Want to Amplify Youth Voices? Give Them a Podcast Mic

 
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Want to Amplify Youth Voices? Give Them a Podcast Mic

Haley Witt, Visibility Manager, Youth on Record

04-03-2024

Generation Collaboration Season 1 hosts Sonakshi and Brayden hone their hosting and interviewing skills. Photo: Youth on Record.

In mainstream media, youth voices are widely absent, overlooked, or sensationalized. Youth on Record (YOR) aims to address this gap through our creative youth programming, including its Podcasting Production Internship. The program seeks to foster a supportive environment where young people explore creative storytelling and produce podcasts that amplify their voices and ideas.

YOR’s Podcasting Interns learn to mix and master on their analog board. Photo: Youth on Record.

YOR’s podcasting journey began in 2018 with My Youth on Record, an artist-centered podcast exploring musicianship and artistry.

This pilot program has since blossomed into a robust department boasting three youth-led and youth-produced podcasts: Generation Collaboration, Underground at the Showcase, and Youth on Rewind.

Offering a unique blend of learning for aspiring creatives ages 18–24, the internship combines creative writing, audio production, social-emotional learning, artistic expression, media literacy, and critical thinking skills. It’s an integral part of YOR’s broader program portfolio, which includes for-credit classes, after-school programs, summer camps, and more, for youth ages 11–24.

Perhaps most importantly, it is a paid internship. Tethered to YOR’s commitment to providing economic opportunities to young creatives, students are paid to explore their creativity and develop new skills in production, storytelling, audio production, and interviewing. YOR seeks to remove the many barriers to entry faced by those who seek careers in the burgeoning audio-arts landscape.

YOR interns record Season 1 of Underground at the Showcase at Mutiny Information Cafe. Photo: Youth on Record.

On Generation Collaboration, high school students Litzy and Emanuel connect with local leaders to discuss themes of mental health, education, politics, and more through an intergenerational lens.

“I love being able to go home and tell my mom, ‘Mom, I just finished another episode and it’s going to be on the radio,’” says Litzy in an episode. “I have family members in Mexico who hear it and it’s inspiring to know that I’m doing something different and coming out of my comfort zone. If you told me I’d be doing this in middle school, I’d be like, ‘no way,’ because I have social anxiety.”

Guided by storytelling educators, the podcast interns are asked to engage in iterative processes of curious thought and authentic sharing. In the very first episode of Youth on Rewind, former intern and local musician Genevieve Libien talks about living with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, recounting her experience with exposure therapy during her early teens. Genevieve’s story exemplifies the way participants have used their projects to talk about issues that are important to them.

Interns record Season 2 of Underground at the Showcase at HR Meininger Company. Photo: Youth on Record.

Underground at the Showcase has been an exciting challenge for the podcasting team. Unlike YOR’s other podcasts, the show is recorded on South Broadway, up the street from the Underground Music Showcase. During the podcast’s first year, the show was recorded at Mutiny Information Cafe and then at HR Meininger Company, a local art supply store. Moving out of the studio was an exciting way to capture the feeling of the festival, but it required interns to be flexible and creative. As artists who had just performed or were about to perform entered the space, the YOR interns thoughtfully navigated shifts in energy and environment while recording.

While music-centered programs remain foundational to YOR, podcasting has proven an important complement to its offerings. Podcasting is dialogical and connective: by providing a longer-form format for in-depth conversations around personal topics, the project has equipped young creatives with a diverse toolkit for self-expression. By integrating student-made music into most projects, it underscores the interconnectedness of various artistic media. The podcasting program continues to deepen young creatives’ relationships with themselves, with each other, and the broader Colorado community.

Youth on Record is a 2023 Semi-Finalist Awardee of The Lewis Prize for Music.

April 2024, Colorado Young Leaders, Generation Collaboration, My Youth on Record, Podcasting, Podcasting Production Internship, The Lewis Prize for Music, Underground at the Showcase, YOR, Youth Empowerment and Career Pathways, Youth on Record, Youth on Rewind

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