Czech student Aneta Veselská did not like the fact that not all Charles University students were able to attend an interesting lecture with a foreign guest or learn about a students’ party. That’s why she together with her fellow students decided to launch an internet television, the very first at the country’s oldest university, with an aim to provide information about various school events.
“We want to create what we call a virtual campus at the Charles University, which has 17 faculties. The planned internet television would provide news about the school, interviews with professors and interesting university guests, following the youtube.com concept,” Faculty of Humanities’ student Aneta said.
Television like in Britain
She has put together a team of ten students, who are now going to ask the university leadership for financial support to launch the television.
“We support all students’ initiatives and we think it is a good idea. We are going to discuss it with the students,” said Charles University spokesman Václav Hájek. The university’s online television will not have regular broadcasting. Students will take part in preparation of TV spots on various topics, which they will then post on the television’s website.
“The television programme will not run 24 hours a day. We are planning to have discussion programmes, capture students’ opinions as well as lifestyle programmes, such as students’ festivals, parties and life at campus. One topic could be cooking in dorms, for instance,” said Aneta Veselská, who finds inspiration through similar projects abroad. “Larger schools in Germany and Denmark have university television and radio stations. It’s a pity nothing like that has yet become typical in Czech schools,” said the student.
University student media – radio and television – are popular especially in Great Britain, where schools run 30 such stations.
Broadcasting from Brno
The “Karlovky” internet television project is not students’ first attempt to start covering their collage life. Making television spots was a popular activity also among the students at Palackého University in Olomouc. “The student television was broadcasting only one year from June 2007 until June 2008. We made about 10-minute spots covering for example concerts that would take place at students’ clubs. When the education minister visited our school, we ran an interview with him. There was always something interesting for every student,” said Tomáš Vynikal, who was in charge of the reporters’ team.
But the project got canceled when the Olomouc university students failed to reach an agreement among each other and with the school leadership regarding how the television should work. Whether it should be used to promote the school or the students would cover whatever they wanted.
Unlike in Olomouc, students from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Brno’s Masaryk University have a free choice of what to include in the programme of Rádio R, their 24-hour radio station, which began broadcasting last October. Their programme includes music shows, talk shows and special features.
“It’s a great opportunity for us. We like it a lot. The school gives us freedom at what we want to broadcast,” said radio’s marketing head Zuzana Šebestová. The school supports the students. “It’s great that they can exchange opinions using the radio, while creating a friendly community of students,” said Masaryk University spokeswoman Tereza Fojtová.
