Media programm 2021: Critical thinking Media: way forward

The project "Ctritical thinking Media: way forward" main aims is to develop community journalist/blogging and content creation skills by encouraging project audience people/local community representatives to be a media co-creators, to think citizens critically about media content and own media habits, also to interact with local media outlets by organizing discussions on contemporary media and it influence and empower Critical thinking channel through incensement of audience of the channel and content quality by co-creation of interesting content for readers, viewers and local community member..

The target group of the project is local community leaders/representatives (age 36 – 60+) and young people (age 18-35) from Harjumaa and Ida-Virumaa with different ethnicities and economic backgrounds (including young people with special needs and mostly Russian speaking audience), also encourage participation of professional journalists to inspire target group.

The target group/audiance of the project is Ida-Virumaa and Harjumaa county local communities from Tallinn (all districs of Tallinn, but mainly Lasnamäe), Paldiski, Kohtla-Järve, Jõhvi, Sillamäe and Narva community leaders/representatives (age 26 – 60+) and young people (age 18-26) with different ethnicities and economic backgrounds (including young people with special needs and mostly Russian speaking audience), also encourage participation of professional journalists to inspire target group. Project mainly involves at least 90% of Russian speaking audiences. Project target groups representing also groups with risk of exclusion (people with special needs and young people who are facing structural, cultural and social barriers) we expect about 25% of these group representatives from the total number of participants.

Up to 200 people will be directly involved in the project, with an even larger number of indirect participants (readers, viewers, listeners through media coverage, questionnaire repliers, participants at discussions/trainings, involved professionals/amateurs of media co- content/ creators and co-publishers). Main stakeholders of this project are local/regional media outlet, local governments and community organisations, youth and civil society organisations, cooperation networks & social networks acting on local level. The beneficiaries are young people (and they parents), youth and educational/cultural/sport organisations, local community leaders, and the whole of society itself, local and regional media organisations, also local government /interested bodies. When involving the target group, we take into account gender equality, geographical representativeness and motivation of participants.

Main activities includes:

Two public discussion on contemporary media (2 events x 30 participants each) and its influence on elder and young generation organised by young people and elders in partnership with invited experts, community leaders (different age) and local government and local media outlets representatives/ expert working in media field. This discussion will concentrate on contemporary media usage and habits of young people/elders (intergenerational gap/TV& magazines vs digital media & social networks) and challenges which are facing our society.

Totally will be participated 60 participants.

Two full day training on community journalism/blogging (one in Tallinn and other in Narva, each training includes 25 participants) will be conducted for target group representatives and interested bodies. We aim to develop community journalism, as it will be locally-oriented, professional news coverage that typically focuses on city neighborhoods, individual suburbs or districts. Community blogs provide a service to organizations that encourage civic engagement. It gives them a birds-eye-view of the happenings of the communities they affect without interjecting themselves into any one community. These blogs serve as watchdogs to hold the public and other media outlets accountable for their actions and same time cooperate with other and build more trustable and open society.

Totally will be trained 50 participants.

Continuation of further development of previously created practical outcome “Critical thinking channel” in frame of past project “Young and Community Journalist 2021 “Critical Thinking Media” funded by British Council and increase of audience of the channel and quality by co-creation of interesting content for readers, viewers and local community members on themes what local media outlets not covering, but same time cooperation with local media outlets and publishing co-created materials in regional/local media outlets.
Themes of content will be discussed with the community members, interested participants and media outlets, but we for sure will be talking on:
- Gender Equality and equal treatment, including women empowerment and contemporary role in the society
- Local Government election: pro or contra
- Urban space around us (how to change our local life space into alive and attractive area/community)
- Freedom, Participation and Democracy
- Health and innovation.

Co-created media content: – articles, – interviews and – video reportages + e-media blogs. Co-creation will be in full partnership with Local media outlets in Harjumaa and in Ida-Viruma.
Totally we will publish: Articles (20), short interviews (10), video reportages on local events (5), social-media posts (20).

Totally will be directly engaged and involved up to 100 participants during 4 month project and development of Critical thinking channel.

BIM programme main goal is to strengthen local media outlets’ content by our project we will directly contribute in achievement this goal via tide cooperation with local media outlets and providing for them a new fresh content/view of different target group representatives and will help them expand into new areas of activities (for example social networks, podcasts, blogs, storytelling) and father develop in case of new audiences and customers. Projects will strength connection between local media outlets and local/regional the reader/viewer & digital media audience and diversify project target audience`s media habits especially in case of trust/ diverse themes/loyalty/critical thinking/ media content consuming / advertisement/ media type etc.

Project outcomes: 
- Directly 210 participants will take part in project activities and more than 40 000 people indirectly will be reached.
- Will be write and publish more than 20 articles, Conduct and publish 10 interviews
- Create, edit and publish on TV or on Social media/Youtube Channel of 5 video reportages on local events, social-media posts (20)

Project is supported by the British Government and British Council