Opole'17 Media Team Vision

Opole 2017

The creative vision of Marsel Szopinski and Ilvija Mezina

Our vision - in detail Opole - we value our role We perceive the open discussion of sustainable and tolerant Europe as a pivotal way of working towards it. Facing everyday changes with European governments making crucial decisions such as the Brexit in the United Kingdom or right-wing radicalisation in Poland, Europe is confronted by fundamental instability. Our organisation, the European Youth Parliament, provides an infrastructure to overcome these conflicts and to fight prejudice at its very roots. Unity stands in the centre of our vision.

Not only by encompassing cultural diversity, but also by creating a close-knit atmosphere, a purposeful sense of belonging in our Media Team.

Guiding towards creative freedom At Opole 2017, every participant should experience an opportunity to live their creativity. However, we feel that at many times this approach lacks structure and execution. Our goal is to establish a platform in our Media Team, which embodies projects the Journalists come-up with themselves during preliminary brainstorming. Following an idea-based approach, we want to first determine the message, then decide on the output method.

We encourage the Journalists to use multiple output methods to fully adduce the message. Once again emphasising cooperation between the teams, we also welcome contributions to our media outputs through all Participants. Opole 2017 is the place to fully develop one’s abilities and venture out in the world more consciously after.

Brainstorming and Training We are planning on leading trainings both before and during the session. The presession trainings would focus on improving the technical and creative thinking skills of the Media Team Members through short tasks relating to photography, filming, post-processing footage and structuring writing. The Editorial Assistants will also be provided the opportunity to introduce their vision regarding their field in media and issuing training tasks that ensure this vision will be fulfilled during the session.

As our vision is idea-based, we would also start off with brainstorming on the online platform RealTime Board, which can be used in building an interactive mind map. During CJO training, we plan on leading various modules together with the Editorial Assistant from which the Journalists have the freedom to choose which ones to attend. The modules would focus on photography, videography, social media as well as creative and academic writing.

Photography The images shall be representative, but also engaging. Ideally, around 50 pictures would be uploaded to Facebook, in order to keep transparency and make it possible for externals to grasp the progress of the session visually. Additional pictures could be added to the folders or a separate google drive for the participants to access. However, we wish to give our Editorial Assistant the freedom to implement their concept. They would be in charge of planning the coverage of each event, preferably engaging two Journalists per event.

Videography Video content matters to us. It is not a side project, but part of the vision and cohesive with our written, visual and interactive content. The precise conceptualisation would be for the Video Editor to manage, but should involve the Journalists in each production in order to leave room for their personal projects.

An issue - one piece We intend to produce one issue at the end of the session, featuring academic as well as session-oriented and creative pieces.The pieces will be project based, i.e. first the team will come up with an idea, identify the most suitable output structure (article, video, infographic etc.). The written and visual pieces will be then featured in the issue. A working group will be formed to develop this mini-projects, hence the pieces will be mostly collaborative, with each person involved in several working groups.

Each piece will have an individual deadline. This way, each Team Member will have their busy working hours at different times, enabling the Team to participate in the events most interesting to them personally.

Learning by example

Often times, there are many projects in EYP that follow the same structure or meaning. This can create a lot of repetitive outcomes. Whilst there is a lot of value put into already-existing content, we also believe that this could serve as an example and a learning point to depart from in creating the content for Opole 2017. This would mean that inspiration is drawn from sources inside and outside of EYP in order to learn from other creators’ experiences, developing own products. After all, adding up to initial ideas can lead to completely new and innovative outcomes.

A team that is both - connected and outreaching towards the participants In a nutshell, we will influence the session in educational, artistic and inspirational ways by conducting meaningful everyday interactive ventures with the participants of the session. Through such presence we would convey messages regarding the topics, the session itself or any other relevant projects developed by the Media Team.