With Covid shutting schools and young people spending even more time online, we needed to reinvent our existing in-school media literacy programme (Be Internet Citizens) to meet them where they were. To do this we worked closely with the creator community to speak directly with teens about the skills they need to navigate their online lives. These creators are people our audience listen to, look up to and trust. This not only allowed us to rise to the social challenges of lockdown but rethink how we can better employ the growing influence of creators as today’s role models.

Young people are spending more time online than ever before, but there’s a clear gap in the media literacy and citizenship skills they need to deal with online harms. So in 2018 we created Be Internet Citizens (BIC) with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an in-school programme which teaches teenagers about media literacy, critical thinking and digital citizenship. But when Covid shut schools down, we needed to re-think how we delivered the programme. Our brief was to develop a new way to deliver the programme that met this audience directly where they were - online.

YouTube Reframe is a creator-to-community content series empowering 13-15 year olds with the skills they need for life online. It is a new online digital media literacy initiative based on YouTube’s Be Internet Citizens in-school programme. The series features today’s role models for young people - creators - who have experience dealing with the same online issues as teens. The series explores the difference between free speech and hate speech, the impact of online abuse, how to tackle online hate and balancing your online and offline life. Hosted by Amelia Dimoldenberg, a high profile YouTube creator and presenter of Chicken Shop Date who brings her signature deadpan humour to the important issues tackled in the series. Each episode stars a different creator including music artist Gracey, spoken-word performer George the Poet, YouTube family creator and BBC presenter Adam B, creators Jacob & Ollie, Sara & Avni and rapper Ramz.

Our approach was based on findings from several focus groups with a diverse cross section of 13-15 year olds from across the UK. Through these groups and interviews with experts working with youth in culture, we uncovered insights on the key issues facing young people online, the creators they look up to and how they learn. Then working with Platform13, ISD and lead BIC facilitators, we used these findings to repurpose the existing Be Internet Citizens curriculum into an online content series without compromising on BIC’s learning objectives.

We launched the series on the 28th January this year on YouTube's Spotlight UK channel, supported by a creator-led, social-first comms plan, with upweights around Safer Internet Day and UK half-term school holidays to maximise reach and impact. The series' host and featured creators posted across their social platforms from launch to the end of March to build awareness of the series among the target audience and drive traffic to the playlist. We also ran a paid boosting campaign, allocating media spend behind our creators’ social posts across their primary platforms in order to drive maximum reach. Additional creators with high UK Gen Z reach were appointed to promote the series across their social platforms across February and March. We also ran a supporting paid Instagram campaign, where the series trailer and episode cut-downs ran across Main Feed and Story formats.

The launch received public recognition from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, the Mayor of London, the Prince's Trust, Media Smart and the Department of Education's 'Educate Against Hate'. PR activity landed on launch day with a two-pronged media approach to both traditional, national press and youth-focused media outlets. George The Poet appeared on BBC Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme; ‘Today’ on the morning of the launch. The Voice, PopSugar and Marie Claire interviewed Ramz, Sara & Avni and Amelia Dimoldenberg respectively and Episode 4’s Jacob and Ollie chatted to CBBC Newsround about the project. Please refer to the section covering confidential information for the jury for more detailed results.