As a persistent societal problem in Finland, youth marginalisation invites innovative, practice based studies. The pedagogical action research, titled Young People in the Limelight: Towards Agency through Multiliteracies, investigates the potential of including media participation as apart of media education in the context of the non-formal education of youth work to support youth, who are at risk of marginalisation, to become active agents in their lives and to build their multiliteracies. Around 100 participants, mainly aged 15–22 years, had difficult life situations or learning or social difficulties. The article examines media participation from the perspective of a theory of wellbeing called self-determination theory (SDT). The data, which mainly include observation diaries and interviews, are analysed based on three needs of wellbeing: competence, autonomy and relatedness. The results confirm the validity of SDT by showing that the participants have all three needs. They also reveal that at-risk youth find it difficult to fulfil these needs. Media participation can help them fulfil these needs, for example, by offering them expert positions and informal situations to express their autonomy and relate to others in, with and through media. Furthermore, the satisfaction of these needsimproves the media participation of at-risk youth
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Improving the Wellbeing of At-Risk Youth through Media Participation
