Last week, we reported that the EuroMedia Awards would behanded out on Friday 15.10; by now, they have been, and the news that Vienna ’s Okto CommunityTV has won the EuroMedia Sponsorship Award 2010 on Migration & Integrationis now all over the internet.

As denoted by its name, Okto is a „community TV“. That is to say that it provides communities with the know-how andinfrastructure to produce and project their own shows on topics that interestthem. Indeed, the list of Okto broadcasts boasts a large number of shows targetingViennese minorities, such as Latino TV,Afrika TV, Ex-Yu in Wien (ex-Yugoslavia in Vienna ).

In specific terms, the show that won Okto this award iscalled Project X-Change, possibly because it addresses Generation-X. That is tosay, it addresses the new generation of Viennese children, seeking answers tothe matter of migration and integration not in the future, not the present. Itis an approach that has much to recommend it, because children run as a pack,and remain less susceptible to the many xenophobic messages that can bebroadcast on the mainstream media. If integration is possible for children, itmust also be possible to strip away the layers of mistrust between adults, orat least to allow these children to grow up without being affected by them.

And of course, there is another layer, which was addressedin the laudation speech: „But ProjectX-change goes a step further than that, as it includes the young people, –lots of them themselves with a migrant background -  into the wholeprocess of television making. In the very sense of civic journalism, ProjectX-change – by that – views their audiences as participants, empowering them forthe information society“. The word empowering is significant,because to be empowered or to be in power, generally stops people from cedingto fatalism, depression, and in this context, its consequences: fear of theunknown, which is also fear of the stranger and the foreigner.

Being the next generation entails a wealth ofresponsibilities for our migration and integration policies. In givingyoungsters the opportunity to face up to this responsibility, Okto in essenceoffers them the potential to communicate, just as the ECo-C does in its ownfield.

Pictured: Snapshots from the award Ceremony.

For related information, please also see www.okto.tv and www.euromediaawards.eu