Youth Media Democracy; Perspectives on new media literacy
Document Type Report
Abstract
The conference ‘Youth Media Democracy’ was a two day event held in April of 2008. It set out to explore the effects that new media have on the younger generation with a focus on the tremendous opportunities that new media brings. The event had the ambitious aim to offer an integrated experience of a traditional academic conference, presenting recent research on topics like; new media; emerging literacies; the digital divide; new media as a platform for democracy in the lives of young people, and at the same time also engaging the participation of Youth through a series of workshops across different media platforms. This publication aims to present the ‘essence’ or ‘spirit’ of the conference and therefore, it is important to point out that it is not an exact representation of the proceedings as it unfolded. Due to the rather unconventional format of the event a mixture of reports, narratives and academic papers have been included. The chapters in the report includes information on the different stages of the youth portion of the conference; the perspective of the academic participant in the conference; a discussion around the emerging term of the ‘New Digital Divide’; the important role that the school plays in the development of new media literacy; how change is required to facilitate curricula to build on the natural interest of young people in using digital media; number of case studies from Ireland’s national broadcaster RTÉ; and children’s media in Africa in its global context.