One of the wonderful things and challenges of Intro to Civic Media is that there are a lot of topics to cover, but this is only because there are a lot of incredible things happening to call attention to problems, mobilize people to confront those problems and make change in communities around the world.
A week ago, the Introduction to Civic Media class began by viewing hard-to-watch videos of atrocities and discussing the media strategies used to produce them. Then we had a conversation about youth activism, followed by a fun and inspirational workshop where we envisioned the news the way we wanted it to be and used Newsjack to rewrite the day’s news headlines.
Remixing Human Rights
A montage of graphic images of human rights violations flash on and off the screen to the tune of Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care about Us.” The lyrics take on an eerie new meaning, “Bang bang, shot dead. Everybody’s gone mad…All I wanna say is that they don’t really care about us.” The videos are a haunting and disturbing way to share with internet users what has happened and is happening in various parts of the world.
Government officials and others try to discredit the footage, however there are often, but not always, checks in place to ensure the validity of the footage. Some other viewers are more concerned about the identities and consent of the people who are featured and think there is a need for more automatic and accurate blurring of faces, among other issues.
Efforts to call attention to these atrocities through video and song have a powerful effect on viewers, but do not counter efforts of more traditional journalistic media. Both nontraditional and traditional journalistic media are necessary to address the challenges of today’s world.
To read more about the videos and the controversy surround them, and to view them, check out this link.
Youth Activism and Media
Youth are active, but invisible. For the most part, youth are discriminated against and their actions are not taken seriously by society. If you look a little bit closer, however, youth are in motion and they are making serious contributions. I was not taught in my high school U.S. History class that the fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat and was arrested nine months before Rosa Parks. Youth are invisible, yet they are leading the way.
Some argue that youth can be more engaged now than ever before because of the internet, but such emphasis on the internet fails to recognize the continuing importance of face-to-face interaction. When we as a class discussed each of our personal experiences with youth activism, a common theme amongst us was the necessity of in-person interactions. It was stressed in discussion that the internet is primarily a facilitative factor instead of the singular factor driving activism.
Newsjack Workshop
If even for a moment, it is satisfying to see the news you want reported. Imagine going to your favorite (or least favorite) online new source and finding that the home page features a reality you thought you could only dream up, or a headline providing a more accurate reporting of an event that was misrepresented in previous accounts. We each used Newsjack to make headlines that are relevant to our final projects for the course.