Just imagine sitting in Las Vegas and watching the popular starlet of the day bomb during a half-hearted, lip-synched performance at the VMAs (that’s Video Music Awards for those of you who have been living under a rock the past two weeks). Then imagine watching it in person. It could happen to you, and all for doing just a little bit of good.That’s right. In an innovative move, MTV, in conjunction with the Case Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Goldhirsh Foundation, and MCJ Aemlior Foundation, has launched an online community aimed at getting our young people more involved in issues that are important to them.
ThinkMTV went live on Thursday, September 20 and is a multi-faceted site which has stemmed from the desire of MTV’s core audience – teenagers and 20-somethings – to do more. In a recent youth activism study titled “Just Cause,” ThinkMTV reported that 80% of young people surveyed believe that taking action to help their community is important. A much lower percentage, only 19%, self-describe their level of involvement as being high. One of the driving factors in the lack of contribution, the surveyed youth said, was lack of knowledge on how to get involved.Enter MTV and its partners. They boast five main objectives to their user friendly and exceedingly informative site – get educated, get connected, get heard, get active, and get rewarded. Let’s look a little closer at these seemingly simple goals.
Get Educated – With news reports, picture galleries, socially conscious video games, and more video and audio files than you can possibly want, ThinkMTV is a veritable hotbed of breaking news, social issues, and information.
Get Connected – Capitalizing on the popularity of social networking sites, ThinkMTV has set up “Think Tanks” where members can meet people of like minds so that they can begin to work together to effect global change.
Get Heard – In a world where we can all constantly be heard through the blogosphere, ThinkMTV encourages its members to raise their voices through videos, photos, and conversations. A real boost, some material will gain national exposure by moving up to the main MTV website, visited by over 90 million subscribers in the US alone.
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