In a Finnish city, an effort has been made to bridge the gap between the media used in formal and informal environments. Two years ago an online school TV, a YouTube channel called ‘kOuluTV’, was launched for videos and digital stories generated by students of schools in the region (Palmgren-Neuvonen et al., 2011). ‘kOuluTV’ can be seen as a safe environment and tool for media education, especially media encouragement and publicity education (Jaakkola, 2010). Unlike the restrictive media education, media encouragement aims to promote students’ willingness to unveil their media content to an authentic public which would serve as a medium of publicity education (ibid.), in other words, what is allowed or encouraged and what is not, as far as video production and publishing are concerned, and what it means to share one’s videos in public channels. Accordingly, a balance between empowerment and protection should be negotiated between adolescents and educators inside and outside of school, as the collective impact of growing environments is now concerned. The teacher is in a central role to coordinate this dialogue. In media education, the gap between generations is problematic, as educators and adolescents live in environments implying different thinking and operation models. Thus, the interface for a constructive educational dialogue may be limited. (Jaakkola, 2010.)
This study focuses on the complex field of publicity, publishing and public activity which in school context refers to sharing everyday practices, processes and products online with the world outside. Photographing, videotaping, as well as YouTube and other publishing channels have a settled position in the contemporary life of ever younger children in Western countries, and the most part of those uploading videos online want them to be seen (Lenhart et al., 2007). According to Laitinen (2007), the best way to learn ideas of critical media education and framework of media production is to generate media content by oneself. Thus, different kinds of videos are generated by students in many of the local schools. However, even if teachers are encouraged to employ learner-centered video production in their teaching, reluctance can be seen to publish videos on ‘kOuluTV’. Yet, many youths make videos in leisure time, presenting their personal hobbies and interests, and publish them on YouTube in general. This raises a question whether youths find publishing in the school context uncomfortable due to a perceived feeling of control or power relation. Do they think that school should not enter their ‘media territory’? Or are they worried about the quality standard that has, in fact, not been set at all?
The study aims to investigate the phenomena emerging around ‘kOuluTV’. The research questions are as follows:
- How well do children know the framework of publishing and publicity?
- What kind of perceptions and attitudes exist concerning the publishing of learner-generated videos?
- What kind of factors may hinder publication of students’ videos?
- What kind of role do teachers play in media encouragement?
