To further enhance effectiveness of the Media Academy’s activities, the Communications Commission invited the President of the Bavarian Regulatory Commission (BLM) Siegfried Schneider and other BLM representatives for a four-day visit to Georgia. The Communications Commission has worked closely with BLM to develop media literacy in Georgia. For the past year, the Media Academy has also been using the BLM model of organising seminars and workshops for journalists, focussing on multimedia products and effective forms of storytelling on social media platforms.

BLM has been operating a radio frequency on the base of the Bavarian Media School for several years, broadcasting 24 hours a day. Students from the Media School gain practical experience by producing a daily one-hour programme for Bavaria TV. The Media Academy has adopted the successful German model by focussing on practical activities.

To implement the Bavarian model at the Media Academy, members of the Communications Commission visited BLM twice. The current visit by the German delegation has been used to review past projects and discuss future plans in Georgia. According to the German colleagues, the Media Academy has achieved great success and effective results in a short period of time. The purpose of the visit is to determine future projects that will continue the Academy’s success.

“The effective learning model that is based on practical activities is central to the approach taken by our German colleagues. Having studied the practices in numerous developed countries of Europe, we chose the German model precisely due to the aforementioned approach and used it to establish the Media Academy, where media representatives, journalists, media managers and producers can enhance their qualifications,” stated the Chairman of the Communications Commission, Kakha Bekauri.

The Media Academy is actively working on providing television and radio studios with technical equipment. Technical works are due to be completed in autumn, followed by a series of short seminars, as well as 3-6 month long practical learning courses for media representatives.