U-YouPa will conduct participatory studies to propose new models to enhance young people’s engagement in digital media production, media education and intercultural dialogues in four European countries: Austria, France, Norway and Germany. The project arranges LLs involving young people as co-researchers and co-designers. This requires awareness of cultural values and a deep understanding of how engagement and social connection can be facilitated in collaborative settings offline and supported.
Media scholars have explored LLs as a framework for open media innovations based on bottom-up, long-term collaborations amongst diverse stakeholders (Björgvinsson et al. 2010). LLs have attracted attention in recent years as an umbrella concept for a diverse set of open innovation frameworks (Bergvall-Kåreborn & Ståhlbröst 2009), or an experimental platform where the user is studied in his or her everyday habitat. The method stresses commitment of all participants and encourages embarkment on a collaborative endeavour (Machin-Mastromatteo 2012). U-YouPa specifically focuses on participatory research methods with youth (Ollner 2010; Cammarota & Fine 2008; Fine 2016) in combination with media literacy studies. In practice, this will be done by including an intercultural group of youth in collaborative studies and LLs, both physical and based on digital collaborations.
More ‘traditional’ humanistic and social scientific methods of textual analysis and focus group interviews will also be employed in analyzing media forms and the dialogues they elicit.
The implementation plan includes 5 WPs:
· WP1 Dialogic youth participation in the series Skam, Druck and SKAM FRANCE
· WP2 Social media and youth participation. Potentials and barriers for intercultural dialogues
· WP3 Technical affordances and constraints related to civic, political and intercultural youth engagement
· WP4 Framework and guidance for media literacy and ethics of youth participation on digital platforms
· WP5 Management and knowledge exchange (KE)
