Media Education for the Inclusion of At-Risk Youth: Shades of Democracy 2.0 from Finland

At-risk youth, those on the verge of dropping out of school (and eventually society), are of ongoing global concern. However, there is a paucity of critical discussion on media education for supporting at-risk youth. This text considers how schools and youth institutions can promote media skills and motivation for autonomous digital agency as 21st-century citizenships in technology-driven democracies and proposes media education that uses account-inclusive perspectives through participatory media. Media education here is understood as pedagogies on multiliteracies supporting youth agency in digitalized societies with their public nature calling for expressive media skills. An extensive, action-based qualitative study was conducted, consisting of eight sub-studies implemented in 2015–2017 with youth institutions around Finland. Each sub-study included a media workshop promoting youth media-making as self-expression for participation through public media cultures. The workshops were attended by nearly 100 young people, mostly ages 15–22. Several kinds of marginalities comprised “youth at risk,” such as dropping out of school, displaying social and learning difficulties, or encountering challenges in language or life situations. As a result of the study, this chapter proposes a model of Inclusive Media Education for supporting at-risk youth for the enhancement of Democracy 2.0 in digitalized societies. The model contains five key features of media education as everyday practices: safe spaces, caring interaction, trust in competence, creative media-making and authentic agency. The goals are to advance: at-risk youths’ motivation to participate, communicative media skills, autonomous agency, relatedness and experiences of inclusion in both educational settings and society.