questions, get information, and share what they learn by telling compelling stories via words, video, photos and sound.
Multiply the number of adult allies. Having strong relationships with adult editors helps persuade teens to venture outside their comfort zone. Staff and volunteer journalists can help coach individual students through the process and help them arrange key interviews. Often adults must read the materials first to ensure that the teen understands complex material. Establishing a relationship of trust is necessary if we are to push teens to do two or three rewrites to give more clarity, power or information to the finished piece.
Use existing resources. Journalism skills are the basis of good story-telling to/from a community, and ones that are relevant to all youth media programs regardless of the medium used. There are great opportunities for collaborations and partnerships between youth media programs that teach journalistic skills and those that are more focused on creativity and self-expression. Along with ThreeSixty, some established youth media programs with a strong commitment to journalism skills include LA Youth, Youth Outlook in San Francisco, VOX Communications in Atlanta, Youth Communication in New York, What Kids Can Do in Rhode Island, The Beat Within in Oakland & D.C., Headliners in Great Britain, Young Chicago Authors, Children’s Pressline and Indy Kids in New York, and Teen Voices in Boston.
In addition, the growth of on-line media has led to an explosion of on-line resources for journalism training for ordinary citizens. A few good ones include: http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=83126
http://www.j-learning.org/
http://www.hsj.org/
Be bold about seeking public platforms for student work. LA Youth, one of the nation’s oldest and most respected youth media programs, has used its teens’ expertise to convene community discussions. Last year, for example, the group hosted a community forum on juvenile crime issues with judges, media and youth workers gathered for a discussion led by LA Youth writers. In November, LA Youth will convene another discussion about LA’s drop-out rate. Founder and executive director Donna Myrow aims to have LA Youth more systematically educate the public, media and policy makers about teen issues, particularly those of marginalized teens. She also wants to move public discussion from individual teen behavior to that of policymakers whose decisions impact teens and their behavior.
Next Steps
Working as a journalist is harder than school, many students tell us. But the ones who stick with it understand that the process is necessary if they want to be trusted, have impact and be taken seriously. And they say they learn to ask questions, write clearly, think critically and become more interested in what is happening in the world and their communities.
Here’s what Ady Perez, a junior at Cristo Rey High School in Minneapolis, wrote about her ThreeSixty experience: “I have learned to not settle for an ‘okay’ article. I learned to read it and then reread it over and over and get different people’s point of view and help to make it much better.”
The higher the quality, the more compelling the focus of our teens’ work, the larger the audience we will attract. We can push for youth-produced work to get published in local media and on-line outlets like the Huffington Post. When our groups tackle major topics, we can invite video content from other local youth media organization as part of the coverage.
The more policymakers see and hear the strong, informed, compelling voice of youth, the more they’ll be forced to listen.
Lynda McDonnell is the executive director of ThreeSixty Journalism, a non-profit youth journalism program based at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Before joining ThreeSixty in 2002, she worked as an editor and reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Minneapolis Tribune. McDonnell is a hiker, a singer and a writer. She is also the mother of two grown sons and grandmother of a grandson with a lovely, cockeyed smile.
Integrating Elements: Media Arts Education and Experimental Media
The youth media movement began percolating with the introduction of the video Sony Porta Pac in the 60s, when artists began using the tools of television for self-expression, advocacy, storytelling and documenting their world. However, before the boom of youth media, artists were using the tools of film for the same purpose, bringing media to schools through the National Endowment for the Arts Film in the Schools program.
Since technology has become more affordable for youth, artists, and educators in the last decade, the youth media movement has taken off. As the field continues to evolve with new technology, we must re-introduce the artistic concepts of aesthetics and experimentation that preceded the movement.
The youth media field has clearly done a number of things well, mostly related to mass media, media literacy and cultivating supportive communities. However, it’s important to remember that youth media is not just a tool for communication, but also a vehicle for artistic expression. The youth media field can learn from artists and media art educators that apply a creative, inventive, and experimental aspect to the students’ voices. Those aspects benefit students, the audience, and the field itself.
As a founding member of Twin Cities Youth Media Network, I am encouraged by the dedication of non-profit youth media groups to conduct artist residencies in the schools. As I meet educators and artists passionate about teaching media arts as a unique art form, I understand the urgent need for leadership in this emerging field to bring the two groups together for more effective teaching practices.
Aesthetics and Creativity
In our global society, creativity is becoming increasingly sought after and embraced; yet, it is often not nurtured in an educational setting. Creativity involves a form of intelligence but not necessarily the kind that is tested in school. Increasingly, researchers are determining the importance of developing creativity in youth. In Howard Gardner’s book, Five Minds for the Future, he outlines specific cognitive abilities that will be sought and cultivated by leaders in the years ahead: the disciplined mind, the synthesizing mind, the creating mind, the respectful mind and the ethical mind—all essential to the teaching of media arts.
Aesthetics and experimentation by students in their media productions work toward the goals of youth media for many reasons. For one, it creates more interesting productions that capture an audience’s attention, build an audience’s interest, and helps viewers remember what they saw afterward. Educators could teach to aesthetics and guide youth to explore a variety of genres, styles, structures, techniques, image and text relationships, sequencing, rhythmic editing, and many other options to enhance the meaning of their pieces.
Creativity also encompasses elements of synthesis and revision and cultivates critical thinking. In addition, art making inspires self-reflection, which in turn helps students develop their own authentic, unique voices. Many, if not all, of these skills mirror those gained in youth media programs.
Specifically, art helps students learn to say what cannot be communicated with words. Art allows visual learners to take risks, think in abstract terms, and use their imaginations. Art saved my life. It could save one of your student’s, too.
Incorporating Media Arts Education in the Field
Youth media practitioners can incorporate aesthetics and experimentation into their practice by stretching the definitions of what is possible and what things mean. By providing numerous creative exercises prior to planning a more complex project, students build vocabulary, expand their bag of technical tricks, develop their ability to experiment while developing ideas, and have a chance to play.
Creating work in an experimental genre can allow students to study or investigate the elements of media arts in the purist forms as the early video artists did in the seventies. These experiments can later be applied to other genres of documentary, public service announcement or narrative structures—just as continuity and other traditionally narrative techniques can be applied to experimental work as well.
If youth media producers want to learn more about experimental and media arts approaches, I suggest looking at the Minnesota’s curriculum framework. These documents support authentic media arts experiences that could be integrated alongside youth media curriculum. Each document is provided as a PDF at the following links:
• Minnesota Frameworks for Arts Curriculum Strategies or FACS (1997)
• Minnesota’s Engaging Students in the Arts: Creating, Performing, and Responding (2004)
What makes youth media the best partner for media arts education is that both arenas value youth expression and creative thinking, two concepts that are not valued enough in American culture, but an important part of our intelligence and development as people.
Examples can be seen at the Perpich Center for Arts Education web site:
http://www.pcae.k12.mn.us/ahs/media/med_sw.html
Nancy Norwood is a recipient of the 2008 Coca Cola/NFAA Distinguished Teacher in the Arts award, and the 2001 Surdna Art Teachers Fellowship. She has directed the Arts High School Media Arts Program for more than nineteen years, leading her students to over 200 national awards. Norwood has exhibited her own videotapes at such places as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and has received several grants for her work. She was on the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) Arts Education Consensus Project Planning Committee and was chair of the Media Arts Standards Committee for Minnesota’s FACS (Frameworks for Arts Curriculum Strategies) Project. She received a MFA from State University of New York through the Visual Studies Workshop Program and BFA from Memphis College of Art.
Perpich Arts High School provided a laboratory for experimenting with media arts curriculum ideas, providing an environment that functions as a laboratory for teaching. The gifted students who were accepted to the program in conjunction with the state of the art technology offered the foundation for my experimentation. Once established, the curriculum has been shared in the form of media arts standards, teacher training, and consulting work with numerous school districts nationwide.
The Youth Video Exchange Network: A One-Stop-Shop for Youth Media
The youth media field needs a concentrated web-based hub: a “one stop shop” to store and distribute media. Right now, youth media organizations are using YouTube, Blip, Vimeo, Archive and other alternative web hosts to store and share their media online. But by storing media in different places, often for different purposes, the youth media field is duplicating efforts, failing to make connections with each other, reaching fewer viewers, and letting valuable resources pass us by. Such a diminished impact is especially problematic when non-profits and Cable Access Centers are already unstable.
To help the field collaborate and cooperate on distributing media, I offer as an example the Youth Video Exchange Network (YVXN), an effort started by the National Youth Media Exchange Project (NYMAP). It has had its successes, challenges, and changes, but ultimately can help the field assess, revise, revamp and rethink youth media distribution as we know it.
History of NYMAP/YVXN
In 2001, five Cable Access Centers with active youth media programs came together to start NYMAP. The goal was to build a strong and diverse youth media presence in the Access Community. The most tangible application was to begin regularly sharing youth media with each other to air on Cable Access channels in our communities (as Cable Access centers we provide commercial free channels to the community on the cable network, and as NYMAP members we commit to setting aside a block of time where youth media is aired).
As told in more detail by Andrew Lynn in an article written for YMR in 2007, NYMAP members began collaborating by regularly sending videotapes to each other in what was called a “bicycle exchange.” Then, in 2007, we received funding to launch the Youth Video Exchange Network (YVXN), a web-based initiative to share media using digital file sharing methods. A website was built, which is currently under construction as we revamp the site www.nymapexchange.net, and a variety of open source tools were utilized to share broadcast quality media with each other.
Over the past two years we have had some successes and experienced some bumps along the road. Though digital file-sharing worked, it was more complex than we wanted it to be, and did not promote use of the NYMAP website as an integral and interactive tool in the process. Media was exchanged between Access Centers but it was not the explosion that we were hoping for. At the same time, the landscape of Cable Access changed as state franchising, the downturn in the economy, and shifting priorities prevented us from being able to devote time to the project or invite new NYMAP members.
Enter YVXN 2.0
Despite these challenges, the road ahead for YVXN is exciting and hopeful. The current NYMAP members—Manhattan Neighborhood Network (Manhattan, NY), Grand Rapids Community Media Center (Grand Rapids, MI), People TV (Atlanta, GA), and Saint Paul Neighborhood Network (Saint Paul, MN)—have embarked on a new method of digital distribution that is more efficient and opens up new collaborative distribution possibilities for the entire youth media field. While the original focus of YVXN was broadcast quality media by and for Cable Access centers, the new incarnation has expanded to include web distribution of youth media, and invites youth media organizations to be part of the network.
As before, members can upload and download broadcast quality youth media, unlike most video hosting websites, which require a compressed version. But the similarity to the previous site end there. Web 2.0 functionality has been integrated into the YVXN site making it useful and relevant for all youth media organizations. Videos can be streamed live from the website, be embedded in other websites, posted to social networking sites, commented on at the site and remixed into theme-based reels. Media can be archived on the site indefinitely, creating potential for a readily accessible youth media archive. In addition, the new website has a searchable library, enabling videos to be searched by topic, genre, and organization. This feature provides many possibilities for community organizations and educators interested in using youth media to address issues.
We have already started broadening the scope of our network to include youth media organizations through a partnership with the Twin Cities Youth Media Network (TCYMN). TCYMN was interested in expanding their website to include a searchable database of youth media; we realized that by joining forces, we could develop something even better that was mutually beneficial. As a result, the TCYMN website now includes a searchable youth media database that includes all of the other features present on the YVXN site (streaming, embedding, posting, and more), and NYMAP members can automatically view and download TCYMN members’ videos.
Contributions to the Field
To be sure, the newest version of YVXN is still in the beta stages. The website will re-launch next month. We are excited that the field will be able to greatly benefit from YVXN in the following ways:
First, YVXN has a “boutique” nature, which means all youth media organizations can house their work on a single site. This creates the opportunity for like-minded organizations to review each other’s work, create dialogue among youth producers, and collaborate with each other easily.
Second, YVXN creates the opportunity for more effective distribution of youth media. Educators, community organizers, artists, and activists can be directed to the site to find and view media, and find other content exploring similar issues. Cable Access stations benefit from membership, as they can download a greater selection of accessible and high-quality youth media pieces to air. Currently, youth media produced at youth media organizations has limited visibility on Cable Access—usually just in the city the organization is based, if at all. But with YVXN, youth media pieces only need to be uploaded once to be seen all over the country—whether through multiple local Access channels (often hungry for content) or beyond the field’s current reach. Youth media organizations benefit as well from this wider distribution of their media without the increased effort.
Third, YVXN provides one upload for a variety of functions: archiving, streaming, embedding, posting, inclusion in a database, and more. This is both an important time saver and an effective resource for youth media organizations that are strapped for time and resources but wanted to document, archive and share their work.
Next Steps
We are at a critical point with digital distribution of youth media: the possibilities are endless and the ability to harness the technology is within our reach. A central locale for online distribution would create opportunities for increased collaboration, visibility, and connectivity. For youth media stakeholders interested in joining YVXN, we welcome the field to help shape this important youth media tool. As we prepare to re-launch the NYMAP site, if your organization is interested in becoming a “beta” member, please email me at pine@spnn.org. If the aim of youth media is to have youth voice heard and recognized by an audience, YVXN is the pipeline for the field to increase our efforts and those of the young people we serve.
Nicola Pine is the youth programs director at Saint Paul Neighborhood Network. Since 1996 she has been mentoring youth in video production and working to increase access and build visibility of youth media locally and nationally. She is a founding member of the Twin Cities Youth Media Network and is actively involved in the National Youth Media Access Project. In her spare time she blogs, bikes, and bakes cookies with her son.
J-Schools, High Schools, and Youth Media: Bringing Journalism Back into the Classroom
When most people think of Minnesota, they conjure visions of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegone and names like Gunnar and Sven. Few outside the state are aware that the Land of 10,000 Lakes is also home to the largest Somali community in the U.S., and names like Sorayah and Mohammed are becoming more common. However, these names are not common in the by-lines of news stories published in the Twin Cities. Journalism educators must engage with new immigrant communities to inspire interest in the news, interest that is often suppressed by the lack of representation of people of color in journalism. Equally important, they must reach out to youth of color—a generation that is losing touch with journalism.
Since the outbreak of civil war in Somalia, the Twin Cities (TC) has been a major site of resettlement for Somalis. Unfortunately, their relationship with local media reflects patterns found with other immigrants: depictions of Somalis in mainstream media emphasize crime and “deviant” behavior, and portray them as un-assimilable into American culture. And, because the majority of Somalis are Muslim, stereotypes and fears associated with anti-Muslim sentiments have affected the news coverage of this community as well. The experiences of Somalis in the TC are representative of how people of color are generally portrayed by mainstream news media.
Partnerships between high schools, universities, and youth media educators can encourage youth that have been marginalized by news media to remain engaged, to use their critical faculties to create better news for their communities, and create media vehicles that can introduce the wider community to their perspectives. These partnerships should be encouraged even more today, as many urban schools cannot afford to support regular journalism education, and local youth media programs have a limited number of room for youth producers (as a result of limited funds, resources and capacity). Classroom-based outreach partnerships provide one way to give students of color with an introduction to journalism they might never get elsewhere.
Journalism by and for Somali Youth—The Ubah Project
As part of my outreach efforts as Cowles Professor of Journalism, Diversity & Equality, I started a journalism workshop with a freshman English class at Ubah Medical Academy (UMA). UMA is a charter high school, founded by Somalis who settled in the TC in the 1990s. This workshop grew from an initial request by an English teacher at Ubah to have someone give a talk about diversity in the news. From that initial contact, the idea for a pilot project emerged. Our goal was to create interest in news reading and journalism production amongst students who, as one remarked, fear that the news media just “say whatever they want” about Somalis and act “as spies” in Somali neighborhoods.
The class had 18 students, all of whom were first-year high schoolers. Few of them had any experience with the news beyond watching TV news occasionally with their families. Initial discussions revealed that the students did not have much regard for the news, unsurprising given that studies consistently show that racial, ethnic, and religious minorities are regularly stereotyped and scape-goated in local and national news (e.g., Chavez, 2001). Thus, one of our main tasks was to introduce them to another side of journalism and provide space for them to make a positive—yet still critically-oriented—connection with the news.
Re-introducing the News
After some basic skill building exercises on the 5W’s and H (who, what, where, when, why and how), we began identifying sources used by journalists to convey information to readers. Importantly, we asked the students to think about alternative sources journalists could have consulted as part of their work. We brought in stories about Somali and Muslim Americans from locally- and nationally-based internet and print publications, such as the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and Sports Illustrated. When evaluating sources in these stories, these teens were quick to see the imbalance between non-Somali and Somali sources. In order to provide readers with more background knowledge or varied opinions about the Somali community, they came up with myriad individuals and institutions, such as local mosques, doctors, and community center staff members that could be consulted by journalists.
Likewise, when we had the students think of ways to source a story to give national and international stories a local angle, they were quick to identify resources close to home in addition to local government agencies. This national/local assignment eventually led to one of the first front-page stories for their news website: “A dog in the White House, why not in my house?” While reading a story about the Obama family’s new dog, the students remarked that Muslims do not allow dogs in their homes, but none of the reports they heard or read about the First Family’s dog ever mentioned that fact. Using their interviewing skills, the students created a battery of questions to survey classmates about the dog in the White House, and came up with an astute mix of opinions and reflections about Muslim practices and how they interact with the dominant religious culture of Christianity. Thus, the students were able to correct an omission in mainstream coverage on their own terms, and published it within days of brainstorming the ideas.
During the focus groups we conducted at the end of the project, many students still voiced strong criticisms of mainstream news media’s treatment of Somalis and Muslims. However, these critics also told us that they had a new appreciation for the work journalists do to research and write articles. Moreover, the majority of students said they were paying more attention to the news; many also added that they were going on-line to find alternatives to the TV news that dominated news access in their homes. Importantly, most of the students agreed with a statement made by their classmate: “I think it was fun, learning how to write and learning how to become a journalist and a good interviewer. I liked being the interviewer instead of being interviewed.”
Suggestions to the Field
Our experience at UMA suggests six ways youth media practitioners can think about partnering with academics, particularly in journalism schools.
Consider bringing in guest scholars who can historicize and deconstruct the relationship between news and people of color. Expert testimony will both provide validation of their criticisms of news media, and give students a critical vocabulary to describe patterns of racial, ethnic, and religious representations.
Have students create stories about their own communities and which feature the voices and opinions of their peers and elders. As described earlier, we had the students take national headlines (the White House dog) and brainstorm ways to connect the story to their experiences and concerns. These exercises allowed the students to see themselves and their community as important sites of resources, opinions, and experiences that were sorely needed to diversify the public’s understanding of their culture and religion.
Consider doing only a web-based publication. Again, our students experienced great satisfaction seeing their work posted immediately after editing, and were excited that their paper would be accessible to anyone with the capacity to launch a Google search. Journalism schools have hundreds of web-savvy undergrads who can volunteer time to help create and publicize web-based publications, which allows community and university partners to see progress, and to easily spread word of the students’ achievements.
Investigate opportunities to work with journalism schools. Accredited journalism schools are charged with increasing the diversity of their student bodies and the content of their curricula. Engaging with youth media programs can be part of this process by producing a more diverse pool of students with an interest in journalism. Contact school administrators, or, as UMA teachers did, look on-line for professors whose research focuses on issues of equity and multiculturalism.
Contact offices at universities that are charged with facilitating community partnerships with researchers and service-learning opportunities for undergraduates. For example, the University of Minnesota has the Urban Research and Outreach/ Engagement Center, which is tasked with creating community partnerships to revitalize neighborhoods. The university also has an Office of Community Involvement and Service Learning that works with faculty members to create opportunities for university students to do volunteer work as part of course work. Faculty members who are new (and not so new) to the community may not be aware of the youth media groups in action. Sending out feelers to these offices can generate project ideas that may garner volunteers, grant money, and other resources for youth media projects.
Next Steps
As a result of participating in UMA, two of the young women went on to apply and gain admission to Three-Sixty, a youth media-journalism program in St. Paul, continuing their confidence in the profession. As these students and others demonstrate, partnerships between journalism educators and youth media can help young people cultivate a critical appreciation for the practice of journalism and its impact on society. This provides them with a sense of ownership of the news, a reason to remain engaged with news media to monitor progress and, hopefully, help them become part of the generation that makes the news more accountable to and reflective of our multicultural citizenry.
*You can view stories written by the students at the U.M.A. Journalism website at: http://my.hsj.org/Schools/Newspaper/tabid/100/view/frontpage/editionid/24078/articleid/279187/Default.aspx
Catherine R. Squires is the Cowles Professor of Journalism, Diversity and Equality at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Maureen Schriner is a Ph.D. student in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Minnesota.
References
Chavez, Leo (2001). Covering Immigration: Popular Images and the Politics of the Nation (University of California Press).