S. B. Tsimbalenko,
MSc in Philosophy, Manager,
YUNPRESS , the Regional Public Association
Information violence is not only scenes in films and facts of violence that we see on the screen and receive from the media. In many respects, it is also the absence of choice, forced consumption of tendentious information when the audience has no opportunity to have another kind of information. Protection is not confined to prohibitive measures only. In our opinion, there are several ways. One of them is the typological variety, creation of conditions for existence of not only commercial but socially significant editions and programs. Here the task is in many respects that of the state. Last year at the hearings in the State Duma, a complex of such measures was suggested and considered. The main antidote, I think, consists in the very personality of a child.
There is European experience of mass-media education. In class, children and teenagers are taught to critically apprehend die media and to understand that it is not always objective. Another way is to support and develop means of mass communication of youth themselves. For the present day, the audience of such editions, video programs, and audio programs is higher than the circulation and audience of the traditional editions. But, unfortunately, there is no legislative and state system of support of the media. They arc on their own.
Yet another way, the project developed in Tula is the formation of information space for youth by means of the Internet, which creates the confidence for youth that it is possible to achieve their aim and to solve their problems. How is it supposed to achieve? First, to connect, by means of Internet, all mass media, all information flows that work for children. Today it is possible. Them young people will have a choice: if they cannot subscribe to all editions, to watch all programs (central and regional) then they will be able to find everything they are interested with the aid of Internet. Second, this is the creation of special sites. For the gent such sites have been developed as ‘Live not by a manual’ which suggest collective discussions of complex problems of teenagers. On the 1st of June 2000, we carried out a very interesting experiment when we gave teenagers the opportunity to communicate via Internet with deputy Prime Minister V.I. Matvienko. The result was very interesting.
One of our projects is the formation of youth parliament in the Internet, by means of which children will have opportunity to discuss social problems, to enter into dialogue with the State Duma, the Russian Federation Government, and made them attend their own problems. There are ‘Banks of Fates’ of gifted children who need support, of children who have got into trouble. There are also sites ‘Stock market of social initiative of youth’, ‘How to find a job’, 'How to spend leisure time’. The project of creation of regional centers, which could participate in this project, has been created.
Source: Молодежь России перед лицом глобальных вызовов на рубеже веков (Как противостоять агрессивному экстремизму, ксенофобии и насилию среди молодежи) : Материалы Международной конференции, 18–19 ноября 2000 г., Москва, Россия / под научной и общей редакцией И. М. Ильинского. Перевод на англ. яз. М., 2001. С. 256–257. ISBN 5-85085-643-9
