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Ideas: Exploring and Mapping Best Practices and Lessons Learned in Youth Media and Digital Arts Programs

by Kathleen Tyner & William Bronston, MD

A growing awareness of youth production in the media and digital arts results in a closer look at promising practices and challenges in the emerging field. Practitioners tout the value of youth media production as a strategy for increased literacy, learning, creative expression, youth development, interconnectivity, career pathways, civic engagement, service and influence. Many of the challenges we face are common to new fields of study. These include field-building challenges related to identity, sustainability and distribution, many of which are unique to the youth media field. These include the relative importance of:

• media end products vs. the production process,

• a need for educational design for both informal and formal learning environments,

• the steep learning curve and rapid change in tools for digital production,

• the emphasis on alphabetic literacy in education,

• relevance to success in the world of work and careers, and ultimately,

• having creative and political influence on the community and world around us.

In addition, best practices must be drawn from and connect work in a wide range of audio and visual media, including radio, video, print, film, and digital media. Educational and vocational strategies for production and distribution play out differently for each medium.

Although much more research is needed, evidence of success is emerging to inform the practice of youth media pioneers and workers in the field. Youth media advocates are becoming more aware that building a reliable research base is essential as the field builds a cohesive identity, professionalizes its practices, matures and grows. Youth media programs from coast-to-coast increasingly are adding a research and evaluation component to their work. Grass roots media arts and technology consortia are developing, such as the Community Technology Center Network (www.ctcnet.org), ListenUp! Network (www.listenup.org) and the National Alliance of Media Arts and Culture (www.namac.org). These also contribute to a growing knowledge network of youth media programs and practices. Finally, evidence of best practices and lessons learned in the field of youth media is beginning to surface from individual scholars and practitioners (Goodman, 2003; Lambert, 2002; Sefton-Greene & Sinker, 1999). Evaluation and research was seen as a central component for field building and NAMAC published A Closer Look 2003, a journal of qualitative case studies and a quantitative poll of youth media organizations in the United States (Tyner, 2004).

Much more work must be done to collect, understand and apply solid evidence of best practices that can be generalized and shared widely with school and community based organizers in the field! Although conclusions are still tentative, the following briefly identify the heart of a growing knowledge base for breakthrough program design and practices.

6/1/04

Promising Practices and Supports in the Youth Media Field

1. Youth media programs demonstrate the benefit of experiential learning. Although most programs maintain a balance between media analysis and practice, youth media programs are more likely to place an emphasis on hands-on production over more cognitive approaches, e.g., critical viewing. In a curriculum driven by standardized test preparation, hands-on work presents a refreshing opportunity for students to demonstrate their learning in diverse ways.
2. Youth media is youth-centered and apprentices a new generation for community leadership. Many youth media programs have found value in a student-centered, collaborative learning process that takes advantage of peer-to-peer education. The media arts are particularly student-centered in their approach, as they take advantage of existing student interest, knowledge, and skill in both the analysis and uses of a wide range of media and pop culture artifacts. Non-profit youth media organizations also have found value in mentoring future leaders by authentically involving youth as board members, program administrators and evaluators.
3. Formal and informal educators work together to enrich the learning environment. Credentialed teachers in public school settings and informal educators in community-based settings have different cultures, skill sets, and bureaucratic contexts. However, both share the goal of youth development and learning. Formal and informal educators who engage in cross-training opportunities can collaborate to marry their specialized knowledge, skill and teaching approaches for success in a wide range of learning environments.
4. The media arts enhance learning across the curriculum. Research has shown the integration of the arts, in general, to be an effective way to learn a wide range of subjects. In particular, the arts accommodate a diverse range of learning styles. (Champions of Change, 1999). Youth media acknowledges that students live in a digital world and contributes to student interest and achievement across the curriculum.
5. Work in the media arts contributes to youth development. Through mastery of creative work in the media arts, youth media practitioners report gains in youth’s attitudes, confidence, self-esteem, creativity, and interest in both academic and community-based work. As part of the production process, youth learn deeply about topics related to health, life skills, interpersonal relationships, and healthy choices. Youth media’s creative activities combine flexibility and high expectations that can contribute to a healthy and safe environment for youth.
6. Youth media presents a vocational option for youth people. Anecdotal data from youth media providers indicate that some youth who apprentice in media arts programs have gone on to choose media and communications careers or fields of study. Others report that although some may not choose to work in media, their youth media experience helps them to better understand, enjoy and interpret the media products that they use throughout their lives.
7. The media arts encourage community engagement and active citizenship. The media arts allow youth to nurture, refine and broadcast their voices to a broader public. In the process, they are able to use a wider range of media to strategically and effectively address issues of concern to their communities and to engage others in constructive dialogues that are the basis for problem-solving. Practitioners report that the authentic voices of youth can also serve to counter the negative stereotypes of young people, often found in mainstream media. Media making can engage and apprentice youth to become active and engaged citizens in their communities, a fundamental building block for participation in democratic societies.
8. Strong, strategic partnerships can sustain programs. Cases of school-university-community partnerships demonstrate the power of partnerships for development, sustainability and dissemination of promising practices in youth media. The more formal, mature organizations bring important development and organizational leadership to the table. The youth media partners bring energy, fresh ideas, and new leadership that can revitalize and change both organizations for the better.
9. Networks of youth media advocates and producers contribute to growth and sustainability. Affinity groups for both youth and adult youth media practitioners have been found to have a positive influence on youth media programs’ development. Through sharing and problem-solving, networks can provide strength, sustainability and solace as youth media organizations professionalize and grow.
10. Evaluation data provides direction and credibility. Each program must integrate evaluation according to their capacity. Those who have implemented evaluation plans report that evaluation helps them to respond to stakeholders, improve their program, and lobby for its continued acceptance within larger organizational structures. Some programs begin with internal evaluation, others hire third-party researchers. Still others work to enlist youth as co-evaluators. The come to realize that evaluation is a tool that helps them to realize their missions as it improves responsiveness and service to their communities.

Challenges and Lessons Learned in the Youth Media Field

1. Youth media organizations have a diverse range of aims and purposes. Youth media practitioners hope to accomplish increased youth development, academic achievement, creative self-expression in the arts, and social change. Some place more emphasis on one category over another. The diverse missions reported by youth media advocates can be difficult to reconcile and too often stretch organizations beyond their capacity to deliver quality service. Competing aims and purposes are common in emerging fields, however they must be resolved if youth media is to present a coherent identity to a wider public of potential supporters
2. Youth media products and programs encompass a wide range of media. Although youth media organizations have many common processes for engaging youth in media production, there are differences in practice between radio, video, print and digital media. Moreover, a long-range strategy for general distribution of youth work is different for each medium, thus contributing to further “Balkanization” of the field. Effective strategies for distribution can most effectively be created by affinity groups along the lines of each medium. The challenge is to identify best practices that cut across and can be transferred across youth media programs, regardless of medium.
3. There is a tricky balance between process and product in youth media programs. As organizations vie for increased visibility for youth media products through distribution, they are confronted with issues of quality and content. Some organizations, especially those under a corporate media umbrella, are committed to “broadcast quality” products under real-time deadlines. Others youth media programs are more committed to youth development and learning issues that allow production to take place under more leisurely constraints. Both types of programs find themselves balancing the needs of youth for nurturing and development through the production process with the need to produce an end product that is satisfactory to its producers and audiences.
4. The digital arts learning curve is steep. Practitioners have found that continued staff development is a pressing issue for youth media program administrators. Students also must have time on task to master the digital software and hardware needed for an effective and satisfying youth media program. In addition, hardware and software must be maintained and upgraded periodically, creating budgetary strain.
5. Schooling prioritizes alphabetic literacy over other forms. No one would argue that reading and writing are not important to contemporary society. But in a digital world, viewing and representing a diverse range of media forms are equally important if students are to participate fully in society and improve their life opportunities. More integration of digital and media arts across the curriculum expands the definitions of literacy while accomplishing the same vision of a literate society.
6. There is tension between informal and formal learning environments. Media and digital arts are still associated with the kind of pop culture more often enjoyed at home and in community-based spaces. In addition, community-based non-profit groups have demonstrated the most innovative youth media programs. Although this is changing, more collaboration between artists, teachers and informal educators has potential for revitalizing moribund school environments. In order to effectively integrate informal and formal learning environments, more cross-training is necessary so that teachers can build skill and knowledge in the media arts and artists can better understand the needs of teachers and students in a standards-based, standardized testing environment.
7. Sustainability means more than fundraising. Youth media programs find themselves in the position of capacity-building while providing service to a growing number of clients. Although they know that organizational fundamentals such as professional development of staff, community outreach, social marketing, distribution and strategic planning are essential to growth, diverting resources from direct service to organizational development is difficult to do in the current funding environment.
8. Nonetheless, these tasks are more likely to result in funding in the long run, then are more targeted, short-term development activities. Some organizations have managed to sustain and develop by leveraging their activities, forming strategic partnerships, and building reserves for organizational development activities. However, much more technical assistance is needed in the field to help youth media programs balance direct service and organizational development in a way that positions their organizations for growth.

References:

Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning (1999). Washington, DC: Arts Education Partnership. http://www.aep-arts.org/Champions.html

Goodman, Steven. (2003). Teaching Youth Media: A Critical Guide to Literacy, Video Production and Social Change. NY: Teachers College Press.

Lambert, Joe (2002). Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Communities. Berkeley, CA: Digital Diner Press.

Sefton-Green, Julian & Sinker, Rebecca (Eds.) (2000). Evaluating Creativity: Making and Learning by Youth People. London: Routledge.

Tyner, Kathleen (Ed.) (2004). A Closer Look 2003: Case Studies from NAMAC’s Youth Media Initiative. San Francisco, CA: National Alliance of Media Arts and Culture.

Kathleen Tyner is Assistant Professor at the University of Texas-Austin in the Radio-Television and Film Department. She leads the Youth Media Initiative of the National Alliance of Media Arts and Culture and is author of numerous books and articles about media education, including Literacy in a Digital World: Teaching and Learning in the Age of Information.