Creative and Risky!? - Youth media work symposium

Children and adolescents are particularly interested in dealing with new media. Social networks, chats, mobile media and video platforms are part of their everyday life. Youth media work is required to accompany children and young people in their current media-shaped life-world. EMA Field Reporter, Amaranta Alfaro Muirhead, has joined the symposium “Creative and Risky!?” concerned with the risks and creative possibilities that new media offers to the younger generations, in Bielefeld-Germany.

New media such as mobile phones, iPods and especially the Web 2.0 with its social networks and video platforms are changing the culture of youth communication. Therefore it is necessary to minimize the risks and encourage the creative and cultural practices that these new media offers children and adolescents. In the symposium “Creative and Risky!?” held in Bielefeld on 1st June 2010, German experts and current actors discussed the opportunities and threats of youth media use, talking about active methods and concepts in media work.
Prof. Dr. Franz Josef Röll from the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, exposed in his presentation that the needs of present youth have not changed compared to previous generations. One of the central concepts that have survived is the desire for self-validation and the need to make a difference. In this sense it is a challenge for the media-use-oriented media educators to take into consideration the authentic need of young people and at the same time the changing youth communication and culture. Using several examples from the active media work, he demonstrated concepts which are particularly suited to the reaction to this challenge.
Gerda Sieben, of the JFC Media Centre of Cologne, focused on successful concepts of youth media work, trying to answer questions such as: What is a good media project today? Do we as professional educators respond appropriately to cultural, sociological or media-technology innovations? What do kids and juvenile want to learn in relation to media? Which ways of working have been proven in recent years? She provided examples based on current media-educational trends where the practice is asked to shown inspiring ideas, good basic conditions and useful criteria for the determination of "success" in youth media work.
In the talk “Cultural practices of young people with the Net” many current actors participate, such as H.W. Bahr from the Child Protection Office of Bielefeld, who stated that the media work should be a democratic process which involves the young people, to approach what is really important for them. Marco de Luca, from the Child Protection Office of Paderborn, told about the experience of the Paderborn project. Meanwhile Gerda Sieben of the JFC Media Centre of Cologne, emphasized the importance of the qualification of the employees in such media education projects and also pointed out the lack of structure and resources for such projects. Katja Engelberg, from the Ministry of Generations, Family, Women and Integration of North Rhine Westphalia, stated that the cooperation, although is hard to get and implies other issues, must continue and be encouraged.
Heiko Walter, of the JFC Media Centre of Cologne, talked at length about his project “Digital and Outdoor” in the Workshop with the same name. The project is an outdoor adventure with media pedagogical aspects, where the kids (9+ years old) have to follow clues and accomplish tasks with the help of digital devises such as mobile phones, GPS, laptop, and digital cameras. This adventure has also social aspects underneath the digital media approach. The aim of that project is to discover the power of teamwork by using different possibilities of digital communication.   
The event was closed with the lecture “Check the web - Offers for the youth aid in the net” by Heiko Wichelhaus from Checked4U and Jürgen Ertelt from Netzcheckers (Bonn). Both presented their projects: Checked4U an online magazine for young people which deals with topics relevant to consumers; and Netzcheckers partner portals about new ways for the youth and media work, which offer information about user technology, and also professional exchange and training.
The symposium infer that the new media technology offer the younger generations many opportunities, some of them involve risks but other are creative, and these last ones should be encouraged. As one can see, there are no recipes, but some "ingredients" from where the discussion and reflection can start.

Links for more info:
•    http://www.gmk-net.de/index.php?id=65&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=98&cHash=6c88abbdf3
•    http://digitalunddraussen.de/
•    http://www.gpsies.com/
•    http://www.opencaching.de/
•    http://www.checked4you.de/
•    http://www.netzcheckers.net/
•    http://www.mediennetz-hamburg.de/dateien/Vorschau_kreativ_und_riskant.pdf

Amaranta Alfaro Muirhead
European Master of Arts in Media, Communication and Cultural Studies (COMUNDUS)