media literacy

In Roland Barthes’ famous book about photography, Camera Lucida, the French theorist writes, “Ultimately, photography is subversive, not when it frightens, repels, or even stigmatizes, but when it is pensive, when it thinks.“... read more »

... read more »

See below the latest street news video by the South Blessed Community Channel, as a follow-up to their anti-Tesco film, (see previous post).  Last night the local police used vans and deployed a helicopter to stop the screening of a film in a park about last week’s riots.  When the screening moved to a local house, at first the police then attempted to stop that happening too.  Surely the ... read more »

The following is a reply I sent to Rachel MacPherson, a journalism student from University of the West of Scotland.  She was writing her dissertation on the media’s representation of victims of crime, in particular missing person cases, and read my post about Serena Beakhurst and wanted my opinion.  I provided answers to her questions, as shown below.  The topic i... read more »

Earlier this week MIT Press published a ‘video book’ called ‘Learning from YouTube’ by Media Studies Professor Alexandra Juhasz.  The book is not of the physical kind, nor is it a downloadable file for your Kindle or iPad.  It is a website-book which has been peer reviewed and given an ISBN number, which exists in, amongst and around YouTube, with the site being the subject matter, field of research and platform for dissemination.... read more »

Just over a month ago I attended the funeral of a 24 year old young man who tragically took his own life. His death and its circumstances shook the whole community, especially his peers.  12 years ago I was teaching him how to edit – me working as a facilitator on a community media project, working with colleagues I still work with today.  About 5 years after that he worked as a music producer on another community media project we were running.  We managed to bring him in to be involved after realizing he was ‘not around much’ lately.... read more »

This review was originally written for an AHRC/Radio 3 proposal.  (I’ve added a few extra words to the 300 word limit I was given.)

———-

Last week I attended a showcase of films made by 12 young people from Bristol, all taking part in a UK Film Council scheme which aims to support Black and minority ethnic talent to enter the film & TV industries.  Work screened was made over the past nine months, half way through their scheme. ... read more »

I read with interest that Lenny Henry is to embark on a PhD researching into the representation of Black people in the media (see BBC article here).  25/30 years ago Lenny WAS the representation of Black people on UK television, so a big part of his thesis must surely be employing the methodology of vulnerable anthropology and autoethnography, which sees ... read more »

ABSTRACT

BEYOND PROJECT: An Ethnographic Study in Community Media
by Shawn Naphtali Sobers... read more »

If you are an American reading this, then please understand that in the UK yesterday we have just had our first ever televised political leaders debate in an election campaign, broadcast on ITV in a 90 minutes live transmission.  As you know, you’ve had yours since 1960 with the Kennedy/Nixon debate – we are only 50 years behind you!  There’s no turning back now……... read more »