I often struggle with my decision to be a proponent of participatory media in the community-organizing field. There often seems to be bigger fish to fry or easier ways to get stories out there. When I was in Bangalore, I stumbled upon some great research on a UNESCO sponsored community media program called Finding A Voice. Their final project report exactly shared some of my hesitation to focus on training people to make their own media, especially in the face of hunger and economic poverty. Their tack was to admit right from the start that teaching disadvantaged people how to make community radio or video shows wouldn’t immediately get them jobs or put rice in their mouths. But Jo Tacchi and others assert that lack of voice is a dimension of poverty that can’t be easily ignored or fixed with short-term development projects. Then one interesting quote stuck out of a reading I just did for Paul Osterman’s Urban Labor Markets and Employment Policy class: “…it also appears fruitful for research on poverty and inequality to consider the distribution of power in society, and especially, to ask to what extent the interests of the less privileged citizens are articulated and effectively represented in the processes. (Korpi 1980)” If we listen to the predictions of media academics and geeks alike that the Internet is going to become a valid (and maybe the only) civic forum, then I want to help get EVERYBODY up to speed on how to participate in it. If people believe in power of YouTube more than they do in power of their vote, then there’s leverage in having the skills to construct and distribute their own messages in this new medium. Consuming then morphs into production and usage and voice doesn’t get lost in the layers of third-party editing or political representation.
[This is paragraph #1 of a five paragraphs about my thesis assignment for Cherie Abbanat's Advanced Writing Seminar and a response to Alexa’s question: “Do you ever think we're just barking up the wrong tree? That participatory media isn't the thing? That people generally prefer to consume?”]
Related posts:
- Thesis Abstract: Participatory Media and Collaborative Facilitation The advantages of participation, collaboration, and iteration shape the functionality of media tools like blogs, social networks, and user-created media sharing sites. At first glance,...
- Thesis Defense: Participatory Media and Collaborative Facilitation (Give it a sec to download all the fun media files before you begin by clicking the arrows. OR view it full screen on http://prezi.com)....
