Within the framework of the media literacy campaign “Let’s Choose What We Watch,” launched by the Agency for Electronic Media and UNICEF, the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador to Montenegro, Antonije Pušić a.k.a. Rambo Amadeus has met a team of UNICEF volunteers/young reporters.
On this occasion, Pušić talked with the young people about the influence of the media on them and about media literacy, and they worked together on the lyrics of the campaign song “Let’s Choose What We Watch”.
“My message goes to children. Children, be careful what you watch and which contents you are exposed to, because the state of your mind depends directly on what comes into your mind. The smarter, nicer, healthier contents you consume, the more developed your mind will be, and you will be smarter, healthier, and more beautiful. Let’s choose what we watch,” says Pušić.
On this occasion, the young people shared their experiences and thoughts about the media.
Fifteen year-old Tara Simović believes that “everybody can give their contribution to the production of quality media contents, presenting and emphasizing differences that make us special, instead of stereotypical heroes, both male and female”.
Seventeen year-old Balsa Božović, has a message for parents and the media:
“I would like to send a message to both parents and the media, because as much the media are responsible for what they air, the parents have the same responsibility because they can influence what children, especially young ones, watch. I wish that the parents and media should realize how important they are and ask themselves about the role they play, they need to understand that they must be socially responsible, responsible for us and, therefore, for the future of this world.”
The goal of the campaign “Let’s Choose What We Watch,” is to raise public awareness, especially among parents, that the media are neither good nor bad per se, and that their influence depends on how we use them. It is therefore vital to choose media contents carefully and analyse them critically together with children, in order to enhance their media literacy. Media literacy, i.e. the ability to use, analyze, critically evaluate and create different media contents, is just as important in the 21st century, as the traditional literacy.
A survey on how children and parents use the media in Montenegro, how and with whom they discuss the media contents, and how they interpret the information disseminated by the media is in the pipeline within the framework of this campaign. Moreover, the cooperation between the children and the media outlets will be strengthened through the campaign, in order to have more opinions of the young people in the media reports, and better quality of the programmes focusing on the topics related to them.
