Which future in the relationship between young people and communication? The point of view of a video maker crew engaged in the International project on media and youth active participation “Citizen Kane”. |
CITIZEN KANE: Media and Youth Participation
European Commission – Youth Programme – International
Youth Exchange
Teramo, Abruzzo, Italy, 4 – 15 September 2003
The international Youth Exchange “CITIZEN KANE”: Media and
Youth Participation was the first experiment promoted by ARCI Chieti
and some international partners to realise a specific project on the
subject of the critical and conscious use of the media for an active
citizenship. Infact, as underlined in the “White book” of
the European Commission (November 2001), even if the young people represent
the natural element of development of the European identity as future
citizens, very often they live their relationship with media in a passive
way as simple users without beeing involved in the decisional processes
or without having the right back ground to actively participate to the
realisation.
The “fil rouge” of all the activites realised during the
exchange has been to go deep in the topic of the influence of the Media
in the daily life of the people and to identify fields of intervention
to promote active citizenship, especially among young people, inside
the complex world of the Media.
For these reasons, the objectives of the project have been linked to
the involvement of te young peopke in the Media let them growing their
capacity to actively participate in the society; to the development of
the consciousness of active citizenship among young people; to the comparison
of the influence by the Media in the different socieies and of the yout
communication ways; to learn how to use different media tools as way
to understand and to know our societies.
The most positive, central and dynamic aspect of the project has been
the realisation of four workshops (web, short movie, radio, magazine)
the took place in the same time in mixed multinational groups to develop
not only the sense of cooperation and the overthrow of prejudices (intercultural
education) but also an informal learning process. The methodology of
the workshops has been thought to stimulate the active involvement and
the free involvement of the participants. The workshops, infact, had
a tehoretical apporoach that gave to participants the possibility to
acquire basic knowledge on the use of the media tools and the potentiality
they could have.Furthermore, in the workshops participants had the possibility
to elaborate and to develop in a practical way their own ideas using
their creativity and the capacity of cooperation as tools to promote
the active citizenship. Each workshop had its own path based on the specific
media tool and had as context the relationship among the Media, the different
communication techniques and the youth active citizenship. All the contents
have been developed by the participants themselves (themes, techniques,
languages, editing, presentations, final results). The project tried
to realise several complex products (a web page, two short movies, a
radio format, an European magazine) that could represent both an opportunity
of consious work for the young participants and a good praxis to use
in the daily work by the partnership in the more inclusive topic of the
youth active citizenship.
Partnership
European Commission Youth Programme, University of Teramo Faculty of
Communication Science, ARCI n.a. Circolo Territoriale Chieti (Italy)
Fundatia InformaL (Romania), Gallus J. Carniolus (Slovenia), Maison
de Jeunes Le Hangar (Belgium), National Youth Plan of Catalunia (Spain),
Motyka (Poland)
