Media Literacy in Europe and New Media Foundation

Media Literacy in Europe and New Media Foundation

Media literacy is the ability to access the media, to understand and critically evaluate different aspects of the media and media contents, and to create communications in a variety of contexts. In short, to be “media literate” means to be able to exercise critical understanding over the choices of products, services, information and entertainment content available, and to be able to respond, comment or complain.

“Citizens are being talked to all the time but can they talk back? If they can use the media in a competent and creative way we would take a step towards a new generation of democratic participation” said EU Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding in August 2009.

The New Media Foundation is a Poland-based, non-profit organisation with a strong track record in delivering sophisticated and effective media literacy education programmes for youth in Central and Eastern Europe. Our projects focus mainly on high school and university students. We also organise workshops and provide advice for teachers interested in developing new media training modules in their schools.

We teach young people to:

• Understand how and why media content is produced, and the technological, legal, economic and political contexts for this;
• Analyse critically the techniques, languages and conventions used by the media, and the messages they convey;
• Use media creatively to express and communicate ideas, information and opinions;
• Identify and avoid or challenge, media content and services, that may be unsolicited, offensive or harmful;
• Make effective use of media in the exercise of their democratic rights and civic responsibilities.

Youth Multimedia in Action Project

The New Media Foundation started its first Youth Multimedia in Action Project (YUMiA) finally in January 2010 (after the finalizing beta phase of the project). Apart from Poland, the project has been also introduced successfully in the Ukraine (ranked 131st out of 174 countries in the Press Freedom Index) and Belarus (ranked 154th). In each of these countries, the foundation co-operates closely with local media experts and adjusts its programme according to specific regional requirements and needs as well as current political situation.

The success of the YUMiA is based on the unique software designed especially for The New Media Foundation by a leading Polish IT company. With the minimum amount of intervention from the experts, this multimedia interactive software allows young people create their own newspapers (net-zins) online.

After an initial training, the YUMiA’s participants are able not only to work in their own virtual editing rooms where each of them performs a specific function corresponding to the ones existing in real newspapers. They can also enter into partnership with other similar virtual editing offices, either in the same country or somewhere else in the world thus expanding their knowledge of various cultures and communities, and increasing outreach of their e-publications.

Up to now, the foundation has trained 17,000 students and 1,200 teachers in Poland, and over 1,000 students and 80 teachers in the Ukraine and Belarus. It has also provided both IT and editorial support to 2,200 digital editing rooms that by now have produced 1,300 net-zins. Next 1,600 net-zins are being prepared for e-circulation at present.

Currently, our software is available in three languages: Polish, Ukrainian and Belorussian. In 2011, the foundation is planning to add further languages to its portfolio.