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How young people are changing Europe

Production companies and broadcasters no longer hold a monopoly over moving-images - instead, a new theatre of public information has emerged. Spread across the internet, television, festivals and campaigns this emerging ‘Video Republic’ is a messy, alternative realm of video creation and exchange, dominated by young people. Who inhabits, shapes and regulates the Video Republic?

As young people experiment with taking on powerful roles as reporters, distributors, commentators and artists, they are increasingly plotting their ‘route around’ existing political and cultural institutions. This poses a profound challenge to decision-makers, but it also creates opportunities. For European democracies starved of legitimacy, it could open up new channels for democratic expression and participation.


The Project and You
We are currently determining the scope of our research in a literature review. You can keep abreast of the project by checking the project blog and our themes. We will also set up a wikispace where you can keep abreast of what we are reading. We will post any interim papers here. During Spring 2008 we will make visits to several different countries across Europe. We will publish the dates and locations of these visits here (if you’d like to meet up).

Finland: We were in Helsinki from February 18th to 22nd. You can read some of our thoughts about the visit here; and watch a video of our trip here.
Berlin: We were in Berlin from March 24th to 26th.
Romania: We were in Romania from April 23rd to 28th.

Publishing
This project will lead to a public report in October 2008.

We are grateful for the support we have received from our friends at the European Cultural Foundation and the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation in funding this work.

Video_repulic_cover_
Video Republic
Authors
Charlie Tims, Peter Bradwell, Celia Hannon
Publication Date
2008-10-06
Publication Type
Pamphlet

Cheap digital technology and broadband access have broken the moving-image monopoly held by production companies and broadcasters. In its place a new theatre of public information has emerged.

Birds Eye View - Celebrating Women Filmmakers

Birds Eye View - Celebrating Women Filmmakers

MacArthur Foundation - Identity - Digital Learning

MacArthur Foundation - Identity - Digital Learning

iLibrarian ? Online Teens Documentary Airs Tonight

us documentary about los digital natives

MySpace to Enforce Youth Safety Measures

MySpace to Enforce Youth Safety Measures

Digi Tales

hmm... where have i heard of this one before

Digi-Tales.org

oh my god - it's nearly exactly the same as stranger and one minutes JR. but stranger probably came first

Stranger Festival

site isn't ready yet

stranger festival youtube promo

this is both hilarious and brilliant. who could possibly not want to enter this competition!

I AM A MUSLIM!

there are lots of these i am a muslim videos on youtube - can't see if anyone is coordinating it

i am a muslim search on you tube

working out your religious identity on youtube

Pangea Day

global film day founded by ted prize winner who wished to change the world through the power of film. apparently this is how people are going to listen to each other

Denmark vows zero tolerance after week of youth riots - Yahoo! News UK

Denmark vows zero tolerance after week of youth riots - Yahoo! News UK

young person reacts to independence of Kosovo

young person reacts to independence of Kosovo

YouTube - One cadet's hopes for Kosovo's future - 12 Feb 08

YouTube - One cadet's hopes for Kosovo's future - 12 Feb 08

Cyber celebs and online TV

Cyber celebs and online TV

Poynter Online - New Media Timeline

Timeline of online journalism / new media / media from US school of journalism the Poynter Institute.

The Future of Reputation

A book, available free online, on what might be happening to our privacy and ultimately reputation in an age of ubiquitous personal information.

Gerard Lemos

Gerard Lemos

map of romania

the workshop is in iasi, near to the border with moldova

Iasi International Airport

Iasi International Airport

Un minut de adolescenta

one minute adolescence - romanian one minute junior

Project New Media Literacies

Project New Media Literacies

Nalini P. Kotamraju

Homepage of sociologist Nalini P. Kotamraju

Wi: Journal of the Mobile Digital Commons Network

Wi publishes the latest in Canadian mobilities research, encompassing disciplines such as design, engineering, computer science, communications and media studies.

Bibliography for Mobile Devices/SMS/IM

Nalini P. Kotamraju's developing bibliography on social science research into mobile phone cultures.

uk consumers better connected

UK adults spend more time on social networking sites than their European neighbours, with 4 in 10 UK adults saying that they regularly visit the sites. The UK adults who visit the sites spend an average of 5.3 hours each month on them and return to them an average 23 times in the month.

RADIO FREE EUROPE / RADIO LIBERTY

The best news source about Russia and Central Asia

YouTube - Children of Europa - Helsinki

An awesome video about helsinki

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Danes clash on web in Prophet row

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Danes clash on web in Prophet row

YouTube most popular networking site | Media | guardian.co.uk

YouTube most popular networking site | Media | guardian.co.uk

Celia

Online TV news update for Young Europeans

Online TV news update for Young Europeans

Bucharest travel guide - Wikitravel

Bucharest travel guide - Wikitravel

beaconsfield

event location for children of Europa in waterloo

apophenia: how youth find privacy in interstitial spaces

danah boyd post on young people and privacy

article29: Engagement and the arts

From European Alternative's journal EUROPA

MediaSnackers Podcast#40: Chris Scheupp

Podcast interview on Mediasnackers with Chris Scheuppp who co-ordinates Unicef's Young People's Media Network in Europe and Central Asia

MAGIC - The Media and Children's Rights guide

MAGIC - The Media and Children's Rights guide

Media Partners | TIFF

list of media orgs in romania - sponsors of the transylvanian international film festival.

BBC NEWS | School Report | Cheltenham tip from horse's mouth

BBC NEWS | School Report | Cheltenham tip from horse's mouth

Youth and European Identity Research Papers on the Project

Youth and European Identity Research Papers on the Project

HOME | Showcomotion Young People's Film Festival

HOME | Showcomotion Young People's Film Festival

romanian boy wins at toykyo video festival 2007

romanian boy wins at toykyo video festival 2007

UMAfilmFEST - Home

romanian film festival promoting young people and their rights

Signis

world catholic association for communication - brings together radio television, cinema, video, media education, internet and new technology professionals across europe

World summit on media for children

World summit on media for children

Break.com - Free videos, pictures, and comedy for guys

Break is a online entertainment destination for guys with over 18,000,000 unique viewers and 500,000,000 page impressions per month. Mainly men between 15 - 35 visit the U.S. site. Like the name suggests the videos are mainly videos of people falling and breaking stuff and accidents. In consensus with the generation cash trend, you get paid on Break for uploading your video.

turkey shuts down youtube

turkey shuts down europe and blames the greeks

:: romania think tank ::

:: romania think tank ::

UNICEF - At a glance: Guyana - Youth journalists use video to urge action on child rights

UNICEF - At a glance: Guyana - Youth journalists use video to urge action on child rights

Celia

Pan European Youth and media

Julian Rolfe, Manager, Planet Edge, Synovate, commented: "The findings from the study demonstrate that with an increasing lack of faith in the education system and employment market, young people across Europe are investing more and more of their time and energy in their leisure activities in order to give themselves a sense of identity and belonging.

Byron Review

Byron Review

U.K. Social Networking Site Usage Highest in Europe

he European social networking community stood at 127.3 million unique visitors in August – reaching 56 percent of the European online population. U.K. participation in social networking usage proved to be the highest in Europe, with 24.9 million unique visitors – 78 percent of the total U.K. online population – now belonging to the country’s social networking community.

Skyrock Network the Dominant French Social Networking Site

Driven in large part by its French traffic, Skyrock Network has established itself as the second largest European social networking site. The site’s European traffic has grown 22 percent since the start of the year and now encompasses 13.8 million unique European visitors. This surpasses the 12.1 million unique European visitors recorded by the largest U.K. social networking site, Bebo.com.

Guidance | MuslimYouth.net | guidance and support for Muslim youth

The aim of this project is to make a documentary demonstrating your thoughts, views and opinions on the world that we live in. muslimyouth.net will run a workshop in March, which will be attended by a diverse range of young Muslims from different cultural and ethnical backgrounds. The workshop will give you an opportunity to discuss issues that are facing you: whether its gun/gang crime, litter in your local areas or global warming.

Big Think - We Are What You Think

Like YouTube but designed to be populated by 'ideas'. So it seems there's basically less happy slapping, more Kwame Anthony Appiah.

Feudalism 2.0 (or serfing the web) - Own Your Identity

I don’t have the freedom to move the facets that make up my online self from Facebook to LinkedIn or Myspace, my content and relationships are the property of Facebook, as are the words exchanged with friends; I can’t message my Myspace friends from Facebook. My content is their content, my relationships are their relationships and my communications are their communications. I can escape and start a new life somewhere else, but if I do I do so faceless, barren and alone.

Shirky: The Future of Europe Lies In Email

The current cohort of European under 25s have several important characteristics that make them immune to cheap nationalism -- they are the first generation whose parents didn't live through WWII, and they are richer, more mobile, and speak better English (the official second language of the 21st century) than any generation in history. Add to this that they are comfortable with the internet, that they can work anywhere they like, and that places like easyEverything are springing up to satisfy untapped demand for communications, and you get a generation of rootless cosmopolitans, people who are unimpressed with arguments that they should tolerate unemployment, or high prices, or limited horizons, simply in order to defend national characteristics that boil down to little more than a preference for different kinds of cheese.

Shirky: Communities, Audiences, and Scale

communities have strong upper limits on size, while audiences can grow arbitrarily large. Put another way, the larger a group held together by communication grows, the more it must become like an audience -- largely disconnected and held together by communication traveling from center to edge -- because increasing the number of people in a group weakens communal connection.

Shirky: RIP The Consumer, 1900-1999

In retrospect, mass media's position in the 20th century was an anomoly and not an inevitability. There have always been both one-way and two-way media -- pamphlets vs. letters, stock tickers vs. telegraphs -- but in 20th century the TV so outstripped the town square that we came to assume that 'large audience' necessarily meant 'passive audience', even though size and passivity are unrelated. With the Internet, we have the world's first large, active medium, but when it got here no one was ready for it, least of all the people who have learned to rely on the consumer's quiescent attention while the Lucky Strike boxes tapdance across the screen.

One Minute Film & Video Festival in Romania

one minute film festival in romania - not the same as the oneminutesjr

Richard Bartle: Gamers have won the battle against the censors | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Richard Bartle: Gamers have won the battle against the censors | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Instant messaging 'a linguistic renaissance' for teens - tech - 15 May 2008 - New Scientist Tech

Instant messaging 'a linguistic renaissance' for teens - tech - 15 May 2008 - New Scientist Tech

Lawrence Lessig at Personal Democracy Forum 2007

Laurence Lessig taking his free culture argument to political reporting.

Cineuropa - News - British youth get film bonanza

Cineuropa - News - British youth get film bonanza

Who is selling your photos online?

Who is selling your photos online?

About Us ? EngageMedia

EngageMedia is a video sharing site focusing on social justice and environmental issues in South East Asia, Australia and the Pacific. It is a space for critical documentary, fiction, artistic and experimental works that challenge the dominance of the mainstream media.

Copyright extension is the enemy of innovation -Times Online

Copyright extension is the enemy of innovation -Times Online

Parents don't monitor kids online - Web User News

Parents don't monitor kids online - Web User News

comScore Reports that 26 Million People Watched More Than 3 Billion Videos Online in Germany in May

comScore Reports that 26 Million People Watched More Than 3 Billion Videos Online in Germany in May

Eszter Hargittai's: from free-for-all to commercial gatekeeping

Eszter Hargittai's: from free-for-all to commercial gatekeeping

Pew Internet: Teens and Social Media

"Content creation by teenagers continues to grow, with 64% of online teenagers ages 12 to 17 engaging in at least one type of content creation, up from 57% of online teens in 2004."

FT.com / Media & internet - TV viewing figures defy talk of decline

FT.com / Media & internet - TV viewing figures defy talk of decline

Citizens, Communications and Convergence | Ofcom

Consultation from Ofcom on their role in furthering the interests of citizens.

Britons Stick to 'Live' TV Viewing, Despite Broadband Video - WARC News

More on the intriguing story of TV viewing figures

Tories push for more surveillance

Tories push for more surveillance

Labour warned over limits to free expression | Politics | The Guardian

Labour warned over limits to free expression | Politics | The Guardian

Internet TV: insights from the Starcom Mediavest research

Internet TV: insights from the Starcom Mediavest research

Is the YouTube-isation of politics a good thing?

Is the YouTube-isation of politics a good thing?

Dec 8

Censor-tive

Content regulation or censorship online has been steadily climbing up the agenda for a while...

Oct 10

we are the propaganda

In Video Republic we argue that, in an era when we can all make videos, we have become the...

Oct 2

When in Rome..

As you can probably tell from all our blog posts, we're getting excited about the launch...

Sep 30

AITVR3&4: SexEutube & The Targuist Sniper

In the run up to the launch of the video republic next Monday. I'm continuing to dip...

Sep 28

Adventures in the Video Republic 2

Think the current US election is the first election to be lived out on youtube?  You...

Sep 27

Adventures in the Video Republic 1

It's 10 days till we launch Video Republic - a look at what it means to live in a world...

Sep 10

The sheet music hits the fan

Indie band Oasis have been in the news recently. Firstly, because someone pushed over Noel...

Aug 11

Tube-ing

We're busy writing up the Children of Europa project at the moment. We're really...

Jun 18

hello mr primeminister my name's adam and i'm 14

There are so many ways to be cynical about ask the pm on youtube, but I think it rules...

May 27

Video is not killing the video star

We're in the midst of accumulating and reflecting on the material we have drawn from...

Apr 8

Berlin. 24-25/03/08.

On 24th and 25th March I spent two days at the marvellous Schlesische 27, a youth arts organisation...

Mar 31

Anthropology of ourselves

Having just been reminded of the 'mass observation' project, founded  in 1937...

Mar 19

Thorny Questions

While we've been researching this project we've tried to keep some sceptical questions...

Mar 10

Living in the Expressive Democracy

This is a long post but for those of you interested in the direction of the project it will...

Feb 29

Helsinki workshop video

When Celia and I were in Helsinki for the week of 18-22 February,  we made a video...

Feb 23

Helsinki, 18-22 February 2008

Celia and I have just got back from a fantastic week in Helsinki, where we were visiting...

Feb 15

Strangers

The website for the Stranger Festival - a celebration of videos made by young people across...