Journalistic practices in creating and disseminating content in student socio-cultural media projects

The aim of the study was to examine the content and specifics of journalistic practices in student socio-cultural media projects, as well as to carry out an evaluation of their impact on the development of students’ professional skills and cultural identity. The research methodology included content analysis to study the materials of student socio-cultural media projects “My thoughts are (not) quiet”, “MediaHub”, “Glier Fest”, “Living City Kyiv” and “Slovopys”, as well as an online survey of 30 teachers and 80 students to assess their attitudes towards project activities and the impact of projects on the development of cultural identity and professional skills. It was found that students actively used journalistic practices, in particular, conducting interviews, analysing information, creating reports, writing publications, and working with visual content – photo and video materials. These skills were combined with the active use of social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Telegram, which were analysed in the study as the main channels of communication, content distribution, and audience interaction. Importantly, teachers played a remarkable role in the development and support of these projects: 56% of the teachers surveyed said they provided a high level of support to students, helping with the conceptualisation of ideas, content editing, and the organisational part of project implementation. The findings showed that successful student socio-cultural media projects require comprehensive teacher support, flexible educational process organisation, modern formats for presenting results, and the close integration of such projects into educational programmes that develops students' professional skills and cultural self-awareness.