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Overview of the Media 0.1 system
Philosophy and Overview
By Mary Fister, mfister@gac.edu
Nation1 is developing an action-oriented, internet-based network of young people. We aim to create global community by connecting and uniting youth from around the world, empowering them to get involved through a variety of tools. These include multi-lingual communication systems, a democratic polling mechanism, a shared resource database, and what we are building right now - a youth-driven online media center where young people document their world from their vantage point. It's a place where youth tell stories of their lives and communities, allowing readers to gain a greater understanding of the world around us.
These are our goals:
- promote self expression of our young contributors
- promote a greater understanding of the world around us
- promote informed action and involvement in the world around us build global community
- train young people to express themselves effectively and encourage and develop writing, photography, journalism, publishing, design, and communication skills
The following features are how we will accomplish these goals:
The contributors will be readers. The process of submitting a story will be simple and form-based, and readers will be encouraged to participate in the creation of content they consume. The Independent Media Center http://www.indymedia.org and The Beat Within http://www.pacificnews.org/yo are remarkable examples of how this has happened.
The editors will be readers. Stories will go through a series of editorial loops before it is finally published. The editors will work with the contributors to refine the stories. The editors
essentially have veto power over articles - the contributors are the ones who decide what they will right, so they are the ones who will decide what gets published. A hierarchy will exist to some degree, but
the negative superior-inferior feelings that often accompany that sort of structure will be discouraged.
In the short term, editors will be individuals we trust. In the long run, readers may become editors by filling out a form on the website. The Open Directory Project http://www.dmoz.org has pioneered this idea and currently has over 28,000 editors.
The editing process itself will be transparent (after the first editorial loop: an "appropriateness" check). Readers can watch the editing process take place, see editors and adult advisors work with contributors and see the evolution of a piece of work from the first draft to what is published. This legitimizes the editing process, promotes the democratic principles we stand for, and allow readers to learn these skills for themselves from the examples of others. The Independent Media Center http://www.indymedia.org is also planning to make its editing process transparent. The Junior Journal http://journal.jrsummit.net sends its articles through two or three editors before they are published. Although the software the JJ uses, Pluto, offers the option of saving drafts and seeing the
evolution of an article, the service is not used. The JJ will soon make the transistion to an updated version of Pluto, called Goofy, that will eliminate that feature altogether. Still, there are aspects of the JJ's model that could be used or at least learned from in the Nation1 media center.
A team of expert adult advisors will be enlisted to work with editors and contributors during the publishing process, give pointers on writing,photography, journalism, publishing, design, and communication, and support the initiative. In addition to be a valuable tool to the young people involved, the advisory team will legitimize what work is done in the eyes of outside observers. Both
YouthRadio http://www.youthradio.org and The Beat Within, a project of Youth Outlook! http://www.pacificnews.org/yo have effective
training programs for its young journalists and writers. YouthRadio conducts a twelve-week course on radio and journalism fundamentals. The Beat Within, a weekly newsletter by and for incarcerated juveniles, holds weekly workshops at a juvenile facility in
California. This gives the youth involved a stabilizing and motivating force in their lives.
Multi-media content will be supported to promote the creativity of our young contributors. The Associated Student Press has created/is creating a national wire service for high school newspapers on the web - this wire supports multi-media content. WireTap http://www.wiretapmag.org has a special section on its web site
dedicated to artwork created by youth. Radio shows often have web sites with their broadcasts available online - an example is This American Life http://www.thislife.org. As it happens, TAL is well
known for its high-quality documentary journalism intermixed with fiction - not dissimilar to what we are looking for. The Independent Media Center http://www.indymedia.org also supports different
mediums of expression (still photos, written word, audio, and video).
Content from partner media institutions (an example may be WireTap or YouthRadio) will be aggregated on our site, making the media center more than "just" another youth-run experiment in journalism. An example of how this has been done effectively is seen at
http://www.oneworld.org or http://www.worldnews.com But, these sites only aggregate content - they do not create original content. By aggregating content and creating our own, the Nation1 media center will be able to act as both a delivery system for youth and youth movement-related information and the more "traditional" generator of
stories, news, and information.
Like other key components in Nation1, the media center will be multi-lingual. Translation software is difficult to build and difficult to perfect. We are envisaging a partnership with a
translation software manufacturer where we will be able to test their product, beginning with our media center. Machine translation will be coupled with human translation, and readers will be able to rate the
translation, helping other readers, human volunteer translators, and the partner software manufacturer. This feature of the media center is not a high priority.
A voting system will be in place for readers to rate the quality of stories - not with the purpose of creating a negative hierarchy, but instead to create a positive atmosphere where quality writing on compelling topics is encouraged. The most highly rated
content will be displayed in a special area of the web site. The voting system will also help with translations down the line (see above). To encourage the notion that all stories in the media center are fascinating and worth paying attention to, a link from the main site will take readers to a random piece of content.
Readers will have the ability to browse stories by region and issue (issues are categorized around the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child) as well as language, age, and gender of the author. Readers will also be able to search for content. Browsing, searching, highly rated content, random stories, and the front page are the ways readers will be able to view content in the media center.
The Nation1 media center is an experiment in democracy - it truly is by, of, and for one community: young people. Through the culmination of all of these features, we aim to be an example of democratic
principles at work.
This was added on September 7, 2000. Do you have comments or changes? Edit this page or send a message to mediagroup@nation1.net.
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