The Center was formed to break the intellectual grip of the Media Literacy Movement on media education. We thought that "enlightening" teenagers to become informed media consumers was an elitist and self-defeating proposition.
The sudden takeover of digital media technology and Apple's Educational Departmental support allowed us to work out an alternative model that turned teenagers into makers, therefore participants of their own, ever-accelerating media production and consumption cycle. We formed this non-profit organization for media-savvy kids who were actively searching their own creative voice rather than conforming to parental or media literacy expectations. We wanted to address corporate media not through passive consumer criticism but by fostering an autonomous, loud and indigenous teenage voice within the media landscape.
After 2003 the Center morphed into a larger organization that by now became Austin School of Film