Funders and Partners of the Salzburg Academy
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The Salzburg Academy creates and shares multimedia content in many different forms, with the over-arching aim to preserve The Human Right to Free Expression.
Why Freedom of Expression? Because...
....Media literacy does not just open books. It opens doors, opens minds, opens worlds.
Media literacy teaches the value of news and information, the power of media messages, the role that the public can — and should play — in setting the public agenda. Media literacy prepares the public for active and inclusive roles in information societies.
We at the Salzburg Academy believe that to be media literate a global citizen must possess the skills of critical thinking and analysis, but must also comprehend the critical importance of free expression and a free press.
| Video produced by James Blue & edited by Matthias Tomasi |
Media literacy—like the traditional kind of ABCs literacy—is also about access to information. The goal of media literacy is to give people the power to use their rights of free expression, to defend their access to information, to secure their participation in the process of governing, to help all voices be heard. Media literacy teaches the global public to evaluate available news and information about the world’s needs, make sense of the solutions that are on offer, and engage with others proportionately and responsibly.
The Salzburg Academy emphasizes that all human beings have an inalienable right to free expression. The media literacy training at the Academy helps students and citizens all over the world understand why they themselves need to be responsible communicators, however that role may be translated in their situation.
Citizens can actively and usefully add to the conversation in their communities; they can write and speak about issues which a newspaper, radio or TV station, or even a mainstream online news site might never have the time or opportunity to cover. Freedom of expression is fundamental to the public’s ability to be informed citizens, to live a safe life as well as to live a good one.
"Freedom of expression: the tool to use everyday. [1]
To be able to remain silent, to be able to speak aloud, to say what you think with no fear and to use your voice and thoughts in order to express yourself.
That’s what it is: mankind’s way of saying 'here I am.'
And my way of saying 'there I will be.' "
Natalia Bocassi, Salzburg Academy Student [1]
Buenos Aires, Argentina
 | ICMPA is a center of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism and the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. Copyright 2008 International Center for Media and the Public Agenda, University of Maryland |
Links:
[1] http://www.icmpa.umd.edu/salzburg/new/index.php?q=news/freedom-expression-around-world