What is the mission of your organization?

• The Just Think Foundation is a dynamic non-profit 501(c)3 organization dedicated to teaching youth how to become more media literate by providing them with the new literacy skills and technical tools to be critical thinkers and creative producers. Just Think trains young people and teachers to understand the words, images and technology of today's media (mass communication), inspiring them to think for themselves and showing them how to create their own media messages.
• Just Think believes young people who can critically assess the influence of today's media and use technology responsibly are much more prepared to make informed, conscious decisions about their behavior and how they live their lives.
• Just Think collaborates and networks with other youth and youth-focused organizations to provide a forum for their voices to be heard through: film and video festivals; broadcast media including television; publications; conferences and workshops; Web sites.

What age, class, racial, religious, and ethnic groups do your organization work with?

• Just Think's media arts education programs are primarily directed towards students ages 8 - 18, as well as teachers and community leaders, with a particular focus on the greater San Francisco Bay Area Community. *
• Requests from schools and communities that are under-resourced and within economically depressed areas are given preference. In the future we would like to meet all requests for our programs and services as we feel access to new media skills is essential to all youth.
• For many schools there are no media education programs available and little or no access to the technology we provide when we teach our programs. As a result many of the students we currently teach are often academically disadvantaged, from lower to low income families who have little or no access to technology within the public schools they attend. This also applies to the students we have taught in our international programs. (Of the over 200 students who completed our core media arts education programs in the United States last year 35% were African-American, 25% Latino, 20% Asian-American, 10% Caucasian, and 10% other ethnic groups.)

* Martin Luther King/Bayside Elementary, North Bay Alternative School, Hill Middle School, San Francisco Community School, Carlmont High School, Gunderson High School, Menlo-Altherton School North Elementary School, Sonoma County Office of Education, Humbolt County Office of Education, Alameda County Office of Education, Crocker Middle School, Beacon Schools, Mexican Museum of SF, Horizons Community Center, Southern Exposure.

What are the main facilities, resources and services you make available to young people interested in working in media?

• media and technology literacy/arts education - programs and resources
• access to media technology tools
• clearing house for media literacy and youth & media issues
• Web site
• forum for youth voices to be heard

How would children and young people make contact with your organization?

Through our Web site, education programs, friends, e-mail.

What made you originally want to start working with young people?

• through seeing under-representation / mis-representation of youth in the media
• lack of media literacy / critical thinking / appropriate technology training curricula in US public school system

How are young people using new technologies to help them gain access to public forums and be more effective media makers?

Mixed. Internet, digital film-making / story-telling.

What do you see as the obstacles young producers of media face in gaining access to television, film, video, and print?

• contacts. The media still has a strong wealthy established network, which is hard to break into.
• media in general is driven by consumerism and profit above and before content

What's taking place today that is or will soon make access easier or harder for a greater number of young people?

Easier:
• Internet and the as yet unrealized potential of the Internet
  Harder:
• co-opting of sub-cultures by mainstream media for profit
• current economic decline / depression

Do you believe there is bias in the dominant media toward young people and their interests and issues? What is it?

Yes. - Consumerism and profit (marketing) above and beyond all else. (Refer to the recently published Channel 1 Youth Handbook for a good example of this in action.)

How do you think the Internet and other technologies are influencing young media makers?

Mixed. Making access easier in some cases and distribution and disemmination easier than it has been.

What are your organizations success stories working with young media producers?

Forums such as our involvement with the sundance Gen-Y studio film festival.

What will be the most serious challenges facing young media journalists in the future?

• corporate structure and control of the media. (Globalization)
• distribution of wealth

What do you think can be done to make young people more media literate?

• establish media literacy curricula in US public school system
• education — particularly the teaching of critical thinking skills

YOUTH MAKING MEDIA: MAIN PAGE

AS THE MEDIA WATCH THE WORLD, WE WATCH THE MEDIA.