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Skillful Digital Activism: Cultivating Media Ecologies for Transformative Social Change
Vicki Callahan
USC, Division of Media Arts + Prac;ce [email protected]
“ Skillful Digital Ac;vism” is Not Utopian
Binocular Menagerie, Leslie Thornton, May 2014
Nor Dystopian
National Security Agency (NSA) Data Storage Facility, Bluffdale, Utah
The Dangers of “Clicktivism” and “Slacktivism”
• Micha White “Clicktivism is Ruining Left Activism” Guardian, August 12, 2010.
• Malcolm Gladwell, “Small
Change: Why the Revolution Will Not be Tweeted” New Yorker October 4, 2010.
• Josh Kron and J. David Goodman, “Online, a Distant Conflict Soars to Topic No. 1” New York Times, March 8, 2012.
“Skillful” Digital Activism Key elements for skillful activism: 1) Robust media ecology Mixed media environment, connective and is generative 2) Employ Social Media – tools for connecting, sharing, and changing (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Vimeo, Google toolbox, websites (Blogger, Tumblr). Not commercial generally. 3) Transmedia – cross-platform strategy and can include print, live performance, audio, video, online (may or may not include social media but often does) 4) Co-creators: the people formally known as “the audience,” although authorship boundaries vary
Mir Hossein Mousavi speaks to elec;on protestors in Tehran, June 2009
“By Any Media Necessary”*
• Objectives + Goals 1. Awareness 2. Dialogue 3. Archive/Preserve 4. Participatory Culture/
Community 5. Organize
Objectives are related but often distinct from Outcomes: what does change look like?
• Methods + Strategies 1. Broadcast 2. Interactive 3. Immersive 4. Speculative Fiction 5. Distributed Authorship,
Co-creation, Collaboration 6. Transmedia
• From Sasha Costanza-Chock’s , Out of the Shadows and Into the Streets: Transmedia Organizing and the Immigrant Rights Movement (MIT Press, 2014)
Awareness: Broadcast/Transmedia Food, Inc. Participant Media + Take Part
hOp://www.takepart.com/foodinc
Food Inc, Robert Kenner, 2008
Participant Media/Take Part
Awareness: Transmedia Global Women’s Rights/”Movement”
Half the Sky, Maro Chermayeff (from book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn) http://www.halftheskymovement.org/
Objectives: Awareness, Behavior/Policy Change
• Awareness both in US and Globally
• Education and behavioral changes on issues of violence, reproductive rights, trafficking, economic/personal empowerment
• “nurture” policy changes
Edna Adan, ac;vist, strategies for educa;on on issue of female genital mu;la;on
Media Ecology • Book • Website with rich media for
both US and global context. Media from local communities/NGO as well as “celebrities,” policy makers, activists in West
• Documentary Film (VOD, PBS) • Facebook game and mobile
games targeted to issues and local communities.
• Global Engagement initiatives with NGO educational videos (free download) and education guides
Outcomes
• $5 million raised for organizations partnering with Half the Sky
• 1.1 million participants in Facebook game
• 30+ NGO partners • 1500 screenings on
campus and communities with discussion groups
• US and Global Educational workshops
Awareness: Immersive/Virtual Reality
Project Syria, 2104 and Hunger in LA, 2012, Nonny de la Peña
Dialogue: Transmedia “The Open Space Documentary”
Lunch, Love, Community, Helen De Michiel (2010- present) http://www.lunchlovecommunity.org
Objectives
• Awareness of Berkeley School food program
• Food Justice issues, especially with regard to schools and children
• Community dialogue through “media socials”
• Policy Intervention LUNCH LOVE COMMUNITY, Helen De Michiel
Media Ecology
• Website • Short films on site and
YouTube • “Media Socials” • De Michiel writings and
presentations on project and renovations and re-imagining of documentary form
Outcomes
• Community dialogue • Grassroots organizing on
food issues • Re-institution of funding for
school program after city cut off funds (due to ballot initiative)
• “Open Space” as participatory media model, dialogue, engagement, rather than “advocacy”
• 12 episode film on dvd for non-theatrical, educational market
Dialogue: Black Masculinity
Question Bridge (2012-present), Chris Johnson, Hank Willis Thomas, Bayett Ross Smith, Kamal Sinclair http://questionbridge.com/#
Objectives
• Dialogue • Change perceptions
both within and outside African American community
• Show diversity of experience, “represent and redefine black male identity in US.”
• Archive stories
Media Ecology
• Video installation (museums, festivals, institutions)
• Online video • Mobile app (goal of
200K participants, “living archive of black male voices”)
• Facebook • Blueprint
Roundtables • High School
curriculum
Outcomes
• Ongoing project • How to gauge
awareness and perceptual shifts?
• Creating alternative media space
Archives: Preserve + Co-creation
Triangle Fire Open Archive (and now Open Museum) http://rememberthetrianglefire.org/open-archive/
Connecting the Past and the Present, the Personal and the Political
hOp://rememberthetrianglefire.org/open-‐archive/sash-‐for-‐neZe-‐liebowitz/
Archives: Preserve + Co-Creation, Audio
StoryCorps, http://storycorps.org
Proximity of Personal and Political
Archive: Preserve + Reclaim Representation
Through a Lens Darkly and Digital Diaspora Roadshow, Thomas Allen Harris, 2014 http://1world1family.me
Objective: Visibility, Perceptual Shifts, + Community Expression
• Two part strategy: 1. Documentary Film
(Through a Lens…): Stereotypes/Received images and African American artists’ intervention in representations of community
2. Archive and Public Events: Digital Diaspora Roadshow
(community outreach)
Through a Lens Darkly http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/through-a-lens-darkly/
Media Ecology
• Live events • Website • Flickr + Instagram • Facebook • Documentary film
(screened on PBS, live events, and available on video on demand)
• Lesson Plans on African American History and Identity
• Archive both public and private
Digital Diaspora Roadshow
Outcomes: • Change the received images, create new public narra;ves about the African American experience • Create archive of history previously not valued; provide opportunity for community to connect their stories, deepen community bonds • Develop media literacy skills in community as both creators and as informed viewers
Participatory Culture: Transmedia/Co-creation
“Mapping Memories” hOp://www.mappingmemories.ca
My Two Families, Leontine Uwababyeyi
Participatory Culture: Speculative Fiction/Alternate Reality Game
World Without Oil, Ken Eklund and Jane McGonigal, 2007: http://worldwithoutoil.org/metaabout.htm
Organizing: Transmedia, Social Media
Bree Newsome removing Confederate Flag from South Carolina State Capitol, June 2015 “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?”
Alicia Garza, founder of #BlackLivesMatter 2015
Organizing: “Transmedia Organizing”*
* Sasha Costanza-‐Chock, Out of the Shadows….
“A Day without an Immigrant,” Los Angeles, 2006
Manual Rodriguez, “silence will never be an option…”
Critical Making: The Drift to Praxis
hOps://witness.org/resources/
Participatory Culture: “Internet of Things” (Networked Culture and Smart Objects) ARG
Sherlock Holmes and the Internet of Things, hOp://sherlockholmes.io Lance Weiler, Nick Fortugno, Jorgen van der Sloot
Objectives
• Consider human/tech interac;ons, human at center, not passive
• Redefine, reimagine storytelling possibili;es
• Media/Tech Literacy • Build Networks and
Community with Art and Technology
How Story Spread
• MOOC with over 200 participants on Novoed
• Open Global Collaborative Game
• Organized on Hackpad • Live events, Beta tests at Lincoln Center (NYFF) and at Power to the Pixel (LFF) • Pilot stage for ongoing
project in 2016, prototypes developed