What does a graffiti mural have in common with a billboard? Both are competing for your attention in urban space — but whose voice wins, and whose is silenced? These were among the questions explored when YOUROPE researchers brought Community-Led Research and Action into the heart of the Czech media education landscape.

Patricie Kyslíková and Salim Murad from the University of South Bohemia led a hands-on research walk at Seznam.cz’s Media Education Festival, guiding educators and librarians through the theme “What’s the price of your gaze?” The session drew on CLRA methodology to explore how advertising and graffiti interact to create counter-narratives in public spaces — and what that means for young people navigating those spaces every day.

Reading the city as a text

Participants explored four interconnected themes. The first was how to decode the competing messages urban environments send through advertising, design, and street art — what researchers called “reading the city.” The second examined hip hop as a living medium: not simply entertainment, but a form of cultural expression and resistance through which young people claim voice and visibility.

The workshop also looked at the shrinking commons — how the disappearance of public spaces and creeping privatisation shape young people’s mental health and fuel social media dependence. Finally, participants reflected on the question of power in perspective: who gets to speak, to be seen, and to claim space in the city?

Media education as active practice

The session demonstrated that media education is not passive consumption. Through CLRA, young researchers are guided to choose topics that matter to them — then to craft stories that challenge stereotypical or unjust media portrayals. They become storytellers, not just audiences.

This approach sits at the heart of the YOUROPE project’s mission. When young people are equipped with the tools to question, interpret, and create, they do not just understand the world around them — they reshape it.