M100 Youth Media Workshop

Reach the people! How can we encourage young people to read?

In recent years, tremendous efforts have been made (by politicians, foundations and educational institutions) to reach poorly educated and politically distant social groups. Unfortunately, the success remained mostly moderate. Instead many young people seem to turn away from politics and the participation in social discussions, obtain less information from newspapers and rather visit chats and forums.

This development poses big challenges for politics as well as for journalism. Nowadays, media producers (regardless of the genre) are also faced with the question of how to reach people - how to encourage them to read their news and editorials?

These issues will be addressed at the four-day-long M100 Youth Media Workshop that takes place in Potsdam on 21 – 26 August 2011 for the 7th time this year.

During the workshop, targeted at young journalists and emerging editors between the ages of 18 and 26 from all over Europe, various questions will be pursued and analysed:
1. What are the options to reach poorly educated and politically distant social groups via media and to engage them with political topics?
2. Are there approaches and examples to solve these problems in the participants’ home countries? If so, elaborate.
3. Does the issue have a high significance in the participants’ home countries and how is it dealt with?
4. Are there studies about the proportion of poorly educated social youths in the participants’ home countries’ population?
5. How do the participants aim to reach this particular target audience with their journalistic work?

Aim of the workshop is to use the diverse experiences, backgrounds, ideas and visions of the participants from many different countries to create a wide-ranging view on the topic for the whole of Europe. Based on their shared knowledge, methods and a precise format will be developed during the workshop to tackle the issue of how the various media can reach poorly educated and politically distant social groups and generate their interest in political topics.

Prior to the workshop the selected participants will be asked to exchange ideas, experiences and research as well as start to discuss different approaches in a blog.

Conditions for participation:

Young journalists between 18 and 26 years old from all over Europe can apply with a short text in English (three pages max.) on the topic Youth and politics in my country – how journalism can reach poorly educated and politically distant youths.

Following questions should be included:
1. How serious is the issue in your country?
2. Is it considered to be a problem?
3. Are there approaches on how to solve the issue?
4. Do you think journalists/ blogger/ media producers have any possibilities to reach poorly educated and politically distant social groups?

Please include a brief CV and motivational statement in the application that state the reasons for applying to this particular workshop. The workshop will be held in English.

The organisers of the M100 Youth Media Workshop cover accommodation and board during the workshop. A travel allowance of up to 250 € is provided for.

20 to 25 participants will be selected from all applications and invited to Potsdam from 21st (arrival) to 26th August 2011 (departure). The workshop is supported by the City of Potsdam, Federal Foreign Office, the ZEIT Foundation, Bertelsmann AG and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg; co-operation partners include UFA, Intajour - International Academy of Journalism, European Youth Press and the German Commission for UNESCO.

Please send your application until 6th July 2011 to: s.sasse@m100potsdam.org