Youth Media Workshop
Empowering economically diverse African-American youth from public schools to make media and social change
Youth Media Workshop partners with public schools in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, to teach African-American youth how to make radio and television documentaries that link their generation, the hip-hop generation, to the civil rights and black power generations.
Students are taught by a multi-racial team of media professionals from the public broadcasting station WILL AM-FM-TV, scholars and journalism students from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and local teachers and community leaders.
The Youth Media Workshop started in 2000 as a program of the Street Media Center, an indigenously inspired, youth development drop-in center developed by Dr. William Patterson, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who engages young people of Hip Hop generations to use media to make social change in their communities. The program is co-directed by Dr. Patterson and Kimberlie Kranich of WILL AM-FM-TV.
What Students Learn
Students in the Youth Media Workshop learn to:
- conduct library research;
- interview their families, peers and community members;
- professionally edit audio and video into radio and TV programs;
- present their findings at public events and conferences;
- think analytically, problem solve and lead group discussions with their peers;
- contribute research to the field of youth media and community-based archiving.
The long-term goal of the workshop is for young people to understand the significance of their history in order to pass it on to future generations to build better communities, to build stronger points of self-esteem and stronger identities and to be agents for change in society and mass media.
Partners
Contact the Youth Media Workshop
Kimberlie Kranich
Co-Director
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
217-333-7300
William Patterson, PhD
Co-Director and Founder
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217-244-4849
Youth Radio Series Airs June 8-30
I Remember, I Believe, a series looking at the experiences of two Champaign-Urbana African-American women, aired on WILL-AM 580 at 4:45 pm and 6:45 pm Mondays and Tuesdays, June 8 through June 30, 2009. U of I grad student Keri Carpenter produced the series using interviews by Youth Media Workshop students.
Kickin’ It at Kickapoo
Ten teens from the Danville Boys and Girls Club will experience Kickapoo State Park and create videos to promote the park among their peers.
Visit the Kickin’ It at Kickapoo Web site.
Hook ‘Em with Technology, Keep ‘Em with Relationships
The Youth Media Reporter published an article about the work of the first five years of the Youth Media Workshop. Read it here.
Inspiration Radio: Relationships That Sustain Youth
Students from Urbana High and Edison Middle School in Champaign spent the last school year interviewing the people closest to them, including siblings, teachers and parents. They edited those interviews into the series.
Youth Media Workshop Wins Award for Excellence
WILL’s Youth Media Workshop (YMW) received the 2006 Campus Award for Excellence in Public Engagement Team Award from the Office of the Chancellor at the University of Illinois.
Making an educational impact
What are the students of The Youth Media Workshop learning that complements what they’re learning in school? How has this informal partnership between WILL, the U of I African American Cultural Center, and local school districts benefited at-risk African-American students?
Hip-Hop Filmmaker on Campus for Screening
Filmmaker Byron Hurt, whose Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes aired on PBS in February, participated in a free public screening of the documentary and a town hall discussion.
Youth React to Documentary on Issues in Hip-Hop
Students in WILL’s Youth Media Workshop wrote a letter that convinced filmmaker Byron Hurt to visit Champaign-Urbana to speak about his new documentary on masculinity and hip-hop.
And the Beat Goes On: The Spirit in the Legacy of the Douglass Center Drum Corps (2006)
Urbana High School Student Filmmakers Present Video on History and Future of Douglass Park Drum Corps
