MK speaks EN

December 20. The NGO Infocentre from Skopje, in cooperation with the Youth Education Forum (MOF), organized a debate on the topic “Do the Traditional Media Lose the Young Audiences?”

In addition to the two opposed debate teams of MOF, who presented the positive and negative view on the topic, editors from several media in Macedonia, journalists, youth organizations’ representatives and students participated in the debate.

The debate thesis were presented by Branko Gerovski, Editor-in-Chief of “Spic” daily; Aco Kabranov, Editor in “Kanal 5” TV news programmes; Nazif Rasidi from BBC; and Roberto Belicanec, Executive Director of the Media Development Centre.

The debate concentrated on the thesis that the traditional print and electronic media – daily newspapers, television and radio stations – lose the young audience that turns, as is natural, towards the new media that use internet as carrying platform, to get information they need and they are interested in.

Also, according to MOF’s debate teams, the media are not much interested in making an effort to fulfill their educational function, which together with the task to inform and entertain, make the three pillars on which the functioning of media rests all over the world.

MOF debating teams presented an opinion that the media do lose the young audiences, because they cover events that are of no interest to the youth. Also, the media were accused of ignoring and avoiding topics of interest to the youth, as well as of showing little interest for the activities of the youth organizations.

The representatives of the media responded that, as unavoidable an eventual fall in readership and audiences may be, it still is no issue and the latest surveys show that the following of the media in Macedonia remains at extremely high level. Furthermore, it was mentioned that, with the average five hours daily they spend in front of their TV sets, the Macedonians are far above the European averages.

The audience also made several interesting points. Several people warned the traditional media that their domination nears its end, accused them of being slow and focused on a narrow scope of topics, such as politics, crime, and the darker side of social existence.

Of course, different views were presented, too. One interesting intervention was given by a representative of the growing population of Macedonian bloggers (Darko Buldioski - komunikacii.net), who commented that the low visibility of youth issues and activities in the media is due to the weak media education of the youth and the low level of media literacy. He advised his colleagues to improve their skills in the area of rising their own visibility and public relations, which will create greater interest in the media.

What conclusion could one make based on the debate? First of all, there is misunderstanding and a real problem between the media and that segment of the youth population – alas, themselves a small majority among the youth – interested in active participation in social affairs.

Youth activists have to find the ways to, first, use their activities to reach a criticial mass of dissatisfaction among the citizens, and second, to present their activities, views and ideas in a manner that traditional media will understand and accept.

Although the internet and the new media that use it as a platform do exist as an alternative closer to their demands and world-view, the low level of penetration of internet in the country still restricts their influence as a corrector of the traditional media.

Finally, the majority of the youth, outside the ranks of the active and activist youth, seems very much satisfied with the traditional media who offer them information about the marital status of Holywood and music stars, believing that it is, in fact, what interests them most.

Source: NGO Info Center