The Media Support Fund team met with Dina Perelman and Ieva Austytė, participants in the “Schoolchildren to Government” project, and representatives of the Ministry of Culture – Emilija Cikanavičiūtė, Senior Specialist of the Public Information and Copyright Policy Group, and Rūta Lazauskaitė, Advisor to the Professional Creativity and International Policy Group.
During the meeting, Ruslanas Iržikevičius, Director of the Fund, presented the state media funding policy in Lithuania, the Fund’s mission, current funding programs, and goals. The discussion centred on the media consumption habits of young people.
The students shared that most young people do not use traditional media, as they find it unappealing, and instead get most of their news from social networks. It also depends significantly on the social circles to which young people belong. Suppose young people participate in various social and youth organisations and are interested in current affairs. In that case, they are more likely to encounter online media content shared in online forums and chat groups. Meanwhile, other young people learn about world events only fragmentarily from the content creators they follow. It has been noted that such entertainment news content is often biased and contains a lot of misinformation.
“For some time now, it has been noticeable that traditional media are finding it increasingly difficult to attract young audiences, which poses serious challenges for the dissemination of information, the future of traditional media itself, and democratic processes. Discussions with young people such as this one are critical because they help us understand what young people are thinking and where the media should be heading,” said Ruslanas Iržikevičius, director of the Media Support Fund.
During the discussion, it was agreed that the media should explore attractive ways to reach young people on social networks and through other media, including computer games and various online communities. The Fund supports media projects targeting young people and plans to explore ways to encourage the media to utilise technological opportunities more effectively in attracting young audiences.