(WORLD) More evidence that the world is changing for MediaSnackers everywhere from these recent articles:
• young people using Bebo to become activists;
• if you have a mobile phone you can now launch you own TV channel;
• MySpace is getting into documentaries;
• get academic credits from watching YouTube;
• you no longer have to attend a film festival to attend a film festival.
(WORLD) MediaSnackers has a simple focus: how young people consume and create media across the globe.
There are a vast amount weblogs, organisations and businesses out there focussing on this topic; some just on the technology aspect, several around the education arena, numerous on the marketing subject and others on new media platforms—but one HUGE constant keeps repeating for us:
You can't explore the impact of new media and technology on young people without exploring the impact of young people on new media and technology (and vice versa and so on and so forth).
In the 1950s a programme called Winky Dinky and You invited young people to participate in their show by using acetate and drawing the characters off the television screens. Over half a century later we have a generation interacting, creating, producing, owning, sharing, influencing all forms of media through the pervasive technology and devices they own or have access to.
We have also reached an unparalleled level of information and media in our society. Advertising has become more directive, aggresive and also ubiquitous. It's essential to challenge and ascertain any harm the media having on young people and ask those questions regarding responsibility.
Is it about technology, access, psychology or a deeper paradigm shift in empowerment and creativity?
There is a kick-ass quote from a young person in the Circuits of Cool research by Microsoft/MTV 2007 which goes:
My mates are my media.
Wow!
In our training, speaking and consulting gigs we share fantastic stories about young people creating and using new media and technology in a pro-social context—illustrative case studies which got no or extremely little mainstream media coverage. We also educate our clients and the young people we work with on how to define their media menu and of course create their own (plus how to share and disseminate it).
This new media climate brings about a new set of questions relating to who has the greatest capacity, reach, impact etc.—the young people or the media?
The answer(s) keep changing along with the evolving mediascape but we have the passion and enthusiasm to keep asking the question. More importantly the understanding to explore how the media is shaping the youth of today whilst exploring how youth are shaping media.
MediaSnackers is currently working on a project which brings these all too often separate discussions together.
(GBR) At the beginning of the week MediaSnackers delivered a keynote presentation at the South East Youth Partnership AGM in Guildford. The partnership comprises of all the 19 Local Authority Statutory Youth Services and Councils for Voluntary Youth Services and the theme for the AGM was Communication.
We met some great people and would like to thank them all for their hospitality and warm comments:
DK presented to the South East Youth Partnership AGM and turned it from a meeting into an event. He was challenging, thought provoking and his enthusiasm was contagious. We are now all aware of how much we did not know. The room was buzzing with ideas these managers were going to take back to their work place and their workers to improve and facilitate the conversations with young people.
This was one presentation that really will make a difference.
Hilary Lewis, Chief Executive, South East Youth Partnership
The MediaSnackers monthly vodcast is a fifteen minute shot (more or less) of yummy-youth-media-goodness. Featuring content made, produced or focussed on young people and media from around the globe.
Featuring: Gasan Gasanov, theoneminutesjr.org; How To Subscribe; MediaSnackers News; A Child’s War trailer by Global Kids Inc; Mount Summer Staff by Dan Meyer; music by The Melodica, the Melody and Me.
Special thanks to Chris Taylor for INC 2007 pics.
Subscribe directly to these podcasts through iTunes by clicking the ‘subscribe’ icon opposite (download iTunes for free here).
Not using iTunes? Then just copy / paste this feed and drop it into your podcast aggregating software.
If you have any short video content (under two-mins) relating to youth media projects, are involved in any aspects of youth media or are a young person producing digital content (audio/visual) and want to discuss submitting pieces for consideration, please get in touch.
(GBR) One of our favourite mantras we throw around in our training is: follow the digital breadcrumbs.
If you find a weblog you like click through the blogroll, if you find someone bookmarking the same site you have check out the rest of their links etc. Here's a real life example:
MediaSnackers is on Twitter. We got an email this morning that someone new is following us. We checked out their twitter page and clicked through to their weblog to discover their role as the instructional technology facilitator for Lee County Schools, in North Carolina, USA.
After some more clicking and reading we found out some amazing examples of teachers using wikis, sending newsletters out via SlideShare plus a great post with a huge list of resources (most of which we haven't heard of before).
Follow the digital breadcrumbs folks and you never know what pearls you will find.
(SPA) It’s our turn. We did a short presentation to provide context to the session, illustrating how the world has changed for young people and new media and technology.
We were then joined on stage by a group of young people from the American School in Barcelona to discuss their media habits. Here’s the questions we talked around:
Media habits:
Media device ownership:
Media attitudes:
Many thanks to Krizsta, Eric and Marta for enabling the session to happen and special thanks to: Abel, Loreto, Marc, Maria, Maria, Narcis, Nuria and Stefano—you guys ruled!
We tasked DK and MediaSnackers with developing a panel to challenge the thinking of your average adult marketing executive at our annual conference. DK brought in a panel of teens from an international high school and quizzed them on how they use new media—what media they use and why it is important to them—as well as checked their usage of so-called conventional media such as “linear” video.
The session and panel was just what our conference needed. Most attendees were taken aback at the priorities that these students assigned to their media devices and just how critical they were to their lives. DK expertly led the audience through a series of questions to test just how in touch our marketing executives are with today’s trends. Matching the audience’s response against the students was a lesson in how much more we need to learn about the coming consumer.
Dennis Hodges, Vice President Marketing, Sales and Content Strategy, UPC Central Europe Group and Past Chairman, CTAM Europe
(GBR) Make Your Mark have a great tagline of "inspiring young people to make their ideas happen."
MediaSnackers were honoured to deliver our youth professionals training for some of their staff a few days ago and here's a short film review.
Music Featured: Out While You Can by Ceri Collins
It's a big commitment for people to take two days out of their busy working lives for training; and to get comments back like "this was the best training I've ever had" just shows how much of a success the MediaSnackers training was. It worked because the Make Your Mark people spend their time connecting with and inspiring young people to be creative and learning how to harness social media to that goal has made a real difference to the success they feel they can have. Also, the training by DK and Mark was entertaining, thought-provoking, relevant and, most importantly, accessible to all levels and skill sets of the group. The impact is being felt already with real results coming in from the team at Make Your Mark. I couldn't recommend it more.
Bronwyn Kunhardt, Co-Founder, Polecat Ltd. (Make Your Mark affiliate)
Related posts: Make Your Mark Part One, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six.
(WORLD) We probably weren't the first to apply the 'snacking' metaphor to media, although there seems to be a growing adoption in terms of describing the new youth-media landscape—we thought it would be good to keep an eye on the growing MediaSnacking meme:
The iPod touch might be getting all the attention right now, but the video-enabled nano is the device that best suits our "media-snacking" lifestyle.
A PC mag article discussing how the technology now comes in bite-size like the media it plays.
Four trends: digitalization, convergence, media snacking and social networking were analyzed. These areas built the hub of Wardle's message, which was insightful and set the bar very high for a day of PR education that will continue throughout the day.
Exploring the future of PR by Vice President of Public Relations for Walt Disney World.
One Word Equity's site explains that it is a survival tactic for marketers looking to break through rising clutter and connect with "digital natives"—those pesky new consumers under the age of 30 who are so wrapped up in multitasking and social media and media snacking that they can't even make the time to pay attention to our advertising.
Greg Verdino exploring a new advertising strategy.
(GBR) Here's a short film review of the time we spent at London Gifted and Talented this week delivering our youth professionals training—thanks again guys!
Music by The Melodica, the Melody and Me
Rather than just talking about technology MediaSnackers' came storming into LGT and made us get on with it! The best way to learn! MS training exceeded expectations for a group of techie and non-techie staff and gave us all a fascinating insight into other web applications and the world out there that we had almost forgotten about! Thanks for bringing the outside world back in and for entertaining us!
Fiona Cleary, Director of Production, London Gifted and Talented
Related post: London Gifted and Talented: Part One
(NLD) MediaSnackers says goodbye to Amsterdam after attending and speaking at this years IBC conference—many thanks for the invite guys.
DK is enthusiastic and knowledgeable about youth-video-online, a compelling cocktail. He presented well at amsterdam at ibc to a mixed crowd and managed to engage them both with slides and his powerful words. Very good value.
Kate Bulkley, Independent Journalist
Here's a brief write up of the Are You Being YouTubed? session we spoke at:
MediaSnackers was first up, giving an overview of how young people are using new media and technology, plus how the whole media landscape has changed drastically. A few videos and screenshots served their purpose of underlining the fact that young people are producers, creators and participants.
Next up was Jon Godel, Editor for ITN On—user generated content (UGC) enable news coverage of events which simply the current operations cannot cover. Bascially, people are everywhere and journalists are not. ITN Uploaded has been part of the news since July 07 and is a multi-platformed innovation to augment mainstream news offering. Built around a group of citizen correspondents which brings in the usual marginalized comments and feedback.
Then James DuBern, Director of Programming for Current TV (UK)—talked about how viewer generated content is the backbone of the channel. Since its launch 2 years ago, they are currently reaching 50 million homes and focus on short format, 100% non-fiction. They look to add value through editorial and creative support for those 'pods' which get chosen for broadcast (a process known as 'greenlighting').
Thanks again to Kate Bulkley for chairing the session and for inviting MediaSnackers to participate in the first place. Thanks also to Jon and James (see below) for being so open and hospitable and great speaking fellows.
Reproduced by kind permission of Chris Taylor.
Check out the online write-up by session chair, Kate Bulkley.
Related posts: Amster-DAMN
