MEGAPHONE TechSoup Europe

Karolis works in Nanook a collective of journalists - as they describe themselves - who are interested in how Lithuanian society works and want to tell stories neglected by mainstream media. In the span of just a few years they managed to build an active and loyal base of listeners thanks to whom Nanook is in most part self-sustainable. Listen to conversation with Karolis about how to build and run a collective following rules of  integrity, what are the ways to build credibility and a devoted following among your listeners and cross the traditional definitions of what the journalists role is. 

Karolis also talks about one of the activities they do - face to face meeting during which people featured in the published stories have a chance chance to meet the listeners.  He shares how they create those offline spaces for people to not only share stories but also have an opportunity to personally interact (and how important that is in a society like Lithuanian where that type of contact between strangers is not something that happens often) - tips on everything from the technical background of how to organize such a meeting to how to you know if it worked.

We're going a little bit meta this time with a podcast about making podcasts. Listen to a conversation with Kairzhan Albarazov, creator of “Find your B – Найди в себе Батыра” podcast, which aims at helping Kazakh youth with self-realization, confidence, personal freedom and to find the strength to deviate from societal pressures, and has helped thousands of listeners in the region.

Join us for the 4th episode in our series to learn:


How an engineer with no skills or back round in podcasting can go from having just an idea to the most      successful podcast in their region interviewing celebrities, activists and      prominent figures of the public life
Why podcasts are the future  (a teaser: they're democratic, accessible and create a level of intimacy      which other medium don't offer)
How to go about starting one

Enjoy and share!

In another episode of our MEGAPHONE podcast series Tijana Cvjetićanin and Hubert Sobecki talk about how the master narratives against the LGBTQ+ community are being created, distributed and how is it an international effort and not just a coincidence that the same themes appear in different countries worldwide.

They also answer the question of how to fight against them and explain why it's always better to answer with alternative narratives build on positive emotions.

Listen to learn more about why fear-based stories are so effective, role that social media play in spreading and amplifying those messages and what are the two unicorns of activists work (small hint: one starts with 's' the other with an 'i').

So much of activists work is about communication, about the ability to hear what people need and somehow respond to those needs. It's also about helping them understand something and try to get them to support a specific cause. In all that there's also a lot of pressure on being constantly creative, innovative and in search of new and exciting ways of doing our job. All of those things require specific skills which we often lack or have maybe forgot how to use consumed by the everyday flood of responsibilities and deadlines.  And this is where improv exercises can come to the rescue - how to tune in to what the other person is saying? How to truly listen to others and not just to think you do but really just waiting for the right moment to express your opinion? How to get rid of different personas we carry with us that sometimes keep us from going out of our bubbles and keep us in the same track of thought and behavior? 

Listen to a converstion with Weronika Nockowska and Karolina Norkiewicz - improv performers from Comedy Club in Warsaw - to learn a little bit more about improv itself and how can it help activists think differently about their job and make them better at it.  

Journalists and human right’s activists on daily basis deal with difficult situations affecting themselves directly or the people they’re helping, they work under stressful conditions, always chasing a deadline and oftentimes while trying to make the world better they mend up encountering the darker side of it. All those things make them prone to experiencing compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma. Learn more about what these are, how they manifest themselves (whether it comes to you or members of your team) and why paying attention to symptoms is crucial not you for you but also people you work with from a great conversation with Andy Carvin in our first episode of the third season of MEGAPHONE podcast series.

This one is especially dedicated to those of us who shake their heads when they hear the term “mindfulness” as Andy explains how it actually means looking out for yourself and each other.

Andy Carvin, an award-winning journalist who has pioneered new forms of online collaboration for more than 20 years. Now a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), where he leads the lab’s training and capacity-building efforts.  Andy was founder and editor-in-chief of reported.ly, a social news initiative at First Look Media. Using social media and digital forensic tools, reported.ly covered breaking news stories around the world, with a particular emphasis on human rights and social justice. From 2006 to 2013, Andy was a senior strategist at NPR, where he founded the company’s social media desk and developed new reporting techniques to improve the quality and diversity of NPR’s journalism.

MEGAPHONE podcast  aims to show you new trends, threats and solutions which  activists and civic activists all around the world are faced with. We look for things which were not discussed before bringing you knowledge and inspiration for your work. 

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Verda Uyar completed her BA degree in Sociology and Media and Communications double major program from Istanbul Bilgi University as of 2018 and currently pursuing her MA in Social Policy at Boğaziçi University.  

She attended political science and international relations courses at Sciences Po Paris, where she was an Erasmus exchange student for 6 months during 2015-2016 academic year. Before and during her bachelor degree, she participated in several journalism programs including one at the European Forum, and completed her first internship at Hurriyet Newspaper’s International News Services. 

She is currently working as an editor at Turkey’s first political fact-checking website, Doğruluk Payı and as a research assistant at Social Policy Forum. Her research interests include political communication, social inequality, and minority rights.  

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This podcast was created thanks to the support of Open Society Foundations and Charles Mott Foundation.