Our Mission

With a commitment to address the lack of basic media literacy education in New York City schools and communities, The LAMP (Learning About Multimedia Project) offers free workshops and public events designed to help young people, parents and teachers make sense of the media barrage they encounter in their daily lives. LAMP workshops not only demystify the content and technologies of media, but they also help bridge the digital divide that often alienates youth from adults, while providing the workforce development skills needed to compete in a modern job market. By creating and editing their own blogs, videos, newspapers and more, students are further encouraged to explore the use of media as a positive outlet for creative expression.

Click here for a map of where we have given workshops, or plan to give workshops in the future.

Download The LAMP Informational Packet in PDF format with an overview on media literacy, student demographics, workshops, testimonials and more.

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Media literacy is an urgent need in our schools and communities…perhaps now
more than ever.

The current financial meltdown is on the forefront of our social and economic agenda because we’re in a crisis. Media pundits, academics, political leaders and others are talking about how this happened, where it’s headed, and what we can do about it. Few have mentioned the fact that media forms such as the Internet, television and print—through the medium of advertising—have both contributed to and exacerbated the financial crisis. A less than critically-inclined population has been duped by dancing images in pop-up Internet ads, and misleading claims about mortgage rates in email spam messages or in misleading television commercials. The desire for a quick fix, a dream come true, which is cultivated by image-based and digital media that encourage us to live in the moment, has given fuel to predatory lenders and other unethical financial predators. We’re all to blame.

Critical voices have been smothered in a media environment that loathes thoughtful analysis. Media literacy can help begin to change the environment. We needn’t be victims of the onslaught of media. We need to recognize the media-saturated environment for what it is and learn about it. That’s how we can take control of it.

The link between media literacy and the financial crisis is clear, but media informs much more–our politics, the ways we spend our money, the foods we eat and more. Understanding messages and media will help us to make healthy, sustainable decisions for the future. But a lack of understanding about how different media shape messages and our understanding of the world has left many people without essential critical tools to navigate the environment.