New Media Network: Combining the Oldest and Newest Forms of Media

On August 1st, 1981, music, media, and the entire world of entertainment were forever altered with the debut of Music Television, or MTV. The video that heralded the emergence of this media takeover was “Video Killed the Radio Star,” a new wave track by the Buggles that tells the story of a performer whose craft is outmoded by the introduction of new technology.

The creators and co-directors of the New Media Network, Robbin Williams and Holly Hobbs, would contend that now––26 years after the birth of MTV––youth-oriented media has moved even further forward, in ways that would have been unimaginable in 1981. Due in part to the increasingly low cost of equipment and training, one of these changes is a greater involvement of non-professionals and young people in the development of media.

This is, in essence, the central idea behind the New Media Network. NMN’s mission is to incorporate the perspectives of youth from Columbia’s First Ward (most often described by mainstream media as a largely poor and largely African American community) into an interactive and ongoing process of digital storytelling. In contrast with traditional news media formats, however, youth participants will not be recording video. While NMN enthusiastically supports integral community resources like CAT3 (Columbia Access Television) and Ragtag Cinemacafé––of which NMN is a sister organization––an NMN contribution to our local community television station would vary somewhat from standard video news programming (hence the reference to “new media” in the organization’s name).

This stems directly from the idea that, if restricted from videography and encouraged to create storylines using various audio pieces and still photography, students will be forced to conceptualize their projects differently from the video-oriented visual culture that predominates the modern cultural landscape. Instead, participants in NMN will collect and create audio recordings to pair with still digital photography in whatever fashion they prefer, with one general guideline: the opinions expressed, as well as the written and audio journalistic and musical compositions that may accompany these works, must be original and must be community-oriented.

“Community oriented” is the wording NMN uses to describe what they view as a bottom-up, community-controlled development project for the First Ward; through what they term “digital storytelling” (building upon the idea of oral storytelling as the oldest form of media), students create storylines that are from the community, about the community, and for the community of the First Ward. As current media trends associate youth in the First Ward with crime, drugs, and poverty, NMN wants to encourage the greater community to view First Ward youth as an important resource, rather than a problem, by giving those young people a chance to vocalize their own realities and perspectives.

The first eight-week session of the New Media Network took place March through May 2007 at the Blind Boone Community Center. Mostly operating from a generous donation from the Downtown Optimist Club, NMN held sessions after school twice a week for younger students who came to the Blind Boone Center for tutoring. During those eight weeks, 12 students learned skills in digital photography, composition, and post-production and editing. Students also began working with audio recorders, on loan from the University of Missouri ASSET office, to talk about issues that were important to them, to record hip hop freestyles, and to interview other community members at the Blind Boone Center.

The culminating event, however, focused specifically on photography: students selected three photographs to be framed, which were then displayed at a community reception at Ragtag Cinemacafé. (The event was generously sponsored by the City of Columbia Office of Cultural Affairs and 89.5FM KOPN.) Two of these framed and enlarged photographs were returned to the students themselves; the others remain on permanent display at the Blind Boone Community Center. Starting out with these small but important goals in mind, starting October 1st, 2007, the Network will more formally incorporate “new media” into its activities when the majority of the students involved in the first session––along with other students new to NMN––return to build on the audio recording work that they did last spring.

MTV debuted in a world without the Internet. Its automatic success can be accredited largely to the extent to which it resonated with young people that were, otherwise, without a common forum for appreciation of the music in which they shared a mutual interest, and largely without a voice within mainstream media. In an era when Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube allow people the chance to connect, create virtual profiles, and select entertainment with more autonomy than ever before, further incorporating technology and a strong public voice into local news coverage is long overdue. And while it may be some time before the media pieces produced by participants in the New Media Network challenge the popularity of music video culture, giving young people that are marginalized by the varying intersecting factors of race and class the chance to develop their own voices within the context of local media is an integral step towards improving our community.

The New Media Network is still accepting students for their upcoming fall session. For more information about participating, volunteering, or donating, go to http://www.newmedianetwork.us.