NEWS / ARTICLES: Facebook Generation Learning Social, Technical Skills Online

Facebook Generation Learning Social, Technical Skills Online

Newswise — Worried about the amount of time today’s kids spend texting, chatting, blogging, gaming and Facebook-ing? Don’t.

Rather than fear the time young people devote to technological pursuits, there are many reasons for adults to embrace and even facilitate youth engagement with digital media, according to Florida State University’s Lisa Tripp, who was a member of a team of researchers who recently completed the most extensive qualitative study ever done on youth media use in the United States.

“While many adults worry that children are wasting time online, texting or playing video games, our study found that these activities have captured teens’ attention because they provide avenues for extending social worlds, self-directed learning and independence,” she said.

Tripp, an assistant professor in the College of Information, supervised research and data collection at several Los Angeles middle schools that serve primarily low-income Latino youth to find out how the students were using digital media technology both at home and at school. Her research became a part of the Digital Youth Project, a joint effort of the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley.

The three-year study was part of a $50 million project on digital and media learning funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Altogether, researchers involved in the project interviewed more than 800 children and young adults and conducted more than 5,000 hours of online observations. Tripp also is one of the co-authors of the final report on the project, which will be published by MIT Press as a book called “Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out: Living and Learning with New Media.”

full article

NEWS: New Media empowering Indian Youth

New Media empowering Indian Youth

Submitted by newsdesk on Sat, 12/20/2008 - 11:46

New media has opened up huge possibilities for the Indian youth but a large part of the potential remains untapped due to various constraints inherent in the Indian reality. This was the consensus at a panel discussion on 'New Media and Technology: Empowering the Indian Youth,' organized by Aspen Institute India as part of its Ideas India 2008.

Kicking off the discussion, Govind Ethiraj, Editor - in-Chief, UTVi!, said more and more youth are spending time online. Though the overall Internet penetration has reached only five per cent, it is up to 80 per cent in the metropolises. He said that beginning with e-mail in the 90s, the use of Internet has spread to chat, transactions and teaching. We still have to clear obstacles in the way of full use of the Internet, one of which is lack of bandwidth, he noted.

Calling it the media of freedom, Mr Jehangir Pocha, Editor, Businessworld, said the first freedom the new media affords is economic by has adding technology to the four traditional means of production - land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship. He felt that India has lagged behind in making full use of the possibilities. "Surfing the Net is no use of technology. It is commerce," he said.

Mr Sudhir Nair, Vice President - G2, South Asia, said that the numbers using the online media are growing. But we are talking of empowering urban youth only. In fact, youth are empowering themselves, he said. He suggested that online space can be used to generate more ideas.

full article

ARTICLES / STUDIES: Young people watch less TV (USA)

Study: Young people watch less TV

By Paul Bond

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Young Americans just aren't watching TV like they used to.

Put another way, the older you get, the more you watch, according to a report due out Thursday from Deloitte indicating that "millennials," the generation of ages 14-25, watch just 10.5 hours of TV a week.

That compares with 15.1 hours for those belonging to Generation X (ages 26-42), 19.2 hours for baby boomers (43-61) and 21.5 hours for matures (62-75).

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ARTICLES / PARTICIPATION: UNICEF calls for young people to be involved in climate talks

http://www.unicef.org.uk/press/news_detail.asp?news_id=1241

UNICEF calls for young people to be involved in climate talks

UNICEF UK has called for greater involvement of young people in UN decision making process, following an inconclusive UN climate summit in Poznan, Poland.

David Parker from UNICEF International and Lucy Stone from UNICEF UK attended the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) talks, with 190 countries negotiating on what is hoped to be a global deal on climate change in 2009.

Youth representatives from India and Australia spoke at an 'inter-generational inquiry on climate solutions' but UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer agreed that “the youth voice is not being heard by the negotiators”.

He urged young people to press their national delegation to honour their promise for youth representation, a commitment made in the last conference in Bali, and called for increased national and international civic pressure. “I think...

source

NEWS / TV: Disney to launch free TV channel in Russia

Disney to launch free TV channel in Russia

By Gina Keating

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Walt Disney Co and Media-One Holdings Ltd on Tuesday unveiled plans to launch a nationwide, free-to-air television channel in Russia in 2009, populated by Disney Channel and locally produced programing.

Disney will take a 49 percent stake in the joint venture and provide cash and programing as well as expertise in content acquisition and marketing to kids and families.

The company would not comment on the size of its investment in the joint venture, or the length of the deal.

Media-One, the majority stakeholder, brings to the table 30 owned and operated TV stations throughout Russia, as well as knowledge of the Russian market and regulatory environment.

The deal still must receive regulatory approval from Russia, which requires foreign investors to have Russian partners. Russia's regulatory environment for TV is seen as similar to that of western European countries.

full article

ARTICLES / RADIO: Like a Bell that Calls: Participatory Youth Radio in Ethiopia

Like a Bell that Calls: Participatory Youth Radio in Ethiopia

By: jesikah maria ross and Esther Obdam
Published: December 11, 2008
Category: Perspectives

Left: jesikah maria ross, Right: Esther Obdam

Here’s a youth media challenge: create participatory youth radio in a country where the government controls the media and cultural norms discourage youth self-expression.

Most youth media projects we’ve been involved with include a cast of characters—media educators, organizational partners, community media outlets—who all fundamentally support the idea of young people using media as a tool to explore, analyze, and create change in their worlds. This wasn’t the case on our last project, where UNICEF Ethiopia asked us to create a participatory radio project which brought Youth Dialogue groups and professional radio producers together to create compelling youth-oriented radio programming dealing with sensitive social issues. This task was all the more challenging because we had to accomplish this in a country where community media channels don’t really exist and where media makers are concerned about making missteps, not helping young people gain access to the medium.

It is vital in countries like Ethiopia to nurture relationships with media gatekeepers. It’s these relationships that result in young people gaining greater access to larger platforms, carving out a space for youth-produced radio on state-run channels country where young people are expected to do as they are told. This requires building rapport with adult media partners and finding creative ways to overcome their reluctance of letting go of ingrained production norms and control over the end result. In this article, we share the lessons we learned about building youth-adult media collaborations in a difficult environment in hopes that it will inform youth media educators how to open a channel with media professionals and gatekeepers in the U.S.

full article

OPPORTUNITIES: Youth essay contest to award cash prizes, publication

Youth essay contest to award cash prizes, publication

Posted on: 10/12/2008 Young Journalists Deadline: 01/03/2009 Region: Worldwide

Students and young professionals ages 18-30 are invited to enter a youth essay competition that encourages youth around the world to get involved in a global civic discussion on issues that concern them.

The contest, being sponsored by the U.S.-based Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), features three general topics: Citizenship in a Democratic Society, Educational Reform and Employment Opportunities, and Entrepreneurship & Leadership.

Essays should be 2,000-4,000 words in length and must be submitted by March 1, 2009. CIPE is offering a US$1,000 honorarium for the winners, and will publish the top three winning essays via its Economic Reform Feature Service, which is distributed to more than 3,000 subscribers.

Visit www.cipe.org/essay for more information. For questions, e-mail essay@cipe.org.

Source

OPPORTUNITIES / PHOTO: Deadline Extended for the Chachipe Youth Photo Contest

Deadline Extended for the Chachipe Youth Photo Contest

The deadline for entering photos in the Chachipe Youth contest has been extended to January 31, 2009.

What is Chachipe Youth?

The Open Society Institute (OSI) and OSA Archivum announce Chachipe Youth, an international photography contest for young people between the ages of 12 and 25. The contest is a sequel to the successful Chachipe contest held in 2007. (Chachipe means truth, reality or right in Romanes.)

Chachipe Youth invites young people to use photography to present how they see Roma and their lives. The contest has three categories: “My Street, My Neighborhood,” "My Colorful Life," and "What Is Wrong?" An international jury will award a prize of EUR 1,000 to the winners in three age-groups—12 to 15 years old, 16 to 19 years old, and 20 to 25 years old—within each of these categories.

Photos submitted for the contest must have been taken since the beginning of 2005 in one or more of the countries participating in the Decade of Roma Inclusion (http://www.romadecade.org): Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Spain

Chachipe Youth is an online photo contest. Digital photos can be submitted at http://photo.romadecade.org, where detailed contest conditions are available, from October 30, 2008 through January 31, 2009. The announcement of contest results is expected in spring 2009.

A selection of the best photos submitted to the Chachipe Youth contest will be displayed in an exhibition hosted by Centralis Galeria in Budapest in early 2009. OSI and OSA Archivum also plan to exhibit this selection of photographs in other Decade countries during 2009.

More information:

Jusztin Melinda. E-mail: photo@romadecade.org. Tel.: +36-30-250-2635

Marta Jombach. E-mail: photopress@romadecade.org. Tel: +36-1-235-6161

ARTICLES: Research and Markets: UK Kids and Teens: Hyperconnected Youth Analyzes The Behavior Of Users Who Are Growing Up In A Fast-Moving World Of Instant Communications

Research and Markets: UK Kids and Teens: Hyperconnected Youth Analyzes The Behavior Of Users Who Are Growing Up In A Fast-Moving World Of Instant Communications

DUBLIN, Ireland, Dec 04, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Research and Markets ( http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/69eafc/uk_kids_and_teens) has announced the addition of eMarketer's new report "UK Kids and Teens: Hyperconnected Youth" to their offering.

Kids and teens in the UK are developing complex media habits, shifting rapidly among different channels and multiple devices. In order to reach them, marketers cannot rely on simple, old-style media plans and traditional platforms.

The UK Kids and Teens report analyzes the behavior of users who are growing up in a fast-moving world of instant communications that their parents once only dreamed about.
Amazingly, most UK children are online.

The Office of Communications (Ofcom) found that 65% of kids ages 8 to 11 had Internet access at home in 2007. Among children ages 12 to 15, the percentage rose to 75%.

full article

NEWS / EVENTS: UNESCO taps media to bolster youth policy (LEBANON)

UNESCO taps media to bolster youth policy

BEIRUT: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) office in Beirut invited the Lebanese press on Friday to a workshop on formulating national youth policy. The workshop, entitled "Role of the Media in the Nation Youth Policy Formulation in Lebanon" and held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Beirut, was to sensitize the media on "the importance of having a national youth policy," said program coordinator of the project Rindala Abdel-Baki.

"The media is critical in highlighting the importance of national youth policy," said Abdel-Baki. "Without the media, this project will remain weak."

Participants were encouraged to suggest measures the Lebanese media could adopt to enhance the visibility of youth-policy formulation and enhance the participation of concerned stakeholders.

full article

OPPORTUNITIES: Producers invited to create children's TV programs to strengthen cultural diversity

Producers invited to create children's TV programs to strengthen cultural diversity

Posted on: 12/12/2008 Children, Television Region: Asia and the Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa

Children's TV progam producers from Asia, Africa and the Arab world are invited to take part in the second round of production of short program series for children that aim to strengthen cultural diversity and create a better understanding among children about various cultures and school of thoughts.

The first round of the program, which is called "I Am ... ," produced 14 short TV programs that show how children view topics such as religion, family, and pollution, according to the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD), one of the sponsors.

AIBD, along with the Southern African Broadcasting Association (SABU) and the Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU), recently announced the 2009 project.

It will begin in 2009 with workshops on children's TV program production; three workshops will be organized in parallel in Johannesburg, Tunis and Kuala Lumpur.

With the support of two senior Executive Producers, the 40 participating producers will each produce their own programs.

For more information and to apply, visit http://www.aibd.org.my/homepage/article.cgi/284.html or contact Juliette Vivier at juliette@aibd.org.my.

Source

NEWS: What can parents do to counter the negative influences of media on today's youth?

What can parents do to counter the negative influences of media on
today's youth?

Quotes from parents here:
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=423537

EVENTS: Bush Radio Hosts 9th Annual Media Kidocracy Konfrence (SOUTH AFRICA)

Cape Town Friday, December 5, 2008  Bush Radio Hosts 9th Annual Media Kidocracy Konfrence  Bush Radio will host the 9th annual Media Kidocracy Konfrence (MKK) from December 8 through December 12, 2008, at St. Agnes Primary School in Woodstock. Young people between the ages of 12 and 18 will explore issues that are pertinent to themselves and their peers, as well as use different forms of media to develop a media campaign that will create social awareness.  Topics will include freedom of expression, child sexual exploitation, HIV and AIDS, the social identity of “mixed-cultures”, how gender is made, and global warming.  Following the success of MKK 2007, the project planning committee for Bush Radio’s CREW (Children’s Radio Education Workshop) began to work on content for this year’s conference.   >From the discussions with CREW facilitators and conference delegates, a few important issues were raised that they felt needed to be included in MKK, in particular global warming and how youth could be part of the solution. Another hot topic was the discussion around cultural and religious perceptions as it related to gender, and at what point "gender is made".   The issue of HIV and AIDS was also high on the list but at MKK 2008, they want to focus on how far the continent and world has come in providing solutions to the pandemic. Their aim is to highlight the success stories of individuals willing to share their stories through media, and their rationale: "If she/he can do it, so can I."   The final issue discussed was freedom of expression as a fundamental human right. They decided to explore how media freedom and access to information feeds into the wider development of empowering people, as well as the access young people have when it comes to media and information.  Another development that came out of these discussions is the need to broaden the reach of their message by including other forms of media, such as dance, graffiti and photography.  ----ends---  Visual and interview opportunities:  A) MKK opening ceremony – Monday, 8 December 2008 @ 10h00 – 12h00   B) The delegates will be doing production workshops from Wednesday, 10th December and these will be a good opportunity to get more visuals and interviews.  Themes and Content workshops are broken down as follows (medium used indicated in brackets):  1. Human Rights - Freedom of Expression - (Dance)  2. Labor - Child sexual exploitation – (Online)  3. Health - HIV and AIDS – (TV)  4. Arts and Culture - The Social Identity of ‘Mixed Cultures’ – (Photography)  5. Gender - How is Gender Made? – (Radio)  6. Environment - Global Warming – (Graffiti)  * For more information or media accreditation to the event contact: Adrian Louw Bush Radio Programme Integrator Tel: 021 448 5450 and cell: 082 3311 889 e-mail: adrian@bushradio.co.za     Background on MKK As part of a growing need for youth participation in the decision-making process and policy formulation around children's broadcasting, Bush Radio initiated a conference which would tackle these issues and also feed into this debate. The Kidocracy (Kid-democracy) name was created for the event to denote a form of society characterised by social equality and acceptance of young people with representation for and by young people.  The Media Kidocracy Konference aims to establish critical awareness and understandings among young people by exposing young people to information and experiences that will enable them to identify issues they feel are relevant, as well as explore the role of the media in creating an understanding of the social issue. MKK also assists participants in devising strategies for addressing the social issues by using the media as a tool to help resolve and address these issues.  Examples of previous MKK products:  http://www.mkk2007.blogspot.com/  http://www.zoopy.com/video/fi4/mkk-2007-tv-psa-culture  http://www.zoopy.com/video/fi5/bush-radio-mkk-tv-psa-global-warming   ------------------------------------------------------------------   Listen online: http://196.36.153.121/bushradio/bushradio_popup.htm   Join the Bush Radio facebook group: www.facebook.com   For news log onto: www.bushradionews.blogspot.com   Send us comments on our programming: feedback@bushradio.co.za    

RESEARCH / NEWS: Media exposure of children linked to obesity, tobacco use: study

Media exposure of children linked to obesity, tobacco use: study

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Greater exposure of children and teenagers to television, music, movies and other media is linked to obesity, tobacco use and other negative health issues, according to a study published on Tuesday.

"The results clearly show that there is a strong correlation between media exposure and long-term negative health effects to children," said Ezekiel Emanuel of the National Institutes of Health, lead researcher on the study.

The study, "Media and Child and Adolescent Health: A Systematic Review," was done by the Yale University School of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, and California Pacific Medical Center and published by Common Sense Media.

It looked at the best studies on media and health from the last 28 years, a total of 173 in all, and found that 80 percent of them showed that greater media exposure led to negative health effects in children and adolescents.

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EVENTS: UNICEF UK Youth Voice Roadshow (UK)

UNICEF UK Youth Voice Roadshow

Next event: Saturday 6 December 2008 - Norwich, UK

Every year UNICEF UK Youth Voice gets on the road - we travel all over the UK to give you the chance to find out about the big issues for young people around the world - and how you can make a difference.

This year we’re in Milton Keynes and Norwich. Youth Voice Roadshows are fun, free, one-day events, organised and run for young people and by young people! Click on the hotspots below for info on this year’s events and to see photos and videos from previous years.

More info

ARTICLES: The mobile internet -,children's use of the internet on handheld devices

The mobile internet - children's use of the internet on handheld devices

Design will always be subverted. That is the way that humanity and its technologies progress, if we are to accept this particularly dialectical theory.

When we consider the mobile phone, the phenomenon of "happy slapping" is a direct result of the incorporation of a digital camera into telephones. The technology is not at fault although making it available to at best unaware and at worst nasty individuals may well be somebody's fault, the parents' perhaps. The dilemma of the availability of technology is a part of a long standing debate which opposes freedom and accountability.

We have argued before that to enjoy the freedom afforded by technology we need to be informed and held responsible for our actions.

full article

RESEARCH / NEWS: Most extensive study of youth media use published

Most extensive study of youth media use published

Over three years, University of California, Irvine researcher Mizuko Ito and her team interviewed over 800 youth and young adults and conducted over 5000 hours of online observations as part of the most extensive U.S. study of youth media use.

They found that social network and video-sharing sites, online games, and gadgets such as iPods and mobile phones are now fixtures of youth culture. The research shows that today’s youth may be coming of age and struggling for autonomy and identity amid new worlds for communication, friendship, play, and self-expression.

Many adults worry that children are wasting time online, texting, or playing video games. The researchers explain why youth find these activities compelling and important. The digital world is creating new opportunities for youth to grapple with social norms, explore interests, develop technical skills, and experiment with new forms of self-expression. These activities have captured teens’ attention because they provide avenues for extending social worlds, self-directed learning, and independence.

source

more about the study

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: SLUM-TV

With our project SLUM-TV, we launched a competition. The price is a 10 day stay, "all inclusive" in one of the largest African Slum, Mathare, where our project is also based. Interested participants, shall react on our video, which you can find:  http://www.slum-tv.info/?p=145

Deadline is the 21st of Feb 09, and calculating that the postal delivery can need few days, i advise you to submit as early as possible.

snail mail address:

SLUM-TV
c/o sam hopkins (slum tv)
po box 16526
Muthaiga, Nairobi
Kenya

Entries should not be longer than 3.minutes and licenced under following conditions: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
The entries will be also published in a suitable resolution on the web.

The winner will be chosen by our team members, and the project "Mathare - Safari" realised in Summer 2009

for questions: competition@slum-tv.org