Sticking With My Dreams:
Defining and Refining
Youth Media
in the 21st Century
Appendix: An Annotated List of
Programs[1]
February 2001
Alaska Native Youth Media Institute
Since 1992, the KBC Training Center has conducted weeklong
trainings in media production at the Alaska Native Youth Media Institute in
Anchorage, for Alaska Native junior and senior high students. The KBC Training
Center, including their professional development and other educational
components, and specifically the Alaska Native Youth Media Institute, is
dedicated to “increasing the number of Native people engaged in media
careers.” Since 1999, the emphasis of the Institute has been radio; 8-18
youth receive hands-on instruction in media writing, recording and producing
audio for radio broadcast and internet distribution, producing a radio feature
at the end of the program which is offered for broadcast by KNBA locally and by
Native radio stations across the country. Additionally, a banquet is held at
the end of the program where students, sponsors, parents, staff and instructors
review the work. Communication with participants is also maintained during the
school year, as KBC puts them in contact with local public radio stations for
potential internships and jobs.
Appalshop/Appalachian Media Institute (AMI)
Appalshop/AMI is a six-week summer program for underserved Kentucky
teenagers to learn film and media techniques in radio, video and audio with the
aim of learning how to use media equipment and make a positive voice for
Appalachia. Appalshop was founded in 1969; the youth program, Appalshop/AMI was
started in 1988. The youth receive a stipend, and as such, are viewed as
Appalshop employees, working with professional filmmakers and other employees,
some of whom have been working in film for 30 years. Employees of Appalshop
critique the works-in-progress, and there is a community screening after the
summer program. Appalshop/AMI continues to work with the youth when they go
back to their schools and communities after the summer session. Broader goals
concern the team, individual, work and community which range from “voicing
positively about Appalachia”, “exercising freedom of speech” and
“expressing yourself, identifying community problems and stereotypes to
have a better community voice and community
involvement.”
Arts High School
Perpich Center for Arts Education
6125 Olson Memorial
Highway
Golden Valley, MN 55422
952-591-4739
http://www.pbs.org/merrow/trt/sites/arts.html
The Arts High School is a Minnesota based, statewide residential
public high school for 11th and 12th grade students, centered in the arts.
Students accepted to the school enter one of six arts areas: visual, literary,
media, theater, music or dance. The curriculum covers concepts such as
sequencing, montage, sound and image relationships, and the elements of time
and motion. Juniors are introduced to a variety of genres and approaches to
subject matter, basic technology, and criticism in an historical and cultural
context. Seniors learn advanced skills and techniques, advanced history and
theory, career planning and portfolio, and work on an independent senior
project of their choice.
Blunt Youth Radio
Claire Holman, Founder
96 Falmouth St.
PO Box
9300
Portland, ME 04104-9300
207.767-1785
cholman@usm.maine.edu
Blunt Youth Radio is a public radio program on WMPG serving greater
Portland, ME, which currently involves 40 youth from 11 area high schools.
Youth are eligible to join once they reach high school age and can remain in
the program throughout high school. Their hour long talk show airs weekly and
extensive trainings are held during the summer with periodic trainings offered
during the school year. The trainings cover four areas, including digital and
analog radio production, broadcast engineering, hosting a live program and
reporting. The goal is “youth empowerment through direct media
access.”
Children’s Express (CE)
Eric Graham, President and Chief Executive Officer
1331 H St., NW, Suite 900
Washington, DC, 20005-4706
202.737-7377
info@cenews.org
http://www.cenews.org/
Created in 1975 and based in Washington, DC with offices
worldwide, CE is an international news service reported and edited by youth
ages 8-18 for adult print, broadcast and online media. Its mission is to
“give children a significant voice in the world.” CE news teams have
traveled around the world interviewing “policymakers, world leaders and
children in crisis and report[ing] on the conditions of children.”
Currently, there are approximately 750 youth in CE’s active press corps
worldwide. CE delivers an “unfiltered [youth] voice” utilizing peer
training and youth generated ideas. They use a method of “oral
journalism” where youth tape record all their interviews and debriefings.
Adults transcribe the tapes and youth then work from the tapes in a “
youth driven process.” CE’s stories have been placed in print, TV,
radio and online venues including the New York Times News Service, CNN, ABC,
CBS, NBC, BBC, NPR, PRI, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Voice of
America.
Community Newspaper Project
PACERS Small Schools Cooperative
Jim Wrye, Program
Manager
The Program for Rural Services and Research, University of
Alabama
205 University Blvd. East, Box 870372
Tuscaloosa, AL
35487-0372
205.348-6432
jwrye@pacers.org
http://www.pacers.org
The PACERS Community Newspaper Project is a component of the
PACERS Cooperative, an association of 29 small public schools located in rural
communities through out Alabama. The Cooperative was “founded to rethink
education in small rural schools” and is dedicated to “practice-based
school reform that sustains rural communities and improves schools.” The
Community Newspaper Project currently publishes 24 student produced community
newspapers in high schools around the state. Students gain experience in
language arts, computers, graphic design and business and are “actively
involved in improving their community, learning about politics and government,
and understanding entrepreneurship and local economics.” It is also hoped
that the papers raise the “relevance of writing” for students
involved and help overcome the typically limited and unbalanced coverage many
communities may receive in their county seat papers.
Don’t Believe the Hype
Don’t Believe the Hype, a TV production and outreach project,
was started in 1992. It produces one hour long segment a year for Twin
Cities’ Public TV. Eight to ten students comprise the core group of
Don’t Believe the Hype, with larger numbers involved on a more informal
basis. Don’t Believe the Hype provides an outlet for youth to “tell
their own stories rather than [having adults] analyzing or interpreting for
them.” They employ community outreach, training, mentorship and employment
activities to target urban youth of color, provide a “venue of unheard
voices” and give participants access to professional training and
collaboration with union videographers. The producer of Don’t Believe the
Hype, feels that “the activist aspect...a combining of TV with community
awareness keeps kids staying with Hype. What seems to be appealing is that they
can have a real impact on their community through Hype.”
Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV)
New York-based DCTV was founded in 1972 with the aim of expanding
public access to the electronic media. It has a variety of components targeted
toward different subsets of youth. The Summer Youth Employment Program engages
10-15 students in a paid 7-week program in videography, while the Youth in
Temporary Housing Program provides a similar course of study for homeless
youth. Six to eight disadvantaged, minority youth, typically sophomores and
juniors in high school, participate in the Pro-TV program for two years gaining
hands-on experience in video production. They receive a stipend and spend about
eight hours each week during the school year engaged in classroom and
production activity. There is also an international component where previous
Pro-TV youth have traveled to Siberia and Chiapas. The goal for Pro-TV, as the
Director says, is to “provide kids with a bridge to higher education and
employment opportunities in the media arts field,” as well as to get the
youth voice out. After the youth have the “tools and training,” he
feels “the tapes they make can influence other kids.”
Education Video Center (EVC)
Founded in 1984, EVC is a community-based media center teaching
hands-on video production and media analysis to youth, teachers and community
organizers. EVC’s Documentary Workshop and YO-TV target the at-risk youth
of New York City. Sixty high school age youth participate in the semester long
Documentary Workshop per year, learning to shoot and edit documentaries and
earning high school credit. After each semester, there work is screened in
front of a public audience, assessed in portfolio roundtables and then made
available through the EVC tape catalog. Through a year long commitment, YO-TV
provides more hands-on experience and instruction for six to eight post high
school students, as well as giving them a head start for careers as video
producers. Youth in YO-TV receive a stipend as they develop documentaries with
television producers and community institutions. YO-TV’s students have
produced documentaries for Bill Moyers on PBS and PSAs for the US Department of
Education. EVC’s other programs include Teacher Development Workshops for
educators and CO-TV which provides technical assistance for local community
members who wish to use media. EVC’s mission is to “serve at-risk
youth and their communities by offering video and digital media arts programs
that develop their capacities for critical thinking, real-life work, creative
expression and self empowerment.” This is done by using a methodology of
media education that combines student-centered hands-on education and
independent documentary making.
Elight
Youth Guardian Services, Inc.
Jase, Founder and
Publisher
8665 Sudley Rd., #304
Manassas, VA 20110-4588
877.270-5152
http://www.elight.org
elight@elight.org
For over five years, Elight has hosted an online community for
gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered youth and young adults, accepting and
publishing online submissions from youth around the world. Elight was created
to help all gay youth understand their sexuality and to have a place to express
concerns with other gay youth, providing a “safe forum” for youth to
speak out, share and connect with other gay youth. They are volunteer run out
of Youth Guardian Services, Inc. and have received over 5,000 submissions to
date.
The Foxfire Fund, Inc.
Post Office Box 541
Mountain City, GA
30562-0541
706.746-5828 Tel
706.746-5829 Fax
foxfire@foxfire.org
http://foxfire.org/
Foxfire has been in existence for over 30 years. From its
beginning, Foxfire has helped teachers teach and learners learn, while also
being firmly rooted in the culture of the community. The Foxfire Magazine has
been produced, uninterrupted, since its founding in 1966. The quality
of the
students' work and the interest generated by the elders' stories led to The
Foxfire Book series. There are four Foxfire teacher networks in sites around
the country. Each teacher network operates as a local organization dedicated to
the support of teachers who are committed to the Foxfire Approach. Teacher
networks provide seminars, group meetings, newsletters, and other opportunities
for their membership.
The Global Action Project
The Global Action Project (GAP) is a media arts organization working
locally with youth and teachers in the New York City area, including immigrant
youth from Albania, China, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, South America,
Taiwan and West Africa, and internationally on projects in Croatia, Ghana,
Guatemala and Northern Ireland. Beginning in 1991 as a program of Global Kids,
Inc., a New York City educational organization dedicated to preparing urban
youth to become community leaders and global citizens, GAP is guided by the
belief that “young people are positive forces in their communities when
they have the opportunity to engage in meaningful activities.” Youth are
involved and trained in video production, peer education, and media literacy;
they facilitate workshops and screening discussions, and produce a monthly
television program on public access called Urban Voices. GAP youth videos have
focused on ethnic and sectarian conflict, violence prevention, human rights,
community health, and civic participation. Teachers can be part of the Video
Arts Infusion Program working to train teachers to integrate video into their
curriculum.
HarlemLive
HarlemLive is a technology based after-school program that
features an Internet publication written, created and presented primarily by
Harlem youth, although youth from other parts of New York including Manhattan,
Brooklyn and the Bronx participate. Started in 1996 with the goal of empowering
“youth of color to be productive, creative and thoughtful leaders who will
be responsible caretakers of our future,” HarlemLive has provided
educational and cultural opportunities to hundreds of youth of color, who have
learned skills as journalists, web masters, photographers, administrators and
public speakers. HarlemLive has been featured on CNN news programs.
Just Think
Elana Yonah Rosen, Executive Director and
Cofounder
39 Mesa St., Suite # 106, The Presidio
San Francisco, CA
94129
415.561-2900
think@justthink.org
http://www.justthink.org/
In spring 1997, the Just Think Foundation first piloted its
Developing Minds curriculum which teaches media literacy theory in a hands-on
production framework, encouraging lower income and minority youth to produce
art, music, films, PSAs and websites on issues important to them. The
Developing Minds curriculum which is available to in-school and out-of-school
programs, typically covers a ten week period, although 14 day intensives are
common. The goal of Just Think, as Executive Director states, is to give youth
“critical thinking and creativity skills to lead thoughtful and productive
lives.” Developing Minds was created to be able to be tailored to fit into
preexisting curricula and modified for individual student needs. The media
literacy products in the Developing Minds series include a parent guidebook,
teacher curriculum guidebook, comic book for students, an interactive CD-ROM
and student work materials for use in the classroom. Another component of Just
Think is the Media Mobile, a “mobile classroom of media, art and
technology,” that travels to youth in under served Bay Area communities
and delivers the Developing Minds curriculum. Additionally, Just Think’s
Professional Development component was developed to enhance teachers' abilities
to encourage critical thinking in young people as a means to understanding and
producing broadcast and electronic media. In recent years, Just Think’s
work has been broadcast through NBC, United Nations and Disney.
Listen Up!
Beginning in 1999, New York-based Listen Up! has built up a
network of 56 Youth Media programs from around the country through an online
gallery of videos, PSAs and documentaries in an effort to create a “sense
of solidarity among [youth] producers.” Additionally, Listen Up! offers
small grants, aids youth producers in submitting their work to national and
international film festivals, creates websites for Listen Up! sites and sends
compilation reels of youth produced works to sites as a way to coordinate
programs and allow youth to see and critique others’ works. Targeting
youth who are poor, incarcerated, homeless, disabled, of color, gay, lesbian or
bisexual, over 1,000 youth have been engaged since its inception in
“researching, writing, production, editing and distributing their own
media and learning important life and communication skills” to help Listen
Up! reach its goal of hearing a youth voice in mass media.
Manhattan Neighborhood Network (NY)
537 West 59th Street,
New York, NY
10019
212.757-2670
http://www.mnn.org/
The Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN) administers the Public
Access cable television services in Manhattan. Included in MNN programming are
more than 15 youth produced shows including: Bent TV which focuses on topics
such as vogueing, HIV, drag and homelessness; National Youth Visions, monthly
videos produced by youth outside of NYC and Wanna Be TV a bi-weekly show about
girls doing comedy about the media. Currently MNN is working to establish a
youth initiated channel, to be run and programmed by and about youth to the New
York area.
New Moon: The Magazine for Girls and Their
Dreams
The first issue of New Moon appeared in 1993, as a place for girls
to “tell the world who they are, without adults or advertisers as
interpreters.” Twenty girls, from ages eight to 14, worked on a peer to
peer basis with adults for six months to develop the first issue of New Moon.
Currently, the 20 member Girls Editorial Board meets at least twice a month for
discussion regarding the content of the magazine and continues to work with
adults on a peer to peer basis, to fulfill their mission of giving girls a
place to “explore themselves, their dreams and their ideas.” The
editorial board edits material submitted by girls worldwide and material
submitted by professional adult writers. They also write and draw original
material, conduct interviews and work on graphic design. New Moon can be found
online and in print. In addition, New Moon provides a network for adults,
publishes books which include writing by girls, provides workshops and is in
the process of planning a public television show.
New Orleans Video Access Center (NOVAC)
NOVAC was established in 1972 with a vision of social change and
“equal access and training to communication technology” by
disadvantaged and underserved populations in New Orleans. The Teen Video
Workshop continues to strive toward these goals up to and including media
literacy, arts education, and college and job preparation. Typically, 75% of
the 12 youth (ages 13-20) in the program are minority and low income. In the
eight-week fee-based program, youth produce a PSA, learning about professional
equipment through an integrative hands-on approach. The workshop begins with
viewing the previous semester’s works, critiquing and brainstorming on
potential topics after which camera and audio training is begun. Finished works
are screened at the end of the workshop at NOVAC’s Annual Video Shorts
Festival.
Pacific News Service (PNS)
For over ten years, YO! (Youth Outlook), a monthly newspaper by
and about youth has been published by PNS and syndicated to newspapers across
the United States. Printing about 40,000 copies monthly, YO! can be found in
libraries, classrooms and other community based organizations in the Bay area.
The youth work in YO! comes from a combination of a core group of youth who
submit stories and works monthly and from attendees at writing workshops that
typically serve youth ages 15-18. Since 1996, The Beat Within, a weekly
newsletter, features writing done by incarcerated youth in Bay area juvenile
facilities who participate in weekly writing workshops. Additional youth
projects published by PNS, include Quietly Torn, a compilation of works done by
female Iu Mien youth and Izote Voz, works by Salvadoran youth, all from the Bay
Area. The over arching goal of PNS is to disseminate the “pure voice of
the youth,” by targeting minority, marginalized, at-risk and incarcerated
youth.
PHatLip! 4.2 Youth Radio
PHatLip! 4.2 is a weekly two-hour long underground
hip-hop/jazz-oriented talk show broadcast from a local radio station, WNSB, in
Hampton, VA and on the internet (on
http://www.tpln.net). It began in 1992 in Little
Rock, AR as a social studies project as a way for youth to portray themselves
accurately in the media. Currently, PHatLip! has 12 staff members ranging from
the ages of nine through 26 who come from a range of racial/ethnic backgrounds.
Everyone on the staff is a former listener. The show’s listeners can be
found as far as Washington, DC to the north and North Carolina to the south.
Additionally PHatLip! has done PSAs for NPR and PRI and has been rebroadcast
throughout the world on short wave radio. With the motto of “don’t
hate the media, become the media,” PHatLip! seeks to, as the director
says, “provide an opportunity for young people to develop their own
media.” PHatLip! is fueled by the desire to continuously create and
develop opportunities for youth to control images through the creation of their
own media.
Radio Arte
Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum
Yolanda Rodriguez,
General Manager
1401 W. 18th St.
Chicago, IL 60608
312.455-9455
yrodriguez@radioarte.org
http://www.radioarte.org/
Chicago-based Radio Arte is a youth initiative of the Mexican Fine
Arts Center Museum with the aim to “train, motivate, and encourage youth
to develop self-expression through the broadcast medium” in an attempt to
“counteract the negative stereotypes frequently associated” with the
youth in the Mexican American community. Targeted toward youth from ages 15-21
who attend the public schools in the Pilsen/Little Village community of Chicago
and serving about 100 youth annually, Radio Arte is the only bilingual,
youth-operated, urban, community station in the country. The program, which
attracts a mix of high and low academic achievers, has three phases over the
course of two years. The first phase involves three months of theory in
creative writing, journalism, voice training, FCC regulations and the use of
recording sound for radio. The second utilizes hands-on training in production
and on-air equipment, and for the third phase, the student designs, develops
and maintains their own on-air program for a year which is broadcast to one of
the largest Mexican communities in the Midwest.
Radio (Teenage) Diaries, Inc.
Since 1996, the Teenage Diaries series has broadcast 15-30 minute
audio documentaries of youth’s lives on NPR’s All Things Considered.
Working with eight teens a year, Teenage Diaries provides tape recorders to
youth around the country who conduct interviews and keep an audio journal over
the course of a year. The segments are edited from an average of 30 hours of
tape with the youth involved having the editorial control over stories. The
Producer sees the primary goals as “getting youth voices on NPR, ...having
people speak directly” and doing “top quality documentaries with the
teenagers.”
Rise and Shine Productions
New York’s Rise and Shine Productions is the media literacy
program of TRUCE (Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families), targeting 13-19
year old youth in the surrounding community. Started as a dropout prevention
program featuring poetry writing, performance, script-writing and video
production, over 1,000 youth have been served by Rise and Shine Productions
since 1985. Currently, there are about 100 youth in the program who are
involved in the creation and production of The Real Deal, a one hour cable
show, aired four times per month on Manhattan Neighborhood Network’s
public access station, and in the creation and production of independent videos
covering various aspects of youth’s lives. Youth receive stipends and
spend roughly six hours each week during the school year at Rise and Shine
Productions and 24 hours each week during the summer. As the Executive Director
of Rise and Shine explains, their goals are for “young people to have high
self-esteem and do well in school” as well as to gain a “sense of
their role in the community...[and their] responsibility to the
community.” Through Rise and Shine, youth “create their own videos as
a way to explore their social and personal concerns.”
Street Level Youth Media
Deidre Searcy, In-school Program Director
1856 W.
Chicago Ave.
Chicago IL 60622
773.862-5331
jfldls@aol.com
http://streetlevel.iit.edu/
Street Level Youth Media, incorporated in 1995 as a not-for-profit
corporation, “educates Chicago's inner-city youth in media arts and
emerging technologies for use in self-expression, communication and social
change” through multiple programs and activities. The drop-in programs
consist of three multi-media labs in different neighborhoods that offer media
making tools such as computers, video equipment and editing facilities, as well
as professional media artists who train and supervise the youth. Other programs
include the annual Street Level Block Party displaying youth’s videos, a
girls only program, special projects offering additional opportunities for
youth participants and in school programs. Media products include websites,
videos and computer art. In 2000, more than 1,200 youth in neighborhoods across
the city participated in Street Level’s programs. The In-school Program
Director comments that at Street Level, they “don’t necessarily
expect to inspire [the youth] to go on into those fields, but to build that
self expression, communication, the understanding of the need for social
change.”
Teen Media Program
The Community Arts Center's Teen Media Program in Cambridge, MA
began in 1970 with black and white photography, super 8 filmmaking, acting and
basic video production; in 1990, when Cambridge Community Television (CCTV)
opened, the video production component strengthened. The Do it Your Damn Self!
National Youth Video and Film Festival was created by the program’s youth
in 1996 as a vehicle for youth to “provide local and national youth with
the opportunity to give voice to issues in their lives, to display their video
production skills, and to introduce other teens to the empowering potential of
video and film production.” Serving under-represented minority youth, the
Teen Media Program members, ranging in age from 11 through 18, meet in Core
Groups one or two afternoons a week from September through June to produce
PSAs, documentaries and videos. Other programs include the summer-long
Intensive Video Workshop for 25-30 hours a week, Genuine Productions, a youth
managed business where paid participants learn “business and video
production skills” and the Foundation where TMP youth receive a stipend
and assist in coordinating all aspects of the program.
Teen Voices
Women Express
Alison Amoroso, Editor-in-Chief
PO
Box 120-027
Boston, MA 02112
617.426-5505
Bay Area Teen Voices
3288 21st St., #158
San Francisco, CA 94110
415.821-7815
http://www.teenvoices.com
Founded in 1988 with 15 members, Teen Voices, published quarterly
by Women Express, Inc., has the mission of increasing “economic and social
justice in our society by empowering teenage girls - primarily those who are
low-income or at-risk of becoming another statistic.” Teen Voices aims to
provide an “intelligent alternative to glitzy, gossipy, fashion-oriented
publications that too often exploit the insecurities of their young
audience.” They encourage their readers to write articles on diverse and
meaningful topics such as self-esteem, racism, sexism and health. Currently,
Women Express has 100 members and offices in Boston and San Francisco and
publishes Teen Voices both online and in print, reaching 75,000 readers
worldwide. Additionally, Women Express has a mentor program pairing teenage
girls with volunteer women.
Video Machete
Started in 1994, Video Machete is a Chicago-based organization
made up of community activists, educators, media artist, students, and youth
dedicated to “increasing democratic communication and economic and
cultural equity in American society” with youth and inner-city communities
through media and informational technology education, production, and
distribution. Video Machete produces videotapes, websites, and interactive
multi-media; “creates civic dialogue” about social issues through
exhibition and discussion; and distributes grassroots media to community groups
and audiences locally, nationally, and internationally. The media Video Machete
produces “explores and documents the stories, perspectives, and community
building strategies of people who are invisible in or distorted by the
mainstream media, particularly youth, women, people of color, and poor
people.”
Youth Communication
Youth Communication is a New York based program that since 1980
has been publishing New Youth Connections, a newspaper written by and for inner
city youth, with a circulation of 65,000. It is distributed monthly during the
school year and reaches all New York City public high schools. In 1993, a
second publication, Foster Care Youth United was established, targeting youth
in foster care. It now has a circulation of 10,000. Youth Communication employs
writing, reading, thinking and reflection as a vehicle so youth can reach the
program’s goal of acquiring “the information they need to make
thoughtful choices about their lives,” a goal that applies to both the
writers and the readers. Currently, there is also a girls writing group and an
immigrant teens writing group. About 100 youth per year are engaged in the
writing workshops, classes or one-on-one, and about 20-30 youth contribute
their art. The youth decide what they want to write and how to write about it,
while adults provide skilled mediation, encouraging the youth through five or
10 drafts typically over a two month period before a story reaches
publication.
Youth Radio
Since 1992, Berkeley Youth Radio has gained wide recognition
broadcasting over NPR, Pacifica, PRI and KCBS-AM San Francisco. Targeting low
income and racially/ethnically diverse youth, Youth Radio is comprised of
various programs, including the Core, Bridge and paid internal and external
internships. Both the Core and Bridge programs accept 16 students, each via an
application process, for the 12 week workshops offered three times a year.
Internships provide a paid position for youth who want to continue to develop
their skills in media fields and include a peer teaching model for youth in the
Core and Bridge. The employment and college development components give youth
another form of support outside of the skills development portion of Youth
Radio. The community outreach component C.A.S.T. (Community Action Street Team)
recruits youth via DJ-ing and music. There is also a program for incarcerated
youth operated out of Camp Sweeney, a local juvenile detention facility. Youth
on the Advisory Committee have multiple roles within the program,
collaboratively deciding who comes into the program, the programming and what
goes on the air. The Director explains “we’ve identified as a youth
development [organization] first...[by] using media to engage young people in a
positive activity and how it can impact their lives positively.” The
skills the youth gain in media and communication, though secondary, are skills
“that are life long in whatever they do”.
Youth Voice Radio
Institute for Public Media Arts, Inc.
Kelley Overton,
Volunteer
115 Market St.
Durham, NC 27701
919.688-0332
yvradio@aol.com
Website: under
construction
Durham, NC’s Youth Voice Radio began in 1995 as a place where
youth 19 and under “can express their views and share their
thoughts.” They aspire to fulfill this goal of getting their voices heard
in the media by having a weekly radio show on WXDU 88.7, featuring pieces
produced by youth, PSAs, music and commentaries. Trainings have been offered in
diverse areas such as radio production, writing for radio, who runs the media
and why there is a need for youth run media. These trainings range from single
hour long sessions to two week summer sessions. Teens also have access to a
production studio in a space owned by the parent organization, Institute for
Public Media Arts, Inc., which is set up for music and commentaries. In 1998,
Youth Voice Radio made a conscious decision to be an entirely youth run
volunteer organization, with youth taking over all aspects of production and
process as well as the financial aspect of fundraising, writing and researching
grants.
[1] The following annotated
list includes the 21 Youth Media programs where interviews and/or site visits
were conducted as well as the additional nine programs for which data was
collected that were referred to in the paper. Information was collected from
program materials and websites when available, as well as those programs where
interviews and/or site visits were conducted.