To educate policymakers, students, school leaders and anyone interested in promoting the use of media in a responsible way in an age of media saturation. Both as producers and consumers of media, young people must learn by doing how to navigate the digital world around them.
As a regional event, BASH is designed to gather local schools and student practitioners along with their teacher advisors for an annual gathering that allows them to network and grow. It provides invaluable feedback in a learning community that brings adult professionals together with high school students in an authentic and purposeful way. This event can be replicated at local levels throughout the world. In practice, the idea of promoting student broadcasting programs with an in-person gathering does more than equip the 1,000 student participants with newfound skills and understandings, it impacts the entire school community with hundreds of thousands of members...61,574 students see the "student tv broadcasts" that are produced by the 48 schools attending this year's event.
BASH began in 2017 with 154 students from nine schools in New York State, USA. In 2024, over 1,000 students from 48 schools (a 500% growth in student attendance, and a 400% growth in the number of schools participating in just seven years!) are expected to attend BASH '24 on May 21, 2024. Held at a local University, the event can be replicated as regional gatherings in a 60-90 mile radius, anywhere in the world. Having in-person events that are accessible by car or bus makes connecting with other students and schools possible on an annual basis, deepening understanding and strengthening school based broadcast programs.
At present this event is attended by invitation only. The ability to recreate it would depend upon establishing an organizing committee of teachers who are practitioners in the field of student broadcasting in their high school programs.
