Demos Project : Video Republic http://groups.demos.co.uk/projects/childrenofeuropa/ en-us Copyright 2008 Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:40:35 -0100 Latest items from Video Republic on http://groups.demos.co.uk/ - the thinktank for everyday democracy Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:40:35 -0100 we are the propaganda http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/12662 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/12662 Video Republic we argue that, in an era when we can all make videos, we have become the new propagandists. Party political broadcasts, produced by ad-agencies and broadcasted on national TV have become (please don't gag) 'political broadcast parties' produced by all of us and distributed on youtube. But this isn't just about elections, it's about our everyday visibility as citizens. It points to new kinds of citizenship. Another manifestation of this phenomena has appeared in today's announcement from the MOD that they intend to distribute camera phones to people in Afghanistan via NGOs so that the stories of 'ordinary' Afghanis can counterbalance the internet propaganda videos produced by the Taliban. It will be interesting to see what they come up with. Common sense would suggest that just because you have a cameraphone, doesn't mean you can make a video. Experience tells us that its also very hard to predict what people will want to watch on youtube. The MOD's 'radical new plan' infers that ordinary Afghanis don't exist unless they're expressing themselves in internet videos - we wonder what it would be like if this stance was applied to citizens back here in blighty.

]]> Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:51:25 -0100 charlie.tims@demos.co.uk ( Charlie Tims ) When in Rome.. http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/12606 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/12606 Video Republic on Monday. Last week Charlie Tims and I went to Amsterdam to PICNIC to give a preview of the research, and ended up having a brilliant discussion with a film futurist and an executive from MTV. It was the only conference I've ever been to where most surfaces were covered in real turf (it took me a while to make the obvious link: PICNIC = grass).

So, having spent the last year immersed in the weird and wonderful world of online video we thought we should probably put our money where our mouth was. Thanks to our resident audio visual genius Tom Silverstone, we've produced a video introduction to the new report. Take a look and tell us what you think, and please leave your comments. The quality of the debate isn't quite what we'd hoped for yet...

]]> Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:15:08 -0100 celia.hannon@demos.co.uk ( Celia Hannon ) AITVR3&4: SexEutube & The Targuist Sniper http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/12597 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/12597 launch of the video republic next Monday. I'm continuing to dip in an out of the bizarre world of internet videos.

The EU has its own Youtube Channel - Eutube (see what they did there?). It blurs the line between propaganda, public information and whimsical provocations to new types of public debate - we like it for the later. Some of their videos are alarmingly good - and if you check out (parts of) the comment stream you can see them starting the kind of debate  about living in Europe  and shared European values the EU has failed to achieve in a thousand focus groups and forums.

British Conservative MEP Chris Heaton-Harris reacted to this when it was released by saying "They do have an image problem but I think cobbling together 44 seconds of soft porn on the internet is not a brilliant way of solving it." Funny, but wrong.




And as I forgot to post a video yesterday - here's some more back dated countdown.

This is The Targuist Sniper, an anonymous young Moroccan man, who in November 2007 hid on a hill in Morocco's northern cannabis growing region and filmed traffic police taking bribes from van drivers. He has become a hero to a nation of people tired of having to pay back-handers to civil servants and public officials and has inspired other Moroccans to video bribe takers.




 ]]> Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:23:33 -0100 charlie.tims@demos.co.uk ( Charlie Tims ) Adventures in the Video Republic 2 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/12588 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/12588 lived out on youtube?  You're wrong. In the run up to the parliamentary elections in Croatia in 2007 videos of slips and blunders by politicians from the ruling HDZ party began to appear on the internet. Interior Minister Ivica Kirin spuriously claimed that one popular video made by a 21-year-old boy had been made by the opposition and he knew this because he claimed to have looked into ‘the youtube servers’ - this triggered a chain of events that lead to the opposition SDP walking out of parliament. Kirin also mistakenly pronounced youtube ‘youbito’ and instantly became a national joke. As the election drew closer supporters of the HDZ produced their own clips attacking the leader of the SDP Zoran ‘no idea’ Milanovic.
]]> Sun, 28 Sep 2008 23:19:49 -0100 charlie.tims@demos.co.uk ( Charlie Tims ) Adventures in the Video Republic 1 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/12583 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/12583 launch Video Republic - a look at what it means to live in a world where just about anyone with basic video recording equipment and an ok internet connection can make and distribute our most instantaneous and powerful form of media - the moving image. Internet videos, produced by us, are part of the evolution of free speech - changing how we see each other, our behavioral norms and our relationship to leaders. They are above all, a new place for public deliberation. So anyway, putting the eulogy to one side, I'm going to post 10 interesting stories about this kind of thing, that we stumbled across in researching this report. Hope you enjoy it.

1. Citizen Journalism in Lebanon

For 33 days between July and August 2006 targets throughout Lebanon were bombed by the Israeli airforce. Many of these attacks, particularly those that fell on Beruit were documented by people on their mobile phones and uploaded to video sharing websites. The videos opened an intimate and instantaneous window on a controversial conflict which displaced hundreds of thousands of people throughout Lebanon, giving viewers all over the world new insights into what it is like to be on the front line of a modern war. In some of the videos you can here people laughing in the background, in others people are crying. The recent conflict in South Ossettia and Georgia has also been documented in a similar way. Standing in line behind the poets of the Great War, the photographers in Vietnam and the TV cameras that rolled into Iraq on American tanks, the videos from Lebanon show the Video Republic’s ability to depict war in a new light to people around the world.]]> Sat, 27 Sep 2008 11:43:45 -0100 charlie.tims@demos.co.uk ( Charlie Tims ) Video Republic http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/12578 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/12578 Iain Dale – Political commentator and Conservative blogger
Charles Leadbeater – Demos Associate and author of 'We-think: The Power of Mass Creativity'
Nerimon – UK-based vlogger with 30,000 subscribers 
Heather Rabbatts CBE – Independent film producer, member of the board UK Film Council (former Head of Education, Channel 4)
Richard Reeves (Chair) – Director, Demos

Demos will launch a new report, Video Republic, exploring the contours of a new public space enabled by cheap digital technology and broadband access. 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 launch will consist of a presentation of the project findings by authors Celia Hannon and Charlie Tims, to be followed by an expert panel discussion and a public question and answer session. The evening will conclude with a drinks reception.

To attend this event please RSVP to seminars@demos.co.uk. Please note that spaces are limited.
]]> Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:33:41 -0100 The sheet music hits the fan http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/12479 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/12479 this clip of it happening in two days.

But secondly, because they are giving away a song book and cd-rom free with NME, in association with the Arts Council. The scheme has been hailed as helping to promote a new generation of musicians, by giving them the tools and encouragement to reinterpret their favourite bands' work. The hope is that they will thereby fall in love with the awesome wonder of musical production. Sky News asked last night, via one of their syntactically innovative headline bars: 'helping find the new Gallagher?' It's a nice idea; a good way to encourage people to pick up instruments because it is backed by a famous band.

But if the notion that giving people access to the raw material of pop music will encourage them to make music has any truth to it - which it does - then I'm confused about the fuss, for two reasons. First, because its been reported with some forgetful journalism. Second, because the claim about the impact of giving away sheet music is full of hubris, because its something people had found the means to do themselves a long time ago.

I used to get all my guitar chords and tabs from a brilliant site called the Online Guitar Archive. Propelled by enthusiastic string-twangers, it quickly filled up with tips and tabs detailing how to play almost any song imaginable. But then something went wrong. Some rights holders decided that people figuring out the way music sounds and works, and then telling other people about it, is not what we'd all assumed - that we'd stumbled on another wondrous means to help us learn how to participate in our pop culture. Instead, apparently it constitutes an economic and moral crime.

If the model of culture implicit in intellectual property legislation backs this nonsense up, and denies people the chance to learn, share and help rework the songs and sights around them, then it's not one I recognise as 'culture'. It's particularly galling to see labels and initiatives lauded for belatedly engaging in something that their fans had figured out 10 years ago. Especially when its an activity that parts of the music industry have been actively trying to stamp out.

There are, of course, still loads of other options for free printed music online. Go, be the next, erm, Gallagher.

Some other useful links:

The Open Rights Group, who campaign for digital rights, are currently looking to expand their membership. You can get involved here - if you're quick you can snatch a free copy of Laurence Lessig's new book.

For the UK Music Publishers Association site go here. The US MPA can be found here.]]> Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:59:14 -0100 peter.bradwell@demos.co.uk ( Pete Bradwell ) Tube-ing http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/12354 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/12354 get in touch if you'd like to know more.

We've digested a lot of online video over the past 9 months. Yes, there's a lot of nonsense. But there's a lot of cracking content out there. Here's just a couple of videos I've enjoyed:

The web is us/ing us
Dr Michael Wesch has some cracking videos on his YouTube channel. This is still my favourite:


EUTube
The European Union has it's own YouTube channel, and one short film really stood out. It's about careers in research. Apparently.


Bertie Ahern 'on' Dragons Den
A mash-up of Bertie Ahern's campaign speech with some decidedly sceptical responses from the panelists of Dragon's Den.


Obama
He's basically YouTube president. In a way. There are plenty of Obama videos to choose. I enjoyed this one though:


Wine gums experiment
Vlogger charlieissocoollike invested a not inconsiderable amount of effort mapping the frequency of different coloured wine gums in wine gum packs. Not as banal an event as it might seem, I think.

]]> Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:14:35 -0100 peter.bradwell@demos.co.uk ( Pete Bradwell ) hello mr primeminister my name's adam and i'm 14 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/11999 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/11999


There are so many ways to be cynical about ask the pm on youtube, but I think it rules. This is an (awesome) video of Adam talking to the Prime Minister about how he wants to vote, which is sort of illogical if you think about it. This type of thing, and alot of the other semi-political content on youtube definitely isn't representative democracy... and er, it doesn't quite fit into participatory democracy either. Expressive Democracy? Any takers? This is the conundrum that the Children of Europa project is currently trying to untangle.
]]> Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:04:10 -0100 charlie.tims@demos.co.uk ( Charlie Tims ) Video is not killing the video star http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/11893 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/11893
Something that is hovering in front of us is the issue of intellectual property and copyright. So I couldn't resist highlighting the recent news about Google and Viacom's legal spat. The short story: Viacom is annoyed that people keep posting unauthorised copies of its programmes. They've counted it up for us: apparently there are 150,000 examples of copyright infringing, grainy 5 minute clips from its archive on YouTube.

There are to my mind two main reasons why the strategy followed by people like Viacom in these situations is wrong-headed and damaging - both to themselves and much more importantly to everyone else.

1. They fail to acknowledge the cultural and social effects of the increasing ability to share content - whether it be songs, video, pictures - using new technology. More importantly, they utterly fail to acknowledge the damage that changing the laws around technology to reflect rights holders' interests so narrowly would have for the way these technologies work. The types of content at issue form an integral part of how the world around us is represented and expressed to us, and to the way that ideas spread. This popular culture is part of the currency through which we build meaning and understanding around our place in the world. So it is important that the channels, where they appear, for people to comment on and rework and discuss and critique that content are respected. If we accept that culture plays an important role in influencing or shaping or expressing our ideas and values and norms, then we have to look at laws and policy that enshrine our right to critique and comment upon it. We shouldn't uphold or design more rights that limit unduly who decides what commentary or use is 'authorised'.

2. We should have little sympathy for most of the business argument either. Whether it is film or music (and I am generalising somewhat...), in the main these outfits have been so slow to adapt that they have consistently damaged their own businesses, and made life harder for the people they sell to. Movies are a classic example. These industries grew up because they helped us to solve some problems around making and distributing culture. Some of these problems no longer exist. Their argument that wiring technology to make them reappear seems rather perverse.

In both cases, there have been people shouting about forward-thinking, progressive solutions and new ideas for at least the last 5 years. Instead of listening, they keep trying to sue them.]]> Tue, 27 May 2008 18:14:24 -0100 peter.bradwell@demos.co.uk ( Pete Bradwell ) Berlin. 24-25/03/08. http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/11599 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/11599 Schlesische 27, a youth arts organisation in Kreuzberg, to the south east of Berlin. It's nestled in a set of buildings off Schlesische street, in an area with growing numbers of artists and an established Turkish population.



There were six young filmmakers in the workshop, all aged between 17 and 22. Thanks, first off, to the facilitators and filmmakers for being so welcoming. I was only there two days so unfortunately I haven’t yet had a chance to see how the ideas developed and how the films turned out.



It was a really different experience to the workshop in Helsinki. A couple of main thoughts struck me during the visit.

Firstly, it struck me that the value of the workshops themselves can differ greatly. The role of the facilitators, and the things that the young people draw from the workshop, are certainly not always the same. These workshops are not always just about making good quality videos; making a statement, or defining yourself through the video you get to make. It can sometimes, initially at least, be more about the confidence and skills the young people get in the workshop - and in the words of one of the facilitators, the ‘journey’ that each young person takes or begins.



This might complicate the idea of comparing videos made in different places by different young people, who may have wildly different experiences of media consumption and production, education, other Europeans and places. That said, it is really interesting to see young people start to use audio-visual media on this journey.

The second point is really related to this. The area where the filmmakers were drawn from sits near the old border East-West Berlin. I wondered whether the generation aged now around 20 years old differed in any significant way from older generations given that for them, the 'wall' and the divisions associated with it are in some respects a part of history rather than lived experience.

Opinions seemed to differ in the people I spoke to, but what I heard seemed to underline how different young people's experiences are. It's a really obvious point, but it is pointless talking about ‘young people’ as a monolithic entity.

And it is worth reminding ourselves of that when we look to new media, and video making. None of this changes the value that audio-visual exchange can have for intercultural understanding in the slightest, but this kind of detail helps us understand the varied experiences of media production and exchange.

We’ve certainly been thinking about how that changes what video workshops offer different kinds of young people; how that changes what kind of videos they make; how that changes how we can compare the outputs across Europe.

We’re off to Romania in a couple of weeks (23rd-28th April). If you would like to talk to us about our work – in particular any of these research visits – do get in touch with us, either below in the comments section or by email.]]> Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:40:31 -0100 peter.bradwell@demos.co.uk ( Pete Bradwell ) Anthropology of ourselves http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/11537 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/11537 website describes how the original project  worked, and it sounds like a weighty undertaking:

'In Bolton, a team of paid investigators went into a variety of public situations: meetings, religious occasions, sporting and leisure activities, in the street and at work, and recorded people's behaviour and conversation in as much detail as possible. The material they produced is a varied documentary account of life in Britain.

The National Panel of Diarists was composed of people from all over Britain who either kept diaries or replied to regular open-ended questionnaires send to them by the central team of Mass-Observers.'

For our project Children of Europa  we've been watching short videos made by young Europeans as they try to document their everyday lives and the things which are important to them. Many of them naturally gravitate towards filming self-portraits. Of course, self-portraiture has long been an important way of understanding ourselves and each other - whether it's a written diary entry, a painting or a video posted on you tube. I wonder whether the technological tools mean it's any more widespread now? Or the end product is any more immediate or powerful? I guess you were unlikely to share your diary entry with thousands of strangers back in 1937...  ]]> Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:52:24 -0100 celia.hannon@demos.co.uk ( Celia Hannon ) Thorny Questions http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/11479 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/11479 Stranger Festival to give us his responses. Please feel free to post your own answers to any of these questions which might grab your attention.

1. Young people making and exchanging videos isn't happening in large enough numbers for it to be considered significantly different or special.

I think the global peak to teenagers’ bedrooms is something new to our time. You feel that you have a moment with them alone. Calling this cultural expression is a completely other discussion.

2. Why should we be surprised that young people are turning their back on society - isn't what they have always done?

Are they turning their back on society, building their own subsociety or just ignoring the political structures? And let’s face it, most adults are turning their backs to it too.

3. Are young people really interacting beyond their social group? Aren't they more likely to just be communicating with 'people like themselves'?

The people like me can now mean different things than before. People interact with people like them but the groups are much more fluid and parallel than before. A big challenge for many youth organisations and public organisations is to deal with the fact that teenagers today do not stick to one group and do not often stay in one group for long. Someone could call this AD/HD…

4. How 'real' is all this stuff anyway? Does it really reflect what children care about? Isn't most of it just exhibitionism? How is it better than say the UNICEF report on the condition of young people around the world?

A lot of the stuff online is deadly serious. But the online videos are like life – they are not only funny or only serious. I think the doing silly things publicly and not only amongst your friends is something new. That also brings me to the point about real….I think these videos should be seen – as you cleverly wrote – as tools for defining who you are rather than testimonies of who you are.

5. Why should there be a role for government in this? Shouldn't we just concentrate on ensuring that children have access to school, food and jobs?

Giving a context has been needed always between youth cultures and the decision makers. No one asked ministers in the 70s to get punk records and start listening. It is not easier now than it used to be.

6. Who has access to broadband? kids in north-western Europe. Not the children of Europa - it's pretty niche stuff really?

It still is but I think the impact of broadband across borders has been massively positive. The fact that still only a few have access should encourage us to provide possibilities for more rather than brand it as a luxury phenomenon. But true, the whole youth of Europe is not online.,

7. Emotional capital? Isn't that just a new way of talking about 'trust'?

I would put emphasis on two issues: trust and self-esteem. Publishing your bedroom videos takes a lot of guts. We should not undermine it. You need to feel self-confident and safe in order to enter the public sphere.
]]> Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:30:42 -0100 celia.hannon@demos.co.uk ( Celia Hannon ) Living in the Expressive Democracy http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/11420 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/11420
Young people have more ways to express themselves than at any point in history. Cheap digital technology combined with internet cafes and free social software have put the power of the publishing house, the TV station and the record label at the finger tips of young people across Europe.

The power to create videos and moving images gives young people access to express themselves through the 20th Century’s most potent form of mass media. The medium that had a greater impact on politics and society than any other - shifting the way the world saw civil rights, war and famine.

This expression happens on the open market when young people make videos independently. And it also happens in private markets when young people take part in projects in community groups, with cultural organisations and in schools. It is in these places that they are assisted in the production of videos, often about themselves and their own lives. In both markets videos are often uploaded on Youtube and distributed through social networking sites like Bebo, Friendster, Myspace and Facebook. The result is a generation of young people who are visually literate on a scale never seen before.

This transfers power to young people. They are free to ridicule or challenge authority figures from politicians, teachers and popstars to their peers at school. Their inclination to be irreverent or creative may not be new – but the presence of a global audience is. Every opinion, minutiae of daily life or personality nuance becomes broadcastable material.

Unsurprisingly, young people find themselves less willing to be spoken for and more likely to want to assert themselves and their own opinions. Those who claim to speak for young people can no longer do so simply on the basis that their voice has a wider reach. Today young people can use their creativity to find ways to project their voice for themselves. The only certainty about this generation is that they share the desire to imprint their personality on everything they touch. From a Facebook profile to a television channel; this group expects each everyday experience to be tailored to them.

As politics continues to specialise in the big picture and ignore the politics of emotion, the attitudes of this generation present a major challenge for political leaders. In the late part of the 20th Century people’s material needs became less dependent on formal politics. Now their identities appear to be less dependent on them too. Why would young people turn to political figures to ‘represent’ them, when they are so well versed in representing themselves?

Levels of political ‘apathy’ amongst the young in Europe shows us that they are rapidly losing faith in formal politics. The unease about this fact has fuelled a rise in formal youth consultation mechanisms; to redress the fact that decision makers are unwilling or unable to listen to them on an everyday concerns. With good reason, young people often don’t believe their political leaders are able to solve sprawling international problems such as climate change and globalization. So they choose to wrestle with those big questions via the internet rather than the ballot box. As a result politics is taking unfamiliar forms and it is taking place in alternative forums.

Optimists say we needn’t worry. If young people want to represent their own aspirations by making a youtube video rather than joining the youth wing of a local political party, so be it. Youth media projects ‘empower’ young people and give them a voice. The important thing is that it’s political, even if that’s with a small p. They argue that even if they have no mainstream presence new, fluid communities are being created and new forms of cultural exchange are taking place just beneath the surface. Conversely, pessimists predict the fragmentation of societies and nation-states as young people use their new autonomy to cut loose permanently from their local communities, their political representatives and their schools.

The optimists and the pessimists both make two crucial errors.

Firstly, they assume that power to express things is the same as a powerful expression. It isn’t.

Just because you can express something, doesn’t mean that expression will have any status. The optimists assume that the explosion in the production of audio-visual media will somehow filter through into the process of political change, but that assumes that it will have enough status for politicians and other leaders to listen to it. At the moment this is completely unclear: why watch this video and not that one? And when I’ve watched the video, what the hell am I supposed to do anyway? What if, as with most creative expression, the meaning or ‘message’ is submerged – who does the interpreting? And what happens if some sections of society find themselves edited out? The pessimists also assume that this information will find enough status out there in the ether for it to gather enough meaning, to completely draw young people away from the society around them. Generations speaking in different languages could find themselves estranged from each other.

Second, they assume that what young people express is what they are (i.e. individualistic). They shouldn’t.

The real story is not about what young people are expressing, but how they are able to express things. Not what they say they are, but how they become what they are. Focussing on the expression itself leads both the optimists and pessimists to read young people’s production and exchange of audio-visual media as part of the continual elevation of the individual over society. But this overlooks the processes and interactions that young people have to go through to create and distribute media. Far from contributing to the fragmentation of young people’s identities it is equally plausible that this is contributing to the growth and ease with which young people can adopt and shed multiple identities.

These are the condundrums of a democracy that is neither just participatory or representative, but expressive too.

Democracy is normally talked about in one of two ways. Firstly ‘representative democracy’ – taken to mean voting slips, elected representatives, referendums, elections and so forth. Second, ‘participatory democracy’ – the democratic culture of everyday life – so, the membership of community groups, affiliations, associations; the governance of schools, streets and workplaces and the campaigning of charities, NGOs and activists. But the kind of activity we are referring to, when we describe young people producing media, doesn’t seems to automatically fit into either. That’s why it’s hard to work out the status of this information, and who accordingly should be listening to it. Ultimately it’s too participatory to simply be ‘representative’, but it is too representative to be ‘participatory’. Maybe what we are talking about here is a future where young people will seek an Expressive Democracy – a democracy where people will seek representation through media rather than just representation through the ballot box.

Richer expression changes how we relate to each other (i.e. our identities) and how power is distributed (i.e. democracy). On that basis our research questions will look at the following issues:

How expressive democracy works:

•What are the tools of expressive democracy, who is using them and how?
•What are the platforms of expression and exchange and which different groups are using them?
•Can private, individualistic digital expressions be connected up to the European public sphere?
•When does creative or cultural expression become political expression?

Expressive democracy and power

•Will a more expressive democracy simply favour those young people shout loudest?
•Could an expressive democracy compound existing inequalities between young people with access to new media and those with fewer resources? What disparities are discernable across Europe?
•What demands will a more expressive democracy place on governments and other institutions? How will decision makers become literate in sifting through a blizzard of digital information?
•Will expressive democracy concentrate power in the hands of individual young people or will it create new opportunities for collective movements?

Identities in an expressive democracy

•How does expressive democracy affect young people’s perceptions of strangers?
•Does the state have role in mediating the transfer of expressions, if so how?
•Are young people projecting several different identities through digital media, if so, what does this mean for their sense of self?
•Do new digital practices and the internet erode or enhance young people’s sense of belonging to their local area, their nation or Europe? What are the new, digital or cultural borders of Europe?
 ]]> Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:27:07 -0100 celia.hannon@demos.co.uk ( Celia Hannon ) Helsinki workshop video http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/11356 http://groups.demos.co.uk/items/11356 week of 18-22 February,  we made a video of some of our initial thoughts on the process and research, and of our conversations with two of the young filmmakers and one of the facilitators.

Here's the short piece of film from our trip. (It's up on the DemosTV channel over at YouTube.)



If you have any thoughts, ideas or questions please do get in touch either through the comments below or emailing me or Celia. There is more information about the project here.

The workshops are part of the Stranger Festival project, which is our main case study. You can learn more about it here.]]> Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:05:55 -0100 peter.bradwell@demos.co.uk ( Pete Bradwell )