News

Children teaching social media

Published 19 February 2013

A competition is being launched to show how local children use social media creatively and effectively to counter the negative impression that many adults hold about it.

The #iMedia competition is being launched by the Space Invaders project, a collaboration between the University of Brighton's Education Research Centre and the Centre for Research and Innovation in Childhood and Youth at the University of Sussex. The project aims to engage with adult anxieties about social media by demonstrating the creative and innovative ways in which children make use of social media.

Dr Sara Bragg, senior research fellow at the Education Research Centre said: "Adults sometimes think that children and young people waste their time and brains online using social and other media. So we want children to tell us what's hot (and not) about their media lives, and what the media they use allows them to achieve and how they could be improved."

The competition is asking children in Brighton & Hove and East Sussex how they use social media, what they find fun and how they combine different technologies, from Facebook and Twitter to YouTube and phone apps.

Children are invited to send in film footage of no more than three minutes on how they use social media. There are two age categories for the competition: 6-11 and 12-18. The prizes are an iPod Touch and there are two runners up for each category. The judging panel includes young people, educators and people working in the creative industries.

The winning videos and a selection of the shortlisted videos will be screened at a special Space Invaders debate as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival on 20 May. The aim of the activities is to build a network of academics, practitioners, children, young people and their families.

Dr Sevasti-Melissa Nolas, Space Invaders project director from the University of Sussex's Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth, said: "We hope the network will give us a picture of the kinds of new issues now emerging in the lives of children and young people in relation to social media and other areas of their lives, and help us build ideas about how we can respond to such issues in ways that are child-centred, creative and supportive."

Want to get involved?

Entrants must live in Brighton & Hove or East Sussex.
Submissions must be received by 15 March 2013.
Find out more and how to enter on the University of Sussex website.

Space Invaders poster