LabJuX

an experience of teaching, research and university extension in the context of youth

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss the role of young people as social actors in the production of media content related to their cultures and daily lives, based on the experience of the Laboratory of Youth Media Cultures (LabJuX) at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. This is a result of research focused on the study of youth and their cultures, especially with regard to media, and observations in the field based on the production of content from 2022 to the present date. Paulo Freire, Rossana Reguillo, José Machado Pais and Jesús Martín-Barbero, among others, support the text theoretically. The methodology includes three approaches: the first is the autoethnographic approach of the authors, who are also coordinators of LabJuX; the second is analytical, when the processes of elaboration and negotiation of student productions are taken into account; and the third is ethnographic, with the observation of spaces of interaction, creation and media visibility that stimulate student productions in the context of the project, as well as the collaboration of activists outside the university environment. Five undergraduate students and three social projects linked to skateboarding culture were observed: CDD Skate Arte, Instituto Ademafia and Coletivo Skate Petrópolis. It is concluded that the teaching and research environment conforms young people's views to normative parameters, but it is in the combination of university extension with the media visibility that their daily lives impose themselves as an immanent code practiced in plurality.