STORY BEHIND THE YOUTH LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON NEW MEDIA - 2010
This is an outcome of the exchange program , Study of the United States Institutes for Student Leaders on New Media sponsored by the U.S. branch in the U.S department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs from May 31- June 25. It provided 20 Undergraduate students from Bangladesh, Sri-Lanka and India with Knowledge on the use of new media and its importance to journalism, freedom of expression, politics, and civic engagement. During the study tour for the Global perspectives of democracy and New media, we were able to obtain more insights on the use of new media and its importance to journalism, media freedom and civic engagement. Also, it is recognized that the use of new media technology in Sri Lanka is considerably lower than India and Bangladesh. This is mainly due to the lack of knowledge and practice in New media among the users, journalists or students. At present, the traditional media( Mass Media ) plays a bigger role in Sri Lanka, by which the media freedom is limited or threatened at most of the time. Thus we have realized that there is a strong need to direct the Youth generation to use New media in order to gain the lost media freedom. This project attempts to provide the knowledge that we gained from the study tour to those perspective learners in order to use New media in means of journalism, freedom of expressions and civic education.
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