In honor of Blog Action Day, I thought I’d write a bit about Socially Aware Media and how poverty comes into that.

I’ve found that many people get into media because they want to make the world a better place. And the media does have that power. We can create change, and do on a daily basis. Yet creating change and making the world a better place can be two completely different things. Yes, you have the power to change things for the worse. And it’s happened. I think I can safely say that media around the world has encouraged - both implicitly and explicitly - racial and gender injustice, for instance. Yet in those same areas, there has been a lot of positive change brought about by media.

An example: Today I met with a woman who I first met July 2007, at a conference in California where we showed “Fuerza”. Ben (the director) and I had a Q&A session afterwards. This woman asked what she could do about immigration. We gave some generic answers, as well as an idea to work with the Mexican economy to decrease the “push” factor of immigration.

Fast forward a year: this woman has led a discussion group on immigration at her church, traveled to the border to explore sustainable economics with Mexicans, visits undocumented immigrants at the local detention center weekly, meets with an immigrant rights group weekly, and more. And she still isn’t satisfied.

Okay, at this point, I think I must change my mind on an earlier point. The media has little to no power to make actual change. It does, however, have the power to encourage others to work for change. “Fuerza” will not change policy, comfort a mother torn from her family, or create a sustainable local economy. But its viewers can.

Now, media has a strange relationship with poverty, one unlike other genres of social injustice. Making media takes money. In general, creating media is getting cheaper, but it’s still expensive to make a movie, publish a newsletter, or even a blog.

Now, it is wrong to jump in and say, “Oh! I have a voice! I will speak for the poor!” The impoverished have a voice. They know how to speak. They simply don’t have access to the same equipment, connections, etc., that we have due to our privileges. They’re not being heard.

So you’re not a “voice for the voiceless.” Your job as a socially aware media creator is to allow the people who aren’t being heard or are being silenced to speak to those who weren’t listening. These people may be inspired by the new voice to make change.

When dealing with poverty, or any other issue of injustice, you must take into consideration the imbalance. You must realize that perhaps your video has only men, because you only interviewed politicians and other people in positions of power. Recognize the systems at work, and always look on the low side of the power totem pole for your best stories, the other side, and potential to make the world a better place.

Salon.com has released this interview with Noami Klein, author of “No Logo.”About halfway through, in a section called “What is your personal pilosophy,” Klein says she writes about what would be useful, especially in mobilizing people. Interesting interview.

Since Katrina, 1 in 5 students in New Orleans are living without their parents.

Annie Waldman has made a moving 10 minute documentary So the Wind Won’t Blow it All Away on the subject. It’s a moving example of how documentaries can be socially aware.

Waldman made the documentary after receiving a Reach Film Fellowship from Cinereach, including a $5000 budget and help from the director of Jesus Camp, Rachel Grady.

MediaStorm has produced with Reuters a large 5th Anniversary look at the Iraq War. Check it out, but remember that war is gruesome. Link

Here’s an interesting contest I came across today. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum is asking people to answer this question:

“What advice would you give the next U.S. President on preventing and
responding to threats of genocide and related crimes against humanity?“

Answers will be accepted in video or essay form.

For more info, click here.

The page offers good links not only to info on the Holocaust, but also about ongoing genocides throughout the world.

So exactly what am I trying to do with this site? What is this whole Socially Aware Media thing that keeps coming up?

I have no easy answers as to what Socially Aware Media actually is, and I don’t claim to even have any answer. All I have to offer is a continual questioning, and to look critically at different media to see how it can be done.

Here’s an example of what I’m trying to do, from BoingBoing Gadgets. The blogger takes a look at his own role in the larger picture in “Do Gadget Blogs Hurt the Environment?”

While this specific question doesn’t pertain to Socially Aware Media, it does do a good job asking the kind of question I hope to ask here, and hope that you also ask yourselves.

In response to my earlier post about MediaStorm (MediaStorm Doesn’t Go Far Enough), Brian Storm, the founder of the company, contacted me with a reply, and permission to pass on his response.

My main critique was that MediaStorm doesn’t go quite far enough on large
issues. Storm responded, saying, “I don’t agree with you that we don’t
touch on big issues. Big issues are all over our site,” mentioning
stories from the site that do touch larger issues. Some of these
include AIDS, Immigration, Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder, and more.

Storm goes on
to say, “If we can help people gain a better understanding of these
issues, isn’t that a worthy goal? Do you really believe the stories
don’t inform or educate? If our stories help people see or understand
something they’ve not seen before, I think we have succeeded. To me,
the statistics are less relevant than creating human
connections.”

I agree that a better understanding
of the issues is most definitely a worthy point.

But I would also like to suggest that Socially Aware Media perhaps
should go a step further. Often, with these larger issues, there is
something that is simply not right about the situation. In these cases,
why should we be content to stop short of including some kind of
proposed action? While watching several of MediaStorm’s stories, I
found myself wanting more than just knowledge; I wanted to know what I
could do about it, or at least what could be done by somebody about the
situation.

MediaStorm has a pretty interactive Web
site, with links for everything, comment forms- a whole slew of ways to
be involved. Some (but not all) of the stories, including Chernobyl
Legacy, have links to Web sites where people can find out
something more to do. These links are adding what I think is a
necessary aspect to the viewing experience. I think that this kind of
information would be appropriate and is needed within the actual
presentation. On the other hand, MediaStorm seems to be concerned that
including this may detract from the real story, the human experience.
What do you think?

As for me, I’m planning on adding
a bit more in the way of follow-up on my movie pages, by adding
relevant links and the like.

I’d really like to thank Brian Storm and MediaStorm for being willing to respond as I critique the
site through the lens of Socially Aware Media in order to understand a bit more of what that phrase actually means. They really do excellent work, and do contribute to increasing understanding of complex issues.
Continue to check them out as they release more.