We firmly believe in the need for an emancipatory practice with digital media and new technologies in shaping an open, fair society founded on solidarity. By using contemporary education formats, we can empower people to achieve this goal with us.

As a non-profit-making association devoted to media education, we see it as our mission to support teaching and research process in media education. The hands-on approach is a fundamental component of our work and is reflected in our conceptual and practical work. We place a particular focus on current developments in the media and their impact on education practice and on political and cultural life in our society. We see what we do as political education in realms of life that are inextricably linked in the 21st century with digital, networked technologies. 

Digitalisation is creating a world where personal orientation and social participation are being reorganised and rethought. Digital environments are spaces for action that are taken for granted, usually without reflection, and not exempt from friction for communities and individuals. To empower people of all ages by building skills that strengthen our responsibility for ourselves in this digital world too, we need a wide range of interfaces where we can reach out to learners in their own worlds and motivate them. This includes shifting the learning process into digitally supported settings, not only to use online formats as a source of information and a window of opportunity, but also to expand the practical options in a digital environment with finely tuned didactic methods.

We believe it is the task of media education to devise innovative strategies for a critically reflective approach to new technologies. Instead of adopting a dismissive or protective attitude to digital media, we advocate an accepting, constructive perspective. Besides, we do not treat children, teenagers or adults as simple recipients of media, but as media users who develop their own potential in and through media and who must be empowered to participate as responsible citizens in an open, fair digital society founded on solidarity.

More about us: www.medialepfade.org