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While youth media have a history, the emergence of a "youth media field" is a relatively recent phenomenon, with an increase in youth media groups during the last decade. According to Coryat and Goodman (2004), "there is more good youth media being produced now than at any other time."
As an emerging field, youth media provides a vehicle for young people to "articulate their concerns, represent themselves in the media, and build community" (Coryat and Goodman, 2004). It has potential to involve "the most marginalized, most voiceless youth in society--and making those voices heard by their peers and by significant adults" (Hefner, 2004). Through video, radio, web production, print, and other methods, there are more and more opportunities for young people to find their voice in organizations and communities.
YOUTH PARTICIPATORY EVALUATION
Young people play leadership roles in youth media groups, but generally evaluation is not one of them.
Youth participatory evaluation is a process of engaging young people in knowledge development in organizations and communities. It can originate in efforts by adults to reach out to youth, by young people to organize on their own behalf, or by youth and adults to collaborate in intergenerational partnerships. It refers to their active participation and real influence in institutions and decisions, not to their token presence in adult agencies (Arnstein, 1969; Hart, 1992). Its quality is highest when young people have an impact on a process, influence a decision, or produce an outcome.
Youth participation is an approach in which young people are active participants in defining the problem, gathering the information, and using the results. Young people might serve as consultants, partners, or directors of the process. (Checkoway & Richards-Schuster, 2003). The issue is not who initiates the work, but rather whether young people participate actively and have an impact.
Youth participation prepares young people for participation in a democratic society. At a time when too many people have withdrawn from participation, there is need for new strategies of civic engagement which will awaken them to community conditions, and motivate them to take action in a civil society.
Youth participation in evaluation has great potential for youth media. It provides opportunities for young people to document their work, tell their stories, and assess their activities and outcomes. It can enable them to develop new knowledge, reflect on their experience, and formulate lessons learned from practice (Coryat and Goodman, 2004).
Through a grant from the Time Warner Foundation to the Education Development Center, Inc., five youth media groups - Bay Area Video Coalition, Reel Grrls, Global Kids, Video Machete, and Youth Radio - attended a workshop to develop their evaluation skills and formulate strategies for implementation of an evaluation project upon return home. What follows is a summary of the workshop, case studies, and cross-cutting themes that emerged. (authors)
