What is Socially Aware Media? I decided to use the phrase after realizing that I and others I worked with had a different view of how to do media. After a few experiences with normal media, I knew I wanted to do something better.
By no means am I ready to say "Here is the mission statement and 10 guiding principles to Socially Aware Media." It still is a work in progress, as I learn from people who have worked in media longer than I, and as I experience making media first hand.
To start the discussion and create a network of people interested in Socially Aware Media, I have started a group. Feel free to join in the discussion!
My recent thoughts on SAM
Noami Klein on Media and Social Change
Socially Aware Media
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.
Cesar Chavez is well known, but perhaps just an important figure in the fight for farmer workers' rights is Dolores Huerta, who cofounded the United Farm Workers Union with Chavez.
I was able to hear her speak twice today here at my college. Her speeches were wide ranging, covering everything from immigration to Venezuela to NAFTA. You can hear the first speech here.
Huerta took quite a lot of time to talk about immigration in light of a new bill that has passed the Indiana House of Representatives which would severely hurt the immigrant population in the area.
I was grateful that Huerta brought up the fact that NAFTA is a major cause of immgration, I topic I have written and talked about.
Huerta also spoke about the dignity due to people who work with their hands, which by chance I had written about for last week's editorial in The Record. I have wondered, then, what my role is as I graduate from college and become a professional media producer. Huerta said it is the role of professionals to help the people who work with their hands, the people who society does not give the respect due to them.
And is this not what Socially Aware Media should be? I have these talents, and I need to make sure I use them to help, and not to hurt.
Huerta also spoke in support of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, which prompted a Venezuelan immigrant to refute some of what she said. This brought up what Huerta called a "schizophrenia" about world leaders - select ones are demonized, but other ones who are much worse in many ways are supported by the United States.
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?
"
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.
"I don't think anybody can be objective or nonpartisan. My take on this is that everybody has a point of view, so what's wrong with expressing that point of view? But it seems to me, and this is a line I remember from Marcel Ophuls, the guy who made The Sorrow and the Pity, who said, "I always have a point of view, but in my films I like to show how hard it was to come to that point of view." In Taxi, I tried to be as muted and dispassionate as possible, but I don't think there's any doubt where my sympathies lie."
-Alex Gibney, producer of documentaries including "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," "No End in Sight," and the soon to be released documentaries "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson," and "Taxi to the Dark Side."
The reason most journalists are journalists is this desire to help people- to tell their stories. MediaStorm has found a way to tell these stories in an innovative way. Their focus is "social documentary projects incorporating photojournalism, interactivity, animation, audio and video for distribution across multiple media." Social documentary? Sounds right up my alley, right? Well, yes... but I have some qualms about their method, which I'll get to later.
First of all, the story telling is amazing. Pieces are generally 10 minutes or more, and according to founder Brian Storm, most people who start the pieces end up finishing them- a rarity, even with much shorter videos. Love in the First Person is one great example of their story telling, showing the life of a college couple who find out she's pregnant.
Another thing that sets MediaStorm apart is their use of photography in video. At first, I asked, "Why not just use video?" But I've come to the conclusion that photos can do a lot that photos can't do, as they are able to capture just one moment in a way that is much more artistic than with video. Iraqi Kurdistan uses photos to show the daily life in that part of the world. This story was the result of a photojournalist who, after taking all of the pictures, wanted to make a video with them. The photos are used almost as a flipbook in places, showing motion.
Another stylistic thing I picked up for my documentary, "The Other Side of Paradise", was the use of white text on black to move the story. This helps avoid more narration, which can be rather distracting. MediaStorm uses them well in their documentary on AIDS, BLOODLINE.
Now while their style and storytelling is very well done, I have one major qualm: What is the point of the stories? It doesn't inform, at least not of anything bigger than a few stories, removed from the rest of reality. It definitely doesn't educate on any issues. It doesn't try to persuade the viewer of anything. It does entertain. But is this enough?
While watching these videos, I felt like they got close to touching on big issues, but they never quite took that extra step to actually do it. No larger context is given, so it isn't really known if, say, there are places like the ninth floor all over New York, all over the US. It makes it seem like an island. And if someone is persuaded to do something, what can they do?
MediaStorm presents the stories as an end, where I think they would function better as a means to an end.
I'm currently working on editing the Guatemala piece, and realized that the script is currently twice as long as it should be- not a fun thing to do. So last night I was working on cutting things out, and got it down a lot closer to what it should be.
Here's the problem: In my attempts to shorten it, I realized that I was losing a lot of the voices of the people, and leaving in the well spoken workers.
This is definitely a sad reality- the higher your class, the more well spoken you are. This means that the nun will speak of lofty things, and in really clear ways, while the farmer will be more likely to mutter and stumble around.
So it's easy to take out the more bumbling quotes. And that's what I did. And now I'm off to put them back in, and make sure that their voices are heard, just as much as their advocates.
