Using Media for Social Innovation by Aneta Podkalicka Ellie Rennie

Author:Aneta Podkalicka, Ellie Rennie [Aneta Podkalicka, Ellie Rennie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783208715
Google: FkC9tAEACAAJ
Publisher: Intellect
Published: 2018-01-15T04:13:30+00:00

Note

1 Our research involved long-term qualitative research (a combination of observation and interviews), as well as data collected through surveys with past and present SYN and Youthworx participants. Research at SYN occurred predominantly in 2006–08 with a follow-up survey in 2013. The Youthworx research occurred between 2008 and 2013.

Chapter 7

The Social Innovation Media Workforce

It is a typical afternoon at Youthworx Media. About 15 young men and women work in small groups or individually in a room that features a purpose built radio studio tucked in the corner, a line of Mac computers and a wall covered in extracts from editing software manuals, enlarged group photos and charts of media projects still in the pipeline. One person is trawling the internet for images of ‘cute chickens’ to include in a documentary-style commentary on organic food and ethical consumption. Another, eyes glued to the computer, is editing a music video shot the day before in a graffiti-covered alley, directly adjacent to the project venue. Across the room, sitting on a large red beanbag, a 16-year-old girl is sketching a script for a digital story about her journey on the project. Like others she has chosen to tell how she has navigated life, often through difficult periods and how Youthworx has changed it for the better. These various media activities are part of the competency-based certificates in Creative Industries that Youthworx has been offering since 2009 in partnership with a vocational education provider.

All the elements of this scene – the name, space, and the projects – are too familiar within the fields of youth development and community arts to be called ‘innovative’ (see Chapter 1). Youthworx represents many characteristics of an entrepreneurial organization, but the premise and style of addressing issues of youth disengagement through creativity are not new. The content being produced on that day is largely derivative of popular culture, generated through a co-creative media process. As discussed in Chapter 5, the general ameliorative function of culture has been the key driver behind the state-subsidized community cultural development sector since the 1960s. Although this organization and youth media generally are geared towards positive social change, our focus in this chapter is not on the outcomes for young people or their stories, but the individuals that are missing from this familiar portrait.

Sitting in that room, at a couple of desks facing each other, adult practitioners are busy at work. Although visible to us, and clearly keeping things on track, adult workers are, at most, shadowy figures in descriptions of youth media. Academic and evaluative writing has much to say about young people in relation to the media, whether they are depicted as individuals on a journey, disadvantaged and in need of rescue or savvy and purposeful (Goodman 2003; Poyntz 2013). Rarely, if ever, do we hear the stories of the older creative practitioners that work in these organizations, why they get involved and what sustains their interest.

In this chapter we focus on the workers to highlight two important components of the social

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