MediaYouth Mass Media impact on youth activities

MediaYouth Youth in Action Program Action 3.2 – Youth in the world

Target group of research Romanian NGOs and public institutions with local, regional and national activities in youth field (1-4 youth projects yearly)

Frequency of media use  At least one time per week (the public institutions)  A media of evens/ year  Monthly  Weekly  At least 3 times/ project

Media channels: Local media – 36% Regional media – 21.5% National media – 28.5% International media – 14%

Impact of mass media on youth activities  Increase of visibility  Promotion of projects and organization  Improvement the image of the campaigns and of the organization (62% of institutions already used elements of media or PR)  Involvement of youth in volunteering activities  Sharing good practice examples between young people (create echo)

Impact of mass media on youth activities  Attraction of new resources (materials and humans) and ideas for projects  Facilitates project implementation  Helps the institutions to set up their public identities  Make the young people feel important in the society  Increase the self confidence of young people presented by media

Weaknesses  Inequality of chance between institutions – some institutions are better represented in media due personal relationships  Sometimes the information is not correct (representing just a news)  Sometimes local media is not used by the young people from a community

Influence of media on youth beliefs  Help youth express easier  Opinion maker for youth (sometimes youth form their opinions only based media information)  Create models for young people  Motivates young people to became active and to participate to community's life  Very big influence because young people spend much time on Internet

Communication and information campaigns Implementation of a communication and information campaign:

Youth involvement in communication and information campaign  In organization, preparation and implementation of the campaign  To assess the results of the campaign  Expressing their opinions related to society and specific topics (sexuality, drugs..)  Organizing flash mobs  To measure campaign efficiency  Volunteers to distribute informative materials  Dissemination of the campaign

Suggestions from youth institutions: BBigger involvement of media in social campaigns PPromotion of NGOs messages not only to youth PPromotion of the campaigns implemented by youth organization