Promoting e-learning and e-writing about music (musical journalism and video-lectures) which help to develop knowledge and skills for future journalists: musicologists, humanists etc.
MEAKULTURA was established in order to help young journalists and musicologists to appear in labour market. Academic teachers and the best graduates gave rise to a foundation and a non-profit music magazine in which both highly achieved students and young graduates and their teachers can publish their work. Editorial offices are scattered around Europe, the world even (Brussels, London, Berkeley) and the staff communicates via the Internet only. Internships and workshops are conducted via Skype where the youth is taught how to become modern journalists (the goal of the online workshops on music journalism is to improve writing skills of people interested in professional conquest of music press market, which is why they are intended for people in artistic majors, humanities, as well as high school students, especially students of music schools).
Participants will familiarize with modern journalism standards, will be trained within the scope of CMS system which allows them to upload their own articles in accordance with the rules of editing.
The best texts shall be published in the MEAKULTURA.pl magazine. Direct contact with mentor/specialist allows the students to improve their language skills and practice creating various types of texts (such as press releases, reviews and feature articles, interviews or popular science articles), films, work in PR. MEAKULTURA has become an alternative to university student internships and practices which fail to prepare for the nowadays labour market. We also reach people from smaller cities, the disabled. Additionally, for educational purposes, we try to use all the available multimedia and the knowledge of experienced editors in order to inspire and allow development for our collaborators. We create short video-lectures by university professors (Lectures by PhD Krzysztof Moraczewski were even nominated for the Polish Press Agency award “Science on the Internet”).
MEAKULTURA was created by PhD Marlena Wieczorek, musicologist from Poznan, who noticed the difficulty for the humanists and musicologists to find employment. About 40 people are members of the editorial staff, including several in supervisory positions (all of whom present a high professional level). Every year we sent information about the trainings to the Universities from which the best trainees are selected, we also cooperate with the National Centre for Culture in internship programs.
Our project's main objective is to train youth (especially young musicologists and humanists) in music journalism (and in journalism in general) to increase their chances in today's labour market. Having that goal in mind, we try to create an alternative for university practices (that are not innovative enough in Poland, causing many young people to struggle finding a job). We help trainees to gain new, practical skills (usually such majors as musicology and humanities are too theoretical, leading to their graduates having difficulty in finding a job. We want to achieve out objectives through combining high level of education (cooperating with university professors) with modern technological solutions (using Internet, Skype, Facebook etc for training and educating). We want to cross the boarders, connect people with a specific idea. The scholarship will allow us to buy computer programs (e.g. Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Indesign), cameras, microphones and lighting for video lectures. It will also be used to improve our website (translate it into English), add advertisement in press and media, pay for PR service in the project. We also want to reach Polish communities abroad (especially in the East) with our message and our training program as well as to record video lectures at foreign universities.
Around 5000-6000 people enter MEAKULTURA website monthly, we train approximately 20 people a month, mostly through SKYPE. We also have a Facebook funpage and a closed FB group for editorial staff and trainees, as well as Twitter.
Certainly, the most important is a message that you should not be afraid of your own dreams and match with the best. Thanks to this belief we have created an alternative to academic learning, simultaneously drawing from the knowledge and experience of the academic personnel. All this was developed in an innovative way and it worked independently as a supplement to traditional education. Using the passion of important figures you can actively work for the benefit of education and development of professional chances of young people in the cultural sector, which our project proves.
Another lesson is that money is not the most important factor, because even well-known professors want to give free video lectures in their free time. Another lesson will be to try and develop our project in all ways possible applying for international grants, and not be afraid of it, because this is the attitude that allows to increase scope and level of the activities offered (in our case: workshops and online lectures).