Youth Participation and Mass Media (Part I) - scroll down for Part II
What?s wrong with the Media?
Nowadays, many young people have access to the radio, but they listen only to music programs. There aren?t actually any programs to inform us about how youth could get involved in social activities, about how they could take action in order to determine a change.
For this reason, we affirm that young people aren?t given the opportunity to participate in interactive radio programs. Of course, there are indeed some radio programs created by youth. Nevertheless, these are only entertaining programs about minor issues. Youth are not interested only in knowing which the latest entry in the music hit?s top is. They also want to learn about relevant things and how young people can get involved in solving different social problems.
There should be radio programs for teens that do care about the world! Neither TV Channels have programs about social issues or dedicated to young people eager to fight to make their countries a better place. Although the impact of images is a very, very big one, there are no reports focused on youth volunteering or presenting NGO?s activity in a specific field. How young people could get involved if they never find out about what?s happening around them?
Newspapers and magazines are still the most popular media. They reach people who could never watch a TV program or never had access to the Internet. Yet, youth can?t even participate to these important publications, their opinions, ideas and attitudes find no place in the pages of the big journals. Although social, economical, political and cultural changes directly affect young people, we can?t express our views, we don?t have the right to participate at taking decisions and we are not allowed to propose solutions, not even for our problems! !!!!School magazines opened to any student desirous to write are usually covering only education-related themes and their addressability is restrained to those working in this field. !!!Teen magazines are really interesting and exciting, but because of their ?cool-attitude?, they are actually never read by serious adults. !!!Teenagers who win writing contests are allowed to collaborate with literary magazines, yet they can?t use their imagination for improving our real world, too.
The difference between what we are shown on Medias and what we want to see:
Society?s belief is that adolescents don?t care about anything, only enjoying themselves and thinking of petty things like clothes, parties, dating, etc. As a consequence, the Mass Media shows only what the shallow young persons want to see, such as soap operas, violent TV shows, small-minded programs, advertisements of fashion clothes, etc; which make us all look like complete trivial and cold people. Despite the fact that few adolescents are indeed indifferent and insensitive, there are a lot who do care. We are not all selfish teens who don?t have a single clue of what is happening in the world and don?t care about it. The Mass-Media has put on all of us a fake label, about what we like and how we act. But our concern goes beyond the trivial stuffs which are shown in the Medias. We want to be informed about what?s going on; we want to know where to go, what to do, and how we can determine a change. If teenagers were given the opportunity to participate in the Medias, everybody would see what we really are: youth wanting to make a change.
Ailen Laura Rey, 18, Argentina.
Grosu Luciana, 17, Romania
Youth Action for Mass Participation!
Youth Participation on the Internet
There is only one media who has given young people all over the world the chance to find any information on taking action as well as joining other youth groups who want to make a difference. This Media, where youth participation is possible is the Internet. On the net, young people and groups can meet and get together to reach the same objective: make the world a better place. That's how article2 was formed. We, teenagers from different countries, entered the UNICEF forums and discussed about our desire to make a difference. We all agreed that something had to be done now, so we gathered together and decided to fight in order to help young people live on a better planet. Moreover, the Internet, especially through its search tools, provides us with plenty of information and tips on how to take action. However, searching online information isn't that easy, owing to the fact that it takes a lot of time, not all the groups and organisations are eager to read our e-mails and answer all our questions or consider us as possible collaborators.
Our aim is to encourage youth all over the world to get involved in order to make a difference. But how could we accomplish this if we can't meet in person and if there are a lot of young people who will never actually find out about us? Besides, theoretically, everyone can surf the Internet, but only few people really have access to it. The other Medias are of course more accessible but youth can't participate in them! For this reason, radio, TV, magazines and newspapers should provide the same amount of information as the Internet does, and let youth fully express its ideas and opinions.
Why we want the Media to let our voices be heard
Through this article, we've just pointed out that Mass Media doesn't give young people the chance to participate, but we haven't said why we think youth participation in Mass Media is important yet!
Great Impact: All the adolescents in the world watch TV, read magazines and newspapers or listen to the radio. For this reason, the only way young people can commuicate with the world that they want to change, is through the Medias. As a result, knowing more about our world and gathering together as large groups of teens eager to do something, the probability to accomplish our objective is even bigger! That is why all young people in the world should be united and work together to make a real change! The Mass Media has the power to gather people coming from different cultures and social environments as its mssages are accessible to anyone and can reach any remote corner of the Earth.
Information and Advice: There are a lot of teenagers who think like us, and want to make a difference, but they don't know where to start, how they can do it, they can't find the persons who are already taking action, etc. This is the main reason why the medias should provide us with the necessary information and put us in contact with the right persons so that all adolescents can find which steps to take in order to achieve their goals.
Learning from other's experience: There are severalm young people who are already taking action, volunteering in organizations or NGO's. They could give interviews or talk about their experience in the social fiels on TV/radio programs. The advice and the experience of these people would be of great help for young people who would like to get involved too, but don't know how. Also, as all of them have the same goal, they could collaboratewith each other: the beginners as well as the "experts" need to share their ideas and cordinate their efforts for a better future.
Expressing ourselves: We want to show the world that we are concerned about the problems that are affecting people's lives, that we aren't indefferent. As a matter of fact, our aim is to finish with these problems once and for all! In order to do this, we'd like to share our project proposal with all of you, to make our desire to help through the medias known. We want adults to take into account our solutions for the world's biggest issues, because we are as capable as they are to come up with the right solutions. To sum up, we want to demonstrate to the world who we are and what we can do!
Youth Participation space
Our idea is to create a youth participation space in every media: TV, newspapers, radio and of course, the internet. Even if it's not a big one, it would be aplace where young people can talk about getting involved in social activities.
There will be calm debates, no attacks and no fights, as the discussions will stay focused on the topic of social problems and any political, religious or racial conflict between the participants will be excluded. No discrimination will be made regarding the young person's social or cultural background, as anyone will be free to share his ideas and propose solutions. This space will be openend to any young person determined to take action and bring a change in our world.
Young people will write and speak about their ideas, about their projects and initiatives,about their plans and desires and would thus launch an appeal to the world to help them materialize their proposals.
Written proposals: Young people will have a page or two in every issue,
written by them, not by adults who believe they know how young people think.. They will express their views upon different social problems and then propose solutions or call for action .Their articles won?t be a mere social critique, an imitation of the malicious comments of the true journalists for getting the public?s attention or a school-like compositions page, no! Youth won?t write about what could have been done, or about what will never be done, but about what can still be done, now and there!
TV and radio- Special programs will be created where young people will be both hosts and guests. Youth will meet to discuss possible solutions for different issues, talk about their projects and invite other persons to join their efforts of offering help. Through these programs teenagers will have the opportunity to start their own campaigns and apply their ideas, as they will ask for the authorities, NGO`s and other professionals collaboration.
COME AND DISCUSS THIS ARTICLE IN THE FORUM!
PART III IN THE NEXT ISSUE! FIND OUT HOW WE ATTEND TO ACHIEVE THIS GOAL!
Young People's Media Network - Coordinator
c/o ECMC (European Centre for Media Competence)
Bergstr. 8 / 11th floor
D-45770 Marl - Germany
Email: cschuepp@unicef.org
URL: www.unicef.org/magic
Mailing list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/youthful-media
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