Tag Archives: public media

After two tough years of pandemic disruption, young people have a lot to say about their experiences, struggles, and hopes for the future. And we as educators and public media creators have a unique opportunity to help students reconnect with their schools and communities–and reenergize our airwaves and digital channels with Gen Z voices.  This is one reason we’re excited about KQED’s seven Youth Media Challenges (YMCs). Valuable learning and powerful mediamaking arise when we give young people space to…

In the 1960s, Joan Ganz Cooney published The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education, a report that would revolutionize television for children. Where others saw a “vast wasteland,” Cooney saw possibility, and from it, educational programming for children, like Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, was born. Half a century later, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and Corporation for Public Broadcasting seek to carry forward this vision of programming with the By/With/For Youth: Inspiring Next Gen Public Media Audiences…

On January 26,  2021, the Cooney Center’s Executive Director Michael Preston and Senior Fellows Monica Bulger, Mary Madden, and Rafi Santo presented a session called Tweens and Teens: Public Media’s Missing Audience at the 2021 National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA) Conference and CPB Public Media Thought Leader Forum. The goal of the session was to share findings from our latest research on tweens and teens and their media habits, as well as ideas and opportunities for public media to serve…

The following post is part of a series springing from the Cooney Center’s joint initiative with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, By/With/For Youth: Inspiring Next Gen Public Media Audiences. This is a project aimed at exploring the role of public media in the lives of young people by taking stock of the current landscape and imagining a future that public media can build alongside teens and tweens. With that in mind, we are inviting public media practitioners who are already experimenting…

Growing up, I was used to being the “only one.” I was the only Black girl in many of my elementary school classrooms, newspaper staff, debate team, and even in college lectures at the University of Virginia. That anxious feeling of being surrounded by faces that were not like my own was a familiar one. As an aspiring journalist, I expect I will often be the “only one” in the workplace. While 38% of newsrooms have made diversity gains in…

“MOLLY OF DENALI celebrates life in a rural community—a unique one, but rural all the same. Having that commitment to rural representation carry over into the educational resources is tremendously gratifying. And, the fact that families from rural communities across the US had a hand in their creation added both value and authenticity.”—Stephanie McFadden, Alaska Public Media More than 9.3 million, or nearly one in five students in the United States, attend a rural school (Why Rural Matters 2018-19: The…

It’s that time of year again – time to vote for your favorite SXSW EDU 2021 panels. We’re disappointed not to be able to share tacos with you in Austin, but we’re very excited to talk about why tweens and teens are public media’s “missing middle” audience, the challenges of reaching these kids, and potential opportunities for public media. And, as if that weren’t enough for you, we’re having this conversation with public media luminaries Deb Sanchez, Senior Vice President,…

Unlike kids in the 70s, tweens and teens today are posting, dancing, and streaming across platforms from TikTok to Twitch. They have no interest in being corralled to discrete brands or destinations. They enjoy a banquet of high-quality digital offerings that are ready when and where they are. And they’re always one step ahead of us. While just about everything has changed in terms of media consumption, something essential has not: kids’ curiosity and desire for agency. The Corporation for…

It seems like we’re having a lot of conversations about teens and tweens these days. Or youth? Young people? All of these terms get used by various disciplines, and some even get used by the young people themselves. However you talk about it, it’s clear that public media needs to be ready for the next generation of audiences (and technology)—because they’re already here. Right now, we’re in the middle of a new research project called By/With/For Youth: Inspiring Next Gen…

The following post is part of a series springing from the Cooney Center’s joint initiative with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, By/With/For Youth: Inspiring Next Gen Public Media Audiences. This is a project aimed at exploring the role of public media in the lives of young people by taking stock of the current landscape and imagining a future that public media can build alongside teens and tweens. With that in mind, we are inviting public media practitioners who are already experimenting…