Visible People's feature film, released 6 April 2011.
Finale!
Today we presented our final film to the class!
For some of us today was the last day of class before graduation. Although we acknowledge that the issue is ongoing even though our class is finished, today we shared a sense of accomplishment for synthesizing our learning and producing a tangible work as a media team. It was great to get some comments from our classmates during the discussion after the screening. Thank you to professor Baines for being supportive of our creativity to flow throughout the project.
We will upload our film on our blog very soon, so please look forward to it. We'd like to hear what you think, so type away your responses on our blog!
Life isn't too short to be critical. Question from every angle. Share it with people around you. Something can happen from collaboration - just take a look at our project.
We did it media team!
Do you whip YOUR hair?
I can't quite decide if this Invisible Children video from their Schools for Schools campaign says A LOT or nothing at all. See 1 minute 41 seconds for full insight :D
For a bit more info about hair whipping, check out this Invisible Children blog post by Jedidiah http://blog.invisiblechildren.com/2010/12/and-now%E2%80%A6-the-ic-%E2%80%9Cwhip-my-hair%E2%80%9D-music-video/
... haha I couldn't help it...
Thoughts on dancing and singing about pit latrines...
Here's a part from A's letter about Invisible Children video-making that I wanted to highlight. 
When it comes to movie and television, what's the trouble with distinguishing between "real people" and "real lives"? Is making this distinction a necessity? And where does one draw the line?
I think the danger of filming a musical production about pit latrines, HIV, and malaria in an IDP camp is that doing so displaces issues like poverty and disease from the realm of serious humanitarian concern, emphasizing humour and entertainment in its place.
But this begs the question, is there no place for humour and entertainment in humanitarianism?
As Invisible Children is evidence of, entertainment and humanitarianism together can't be all that bad.
I think most of the impact and consequences, positive and negative, come back to audience members and virtual activists themselves. Each of them ends up taking away from what they see and hear a collection of personally filtered knowledge, understanding, and goals. Dancing and singing about pit latrines, HIV, and malaria in an IDP camp may draw some viewers closer to the reality of a humanitarian crisis, making them feel entertained, interested, and ultimately inspired to do something to help change this situation. This humour, however, also runs the risk of misinforming viewers by de-contextualizing the problems.
Torgovnik argues that "generic representations [of Africa] make the suffering seem inevitable and natural, and moreover, even as they might imply some common humanity linking us all, they also establish a distinction between 'us' and 'them'."
Could the same be said of entertaining representations of "Africa," despite a focus on serious subject matter? Does a musical production about pit latrines, HIV, and malaria make the suffering of internally displaced peoples "seem inevitable and natural"?
I'm drawn back to one of my questions from earlier: where does one draw the line of appropriateness? the line between reality and fiction?
Where and when does the reality of an IDP camp stop being real?
Rough Cut
Tomorrow the five of us will be making our final Visible People presentation in-class, and concluding what has been a remarkable journey into the depths of Invisible Children's media.
As part of Visible People's "feature" film (***to be released tomorrow***), I've been working on putting together Take 3 of my Invisible Children movie-making analysis. In advance of this conclusion, please take a look at Invisible Children's first movie, "Invisible Children: Rough Cut," posted via Google Video by Laren, Bobby and Jason, Invisible Children's co-founders and this movie's creators.
The story that started it all, this movie has been the focal point of my analysis throughout our living project.
In all honesty, I've struggled with putting together this analysis as I began our project convinced that Invisible Children's movies had to be biased, and had to perpetuate the saviour mentality evident in other aspects of this organization's media.
What I came to grasp over the course of this analysis is that Invisible Children's movie-making does, in fact, place significant emphasis on the faces and voices of the people of northern Uganda. In letting the children and practitioners from the country speak for themselves, Invisible Children's movie-making makes visible important parts of these people's experiences, knowledge, and wishes.
"Invisible Children: Rough Cut" is a prime example of this visibility. The film begins with Laren, Bobby and Jason's story but quickly shifts to an exploration of the conflict, Joseph Kony, and the people of northern Uganda, told through first-hand accounts or by researchers or officials who are part of the northern Ugandan community. What's shown are representations of hope, not only suffering.
Limited to fifty minutes, Invisible Children simple CANNOT tell the whole story, whether that story is that of the decades-long conflict, Joseph Kony, the thousands of night-commuting children, the Global Night Commutes in America, or a single boy named Tony.
A movie is a select form of media - an art form - who's utility is bounded by its makers, technology, and the experiences, knowledge, and wishes that viewers themselves bring to the theater.
As a viewer yourself, who's voice do you hear?
What emotions do you feel?
And what does a movie like "Invisible Children: Rough Cut" make you want to do after shutting off the screen?
Digital Divide
Can the internet be a tool to connect Northern Ugandans with American high school students?
Digital divide is a term that is used to refer to the gap between those who have access to the information technology and those who do not. In the context of our project, I use the term to compare the internet usage in Uganda and the United States.
Please take a look at the following charts. The first one shows the distribution of the internet usage in Uganda and the second one shows the one for the United States. Since the Invisible Children’s headquarters is located in San Diego, I included the statistics for California as well.
Digital divide is a term that is used to refer to the gap between those who have access to the information technology and those who do not. In the context of our project, I use the term to compare the internet usage in Uganda and the United States.
Please take a look at the following charts. The first one shows the distribution of the internet usage in Uganda and the second one shows the one for the United States. Since the Invisible Children’s headquarters is located in San Diego, I included the statistics for California as well.
Response from Julie Okot Bitek
One of my friends used to live in Uganda and one day when we were having a lunch together she talked about a poet whom she met at the African Symposium on March 25th at UBC.
Thank you to my friend, our media team was able to connect with Julie, who is an award-winning writer who was raised in Uganda, graduated from UBC with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art and currently lives in Vancouver. It turns out that she has worked with professor Baines and they are friends on Facebook as well! Sometimes the network of people surprises me.
As in the following email, Julie got to know about our project through professor Baine’s Facebook post. The impact of the social media is evident. It is intriguing how SNS are working as the hub of information exchange for the professionals.
Thank you to my friend, our media team was able to connect with Julie, who is an award-winning writer who was raised in Uganda, graduated from UBC with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art and currently lives in Vancouver. It turns out that she has worked with professor Baines and they are friends on Facebook as well! Sometimes the network of people surprises me.
As in the following email, Julie got to know about our project through professor Baine’s Facebook post. The impact of the social media is evident. It is intriguing how SNS are working as the hub of information exchange for the professionals.
This picture is not worth a thousand words.
This is my shirt. It really doesn't mean much.
An outline of the continent of Africa doesn't say much does it? It doesn't tell you the culture of the each of the individual tribes, peoples, and nations that live on this continent, many of whom are separated by arbitrary borders because of the colonial legacy. It doesn't tell you about their religious differences, religious similarities, cultural practices, languages, experiences, politics, everyday life...
So why do we continually refer to the continent of Africa as if it were made up of one kind of people?
IC, an insider's perspective
Apparently our voice was heard by humanitarians! We are getting great feedback from people who work on the ground : comments that confirm our skepticism.
Thanks to everyone who follows us and take the time to enlighten us with their comments.
Here is an e-mail we received recently, you can click on the image to enlarge :
Thanks to everyone who follows us and take the time to enlighten us with their comments.
Here is an e-mail we received recently, you can click on the image to enlarge :
Feeling a little dejected...
As this is an academic exercise, I was very hesitant to bring personal feelings into this project. We were assigned a job to do: investigate Invisible Children and critique it using the ideas and theories we've learned in this course. Again, it isn't to question IC staff's personal integrity or character, it is to find out if their work is achieving their goal of helping Ugandans.
Culling the web for people's thoughts on IC, I'm struck by the amount of emotional 'feel-good' responses: "You've changed my life!" "I'm so excited to wear my T-shirt from IC." "I love you guys!!!!" from IC's Facebook page and Twitter feed.
But what disappointed me was the amount of intelligent criticism that is seemingly going unheard by IC and because of the way their flashy, entertaining, "take-it-in-but-don't-question-it" media is structured, by IC's audience as well.
Culling the web for people's thoughts on IC, I'm struck by the amount of emotional 'feel-good' responses: "You've changed my life!" "I'm so excited to wear my T-shirt from IC." "I love you guys!!!!" from IC's Facebook page and Twitter feed.
But what disappointed me was the amount of intelligent criticism that is seemingly going unheard by IC and because of the way their flashy, entertaining, "take-it-in-but-don't-question-it" media is structured, by IC's audience as well.
We decided to get a little more philosophical with this t-shirt. The slogan on my t-shirt reads "You can't speak out without understanding." This makes a subtle reference to Plato's Republic and the concept of fully reaching understanding before educating the rest of the population who is unable to fully understand but can still gain knowledge passed from those who understand.
This is not Africa it's a t-shirt
As Asuka and Caitlin explained earlier we met last friday to design t-shirts. We view these t-shirts as just another medium to publicize our critical voices. This is again part of our strategy to mimic IC. Meredith's pillar, People Media explores how IC's supporters are the face of the movement, how they are a vehicle for the IC's brand and IC's message by taking part in their campaigns and by wearing their t-shirts and bracelets.
My t-shirt features the slogan : This is not Africa, it's a t-shirt.
WWJD?
As Asuka posted just awhile ago, yesterday the five of us designed and decorated our Visible People t-shirts. We wanted to make a statement: the message you see on a t-shirt really isn't the whole picture.
The message on my t-shirt: WWJD. What would Joseph Kony do?
WWJD is a common saying with one original meaning: "What would Jesus do?"
IC's voice uncensored
Friday night, end of term (or rather early saturday morning).
I finally overcame my 1001 technical issues, and my computer seems to have responded to my verbal threats of getting rid of it as soon as the semester is done.
Given that it is pretty late, I will make it short and sweet.
I finally overcame my 1001 technical issues, and my computer seems to have responded to my verbal threats of getting rid of it as soon as the semester is done.
Given that it is pretty late, I will make it short and sweet.
visible people's T-shirts are ready
Today we got together at Meredith’s chapter room and made our own T-shirts. One by one, each white T-shirt was gracefully spray painted in gold by Myriam and we put our heads together to think of messages to write on our T-shirts. What kind of words would challenge the commodification of personal stories for the sake of advocacy? Each member in our group will be blogging about each T-shirt so please keep visiting our blog!
The message on my T-shirt is: “Am I a-wear-ivist?”
Creating culture
The more I go through IC's website content, the more I feel that it has nothing to do with Ugandans. Well, I should qualify that statement. Yes, it has information on their work (somewhat), although they are "following" Kony into Congo, they are helping rebuild schools, they are setting up radio towers.
But the problem is, they also have a music blog, links to their videos, photos, clothing... if I didn't know better, you'd think this is a hipster clothing company or something. It's just plain distracting!
But the problem is, they also have a music blog, links to their videos, photos, clothing... if I didn't know better, you'd think this is a hipster clothing company or something. It's just plain distracting!
What's the difference between seeing, and understanding?
Sitting on the bus, riding to UBC, thinking about Invisible Children and Visible People. It dawned on me that there's a significant difference between seeing something, and understanding something.
In the case of Invisible Children's movies, I argue that the people of northern Uganda are made more visible. This can be a good thing as the youth of America open theirs eyes to a different country, a thriving community, and a deadly conflict.
But just because Invisible Children's movies make the people of northern Uganda more visible, this doesn't mean that their movies tell the full story of this conflict, and that audiences, after viewing their movies, leave with an in-depth understanding of northern Uganda's collective and individual histories.
On the other hand, is it too much to ask of an NGO and humanitarian organization like Invisible Children to get the youth of America to really know and understand using movies (or the other four pillars of media) alone? I wonder.
"No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding." - Plato
Resources, what resources?
The following is a list of resources found on the Invisible Children Uganda (ICU) site:
Getting the facts straight?
So today I hope to be done with the quantitative/empirical part of my analysis.
I am scrolling through loads and loads of newspaper/media articles published in Africa/Europe and the United States in the past 7 months and that in a way or another refer to IC.
I hope to be able to identity trends (or at least correlation) either by region, or by media type ( I did split it up by college/university newspapers, local newspapers, newswires, large-circulation newspapers and others).
I'm looking into which articles state the same information as IC about the conflict in Uganda (Joseph Kony = abducted children), which articles offer a more complex overview of the conflict, which ones only talk about IC's successes, awareness campains, movie screenings, etc.
My empirical observations will be posted soon, I hope... but in the meantime, I couldn't help it and needed share something that astounded me.
I am scrolling through loads and loads of newspaper/media articles published in Africa/Europe and the United States in the past 7 months and that in a way or another refer to IC.
I hope to be able to identity trends (or at least correlation) either by region, or by media type ( I did split it up by college/university newspapers, local newspapers, newswires, large-circulation newspapers and others).
I'm looking into which articles state the same information as IC about the conflict in Uganda (Joseph Kony = abducted children), which articles offer a more complex overview of the conflict, which ones only talk about IC's successes, awareness campains, movie screenings, etc.
My empirical observations will be posted soon, I hope... but in the meantime, I couldn't help it and needed share something that astounded me.
"Advocacy in a Box" Good or Bad???
The Advocacy Group in our class just finished their final presentation of their project and in doing so made some strong and somewhat controversial arguments about the effectiveness of IC's. The main point that I had an issue with was the argument that the "25 Action Kit" is a limited and ineffective way of marketing advocacy to the IC consumer.
Social media 2: Facebook
The wall of the Invisible Children’s Facebook displays an incredible number of posts by IC’s supporters. It was especially astonishing to see the real time updates on the number of people who “like” IC’s page. For example, take a look at the updates from the following days:
March 24, 2011
9:50pm: 358,849 people
10:15pm: 358,873 people
11pm: 358, 911 people
March 25, 2011
9:50pm: 359,500 people
10:15pm: 359,514 people
11pm: 359,532 people
aWAReness4IC
So we were having our regular Friday afternoon meeting, just like Asuka said in an earlier post. I went over to our Twitter to see if we had any new followers. We had been pretty psyched that @Invisible (IC's Twitter) had been following us the week of our interview with Jedidiah.
Alas! They stopped. =(
Alas! They stopped. =(
Link them all - where would social media take us?
So here we are at a Boulevard café on Friday afternoon as usual.
First hour passed by in a relaxed atmosphere as we chatted away about our progress and action plans for the up coming week. We will be writing up a script for our film and even making our own logo T-shirts! Please keep in mind though, we are critical about the merchandising aspect of the Invisible Children's project -what do their T-shirts speak about the people in Uganda? How is Visible People's T-shirts going to look like? Wait and see.
First hour passed by in a relaxed atmosphere as we chatted away about our progress and action plans for the up coming week. We will be writing up a script for our film and even making our own logo T-shirts! Please keep in mind though, we are critical about the merchandising aspect of the Invisible Children's project -what do their T-shirts speak about the people in Uganda? How is Visible People's T-shirts going to look like? Wait and see.
What does dancing have to do with war?
Interestingly enough, the clothing item with the most explanation on the IC store website is not about the IC campaign at all. They also sell a t-shirt to promote the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, which was founded by a friend of IC. This blurb appears below the LXD T-shirt:
The LXD Shirt represents the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, featured on the 2010 Academy Awards and founded by friend of IC and film director, Jon M. Chu. This shirt is made with 100% organic Ugandan cotton, through our continued work with EDUN LIVE. 50% of the proceeds go to IC to help end Africa's longest running war.
Wearing a Message???
Despite Invisible Children's lack of educational information available to their customer, it seems as though they still want people to be messengers of their campaign. Some of their products have catchy tag lines that imply that this t-shirt should spread a message and people are the mediums with which to do it.
Colorful images of some of our programs in east Africa. This shirt is sure to be a conversations starter.
Colorful images of some of our programs in east Africa. This shirt is sure to be a conversations starter.
Sick Tee! Thanks Man...
Invisible Children has a some what contradictory marketing strategy when it comes to their clothing line. Their online store is definitely more focused on intriguing the buyer with the actual clothing than it is with the message that IC is trying to spread. On the page where you can purchase their Crane 2 t-shirt there is a fascinating video at the bottom of the page.
"Does the manner in which Invisible Children selectively brands this conflict make the people of northern Uganda more or less visible?" Good question.
We got together for our weekly meeting this past Friday and tried to narrow down our central question and thesis. As Dr. Baines suggested, what we needed was some sort of thread to tie the five pillars of our project - Invisible Children's social media, its movies, its mainstream media coverage, its campaigns and website, and its use of "people media" - together. Invisible Children's brand is, after all, defined by each of these components.
After about an hour's worth of discussion, we hashed out the following all-encompassing question:
After about an hour's worth of discussion, we hashed out the following all-encompassing question:
Social media 1: Twitter
March 21st is a special day for 2 reasons:
First of all, today is an International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Second, today marks the 5th anniversary of Twitter!
First of all, today is an International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Second, today marks the 5th anniversary of Twitter!
Thinking about SNS: offline and online identity
Social Networking Sites.
In many respects, the social media/Social Networking Sites (SNS) are changing the ways in which we communicate and acquire information online. The social media created a new platform, or a public digital space that affects how we interact with one another. The increasing popularity of bite-size information seems to reflect the progressive changes in our concept of time, lifestyle and how we consume information.
Compared to a more personal style of online interaction through emails, SNS uses the online space for people to communicate publicly. As noted by Jedidiah, although there are debates as to whether online communication can substitute face-to-face interaction, what is interesting about SNS is that people can “see” what other people are talking, even if you are not directly involved in the conversation.
Of course, SNS is a great social tool to keep in touch with friends or acquaintances. But in addition, I think the potential and the effectiveness of SNS lie in the speed of real time updating of the information and the way it can be a great resource for like-minded individuals to share/collect information and collaborate towards the same goal, whether it be planning parties, school related events, or even politically related actions. The possibility of SNS depends on their users.
I hope this doesn’t sound too abstract, but I think SNS users live in 2 realities: one offline and another online. Once you log into your SNS account, you are consciously or subcontinuously making a switch between two identities. My point is not to argue that these two identities do not always coincide, but I just wanted to note that the SNS user’s online posts shape the identity of the user. And what is peculiar about SNS is that whatever the user posts online is visible to the rest of the SNS users who are connected to the user as a “friend” or a “follower” and the user also has a choice to make it visible to anybody with access to the internet.
This is probably enough from my rant on SNS – how does this all relate to the work of Invisible Children?
My thoughts started to spin around because of an answer I got from Jedidiah about a question I asked:
“When did Invisible Children started to use SNS and why?”
His answer was “from day 1” that IC was founded and he perceives SNS as a “manifestation of personality of the people who work here”.
In response to my other question about who updates the IC’s SNS, Jedidiah explained both the difficulties of coordinating the “level of cohesiveness” in representing the voice of IC [because the IC has multiple staffs who have access to their SNS account] but also the opportunities in using the SNS strategically to “be something that does not exist” by personifying the organization to give it a more human quality to the organization.
What does this really mean and how does it work? For the next blog post I will be exploring the theme of SNS in more detail, by analyzing the following SNS used by the IC:
· Twitter
· Facebook
Hope you are getting excited about our Visible People Project’s progress as we are!
Got a Twitter account? Follow or Tweet us @ visible_people :)
Our main question
So as Professor Baines suggested, we should come up with a central questions that ties all our pillars together. Not that we have talked with Jedediah, I think we all have a little bit clearer understanding of where our project is going, so I though it would be a good idea to start narrowing things down into a central thesis that we can relate all our pillars back to.
Skype interview with Jedidiah
It is March 16th, 2011.
The clock hit 1pm.
All of us were waiting for this moment.
"Hello?" [Caitlin]
"Hello Hello" [Jedidiah]
Today we got to officially Skype with Jedidiah from the Invisible Children!
Jedidiah has been with the Invisible Children for about 3 years, and he is currently working as a creative director and a brand manager for the organization.
We were so glad that we got an opportunity to connect with IC in person, and it was mind opening to be able to talk to someone from IC virtually but still face to face.
Although it is exciting to explore about something new, at least for myself, doing a research online on my pillar felt like sailing with no compass. But after our conversation with Jedidiah, I was able to see the 'person' behind the organization and I think I have a better sense of where I want to go with my research.
As for the first question, I asked Jedidiah about the significance of SNS in IC's project. He said that "social media is an important tool, but… [it is]… a facilitation of actual human engagement" and he believes the "fact that we connect in person" matters the most and the SNS are used to "live the echo of that connection online". He believes that SNS would not have the same degree of impact if there were no face to face communication to begin with. I think many people would find his point relevant on a personal level as Facebook users. Now I understand the role of SNS in IC's work as a way to "maintain a lot of supporters" (Jedidiah).
I will be posting more about our conversation about SNS with Jedidiah, but I will keep it here for now.
For about an hour, our team showered him with questions and Jedidiah was very supportive and answered each questions with an open mind. Thank you again Jedidiah!
We will be uploading the video clip of the whole interview soon so stay tuned :)
The clock hit 1pm.
All of us were waiting for this moment.
"Hello?" [Caitlin]
"Hello Hello" [Jedidiah]
Today we got to officially Skype with Jedidiah from the Invisible Children!
Jedidiah has been with the Invisible Children for about 3 years, and he is currently working as a creative director and a brand manager for the organization.
We were so glad that we got an opportunity to connect with IC in person, and it was mind opening to be able to talk to someone from IC virtually but still face to face.
Although it is exciting to explore about something new, at least for myself, doing a research online on my pillar felt like sailing with no compass. But after our conversation with Jedidiah, I was able to see the 'person' behind the organization and I think I have a better sense of where I want to go with my research.
As for the first question, I asked Jedidiah about the significance of SNS in IC's project. He said that "social media is an important tool, but… [it is]… a facilitation of actual human engagement" and he believes the "fact that we connect in person" matters the most and the SNS are used to "live the echo of that connection online". He believes that SNS would not have the same degree of impact if there were no face to face communication to begin with. I think many people would find his point relevant on a personal level as Facebook users. Now I understand the role of SNS in IC's work as a way to "maintain a lot of supporters" (Jedidiah).
I will be posting more about our conversation about SNS with Jedidiah, but I will keep it here for now.
For about an hour, our team showered him with questions and Jedidiah was very supportive and answered each questions with an open mind. Thank you again Jedidiah!
We will be uploading the video clip of the whole interview soon so stay tuned :)
And the response is...
...positive for the most part!
We just received some feed back from Professor Baines today in response to our proposal video. She seemed to enjoy our decision to make a video instead of writing out our proposal. I think it was also a great way for us to get used to the types of media and technology we will be using through out the project. In editing the video, we approached it as a sort of trailer for our project, just as any feature film has a trailer. And I think overall we presented the base of our project and where we want to take it well.
Professor Baines did have some constructive criticisms with regards to the enormity of our initial ideas for how we would carry out the project. I will admit that we do seem to have a pretty ambitious structure in mind, tying in many different media components. It will be a good idea for us to re-group following our interview tomorrow, as we will likely get a better sense of the direction we want to take the central question of our project after talking to Jedediah himself.
On that note, Professor Baines also suggests that we focus in on one specific question that will tie all of our pillars together. Right now, although we are all researching media, we are all sort of doing our own thing and then coming back to touch base with each other. We need to really get to the core of our arguments and agree on a central focus we want to each address with the different types of media.
Overall though Professor Baines was very excited for us to work on this project together. She has lots of faith in our ability to get our enormous project done if we choose to continue on with every aspect we outlined in our video. Thanks for the support Professor Baines!
Co-opt IC to increase your popularity?
So there is this rock/indie/folk music band called The Gallery... and they are participating to a contest. They hope to make it on the cover of the notorious Rolling Stones Magazine.
They created this page to gather support for their endeavour :
http://www.voteforthegallery.com/
They ask people to post it on their facebook wall...
What does this have to do with Invisible Children?
Hum, I don't know, maybe you can explain that to me :
The Gallery will give 10 cents to Invisible Children for every person who will share this page, up to 10 000 people (my math intuition tells me that this is up to 1 000 dollars).
Tell me what you think. Is this opportunistic? Or am I a harsh, stone-hearted, unsensitive and ungrateful critic?! Is it unfair to criticize people's generosity? After all donor's money, is money that can be put to some good use (...)?
What does this tells us about Celebrity humanitarianism?
By the way, an article written on that "news" makes very little reference to Uganda... the first paragraph states that IC is
"an inspiring humanitarian organization dedicated to working with people affected by Africa's longest running war"
... yet the article does not say where the heck this is war happening... untill the very last paragraph :
"Invisible Children is a social, political and global movement using the transformative power of story to change lives. By inspiring youth culture to value creativity, idealism and sacrifice, the movement fuels the most effective, adaptable and innovative programs in the world. Programs on the ground focus on long-term development through education and economic opportunities, while awareness and advocacy efforts focus on educating and inspiring the Western world to use their unique voice for change. The organization was created after the release of the 2004 film "Invisible Children: Rough Cut," a revealing documentary about the plight of child soldiers in northern Uganda."
This is also obscuring the fact that the conflict has now spead to bordering DRC and Sudan.
Is this type of coverage essentializing Africa? As if the location of the conflict did not matter... since the whole continent is "torn" by conflict, "backwards", unresilient, homogeneous (pardon my irony)...
What does that tells us on Western attitude towards humanitarianism? Do donors care about knowing where their money goes and why? Or are they complacent in their generosity?
Which information matters? A whole paragraph is worshiping IC's work, yet it is silencing the story of Uganda.
How is this example revealing of the Global North's attitude towards humanitarianism?
My sense is that it's a perfect example of Westerners congradulating each other for their good work, their generosity... buy hey : what work? Where? What for?
See the article :
http://hangout.altsounds.com/news/127304-the-gallery-supports-invisible-children-in-rolling-stone-contest.html
They created this page to gather support for their endeavour :
http://www.voteforthegallery.com/
They ask people to post it on their facebook wall...
What does this have to do with Invisible Children?
Hum, I don't know, maybe you can explain that to me :
The Gallery will give 10 cents to Invisible Children for every person who will share this page, up to 10 000 people (my math intuition tells me that this is up to 1 000 dollars).
Tell me what you think. Is this opportunistic? Or am I a harsh, stone-hearted, unsensitive and ungrateful critic?! Is it unfair to criticize people's generosity? After all donor's money, is money that can be put to some good use (...)?
What does this tells us about Celebrity humanitarianism?
By the way, an article written on that "news" makes very little reference to Uganda... the first paragraph states that IC is
"an inspiring humanitarian organization dedicated to working with people affected by Africa's longest running war"
... yet the article does not say where the heck this is war happening... untill the very last paragraph :
"Invisible Children is a social, political and global movement using the transformative power of story to change lives. By inspiring youth culture to value creativity, idealism and sacrifice, the movement fuels the most effective, adaptable and innovative programs in the world. Programs on the ground focus on long-term development through education and economic opportunities, while awareness and advocacy efforts focus on educating and inspiring the Western world to use their unique voice for change. The organization was created after the release of the 2004 film "Invisible Children: Rough Cut," a revealing documentary about the plight of child soldiers in northern Uganda."
This is also obscuring the fact that the conflict has now spead to bordering DRC and Sudan.
Is this type of coverage essentializing Africa? As if the location of the conflict did not matter... since the whole continent is "torn" by conflict, "backwards", unresilient, homogeneous (pardon my irony)...
What does that tells us on Western attitude towards humanitarianism? Do donors care about knowing where their money goes and why? Or are they complacent in their generosity?
Which information matters? A whole paragraph is worshiping IC's work, yet it is silencing the story of Uganda.
How is this example revealing of the Global North's attitude towards humanitarianism?
My sense is that it's a perfect example of Westerners congradulating each other for their good work, their generosity... buy hey : what work? Where? What for?
See the article :
http://hangout.altsounds.com/news/127304-the-gallery-supports-invisible-children-in-rolling-stone-contest.html
Getting ready to interview IC
So tomorrow is the big day! We will have an entire hour to ask our toughest questions to IC's communication manager.
IC heard our voice and responded. In turn, it is now up to us to confront IC on its role as a medium/platform for Uganda's (multiple) voices. Do these voices get lost in translation? Does IC try to avoid essentializing these voices? Is IC only concerned with the children's voices? Is there a way to overcome the dilemma of humanitarianism, between portraying the "african other" as a "victim" and attracting Western donors' attention?
This is a great opportunity for us to discuss critical questions that are not necessarily tackled on IC's website, on their multiple social networking accounts, in their movies or in mainstream media.
We will ask critical questions and hopefully , we will get critical (yet, down to earth) responses!
Looking forward to it.
IC heard our voice and responded. In turn, it is now up to us to confront IC on its role as a medium/platform for Uganda's (multiple) voices. Do these voices get lost in translation? Does IC try to avoid essentializing these voices? Is IC only concerned with the children's voices? Is there a way to overcome the dilemma of humanitarianism, between portraying the "african other" as a "victim" and attracting Western donors' attention?
This is a great opportunity for us to discuss critical questions that are not necessarily tackled on IC's website, on their multiple social networking accounts, in their movies or in mainstream media.
We will ask critical questions and hopefully , we will get critical (yet, down to earth) responses!
Looking forward to it.
Getting ready to interview IC from Visible People on Vimeo.
Why Visible People?
By naming our project, "Visible People", we hope to raise two issues that is pertinent not only to our critique of Invisible Children, but also to humanitarianism in general.
Children are often used as the face of advocacy campaigns and calls to donate to humanitarian relief efforts. Let's face it, pictures of suffering children bring in money. It's not a bad thing that people want to save children. Faces of suffering children cause us to feel compassion and empathy. We don't want kids to get hurt. No one does. It's a natural human response. It's also effective marketing. We want to point out that adults are also affected by natural disasters and political crises. By silencing the voices of these adults, a humanitarian organization oversimplifies the crisis and eliminates the possibility of peering into the deeper root causes.
That leads us to the second point. The name Invisible Children refers to the idea that the crisis in northern Uganda, in particular, the night commuters (children travelling each night to the town centre to sleep in order to avoid being kidnapped by rebel forces), had been invisible to the world. However, with IC's tireless advocacy campaign in North America and its focus on trying to raise awareness about the Uganda among the average North American teenager, has the focus shifted from Uganda back onto North America? Has the night commuter's own voice and the voices of the Acholi community leaders hidden behind glitzy IC campaigns to turn these North American teenagers into so-called humanitarians by simply joining a campaign to raise money?
Children are often used as the face of advocacy campaigns and calls to donate to humanitarian relief efforts. Let's face it, pictures of suffering children bring in money. It's not a bad thing that people want to save children. Faces of suffering children cause us to feel compassion and empathy. We don't want kids to get hurt. No one does. It's a natural human response. It's also effective marketing. We want to point out that adults are also affected by natural disasters and political crises. By silencing the voices of these adults, a humanitarian organization oversimplifies the crisis and eliminates the possibility of peering into the deeper root causes.
That leads us to the second point. The name Invisible Children refers to the idea that the crisis in northern Uganda, in particular, the night commuters (children travelling each night to the town centre to sleep in order to avoid being kidnapped by rebel forces), had been invisible to the world. However, with IC's tireless advocacy campaign in North America and its focus on trying to raise awareness about the Uganda among the average North American teenager, has the focus shifted from Uganda back onto North America? Has the night commuter's own voice and the voices of the Acholi community leaders hidden behind glitzy IC campaigns to turn these North American teenagers into so-called humanitarians by simply joining a campaign to raise money?
Visible People - our group project
In the next 3 weeks we intend to analyze critically IC's use of media.
This group project is part of a seminar on the Politics of Humanitarianism at the University of British Columbia.
In the syllabus, the assignment is described as follows :
Group Projects: In groups of 4-5, you will design a project that critically investigates some aspect of the advocacy and humanitarian organization Invisible Children.com, a group that has galvanized one of the largest lobbies in US history in response to a war in Africa and resulted in the passage of US legislation (2010) to stop the Lord’s Resistance Army. Started by three young American film-makers after they hitch hiked to northern Uganda with a camera bought on e-bay, it is today a multi-million dollar enterprise, using innovative social networking and creative communications. From roadies to ‘sit-ins’ and demonstrations, lobby days and lotteries, public challenges and competitions to economic development, infrastructure building and educational work, and interventions in peace talks and diplomatic circles, the Invisible Children are a rich example of storytelling that gives impetus to humanitarian action, including urging youth to think creatively on how to make a difference in their own day to day lives. Arguably, it is the ‘new breed’ of global citizenship and activism that turns the present humanitarian morass on its head. This is not without controversy. It seemingly turns suffering into a commodity, promotes war tourism and reproduces problematic racial narratives of saviours and survivors.
Each week your group will spend time on the Invisible Children.org website and researching the various facets of the initiative on the internet, we will briefly discuss your views and reactions as you learn and connect who is interested in what questions and aspects of investigation. The idea is to identify the different threads and form groups around these, some aspect of the movement (the policy, the fundraising, the humanitarian work, the advocacy) and for each group to take on some aspect of this.
So instead of submitting a written project proposal, we decided to do a video proposal....
This group project is part of a seminar on the Politics of Humanitarianism at the University of British Columbia.
In the syllabus, the assignment is described as follows :
Group Projects: In groups of 4-5, you will design a project that critically investigates some aspect of the advocacy and humanitarian organization Invisible Children.com, a group that has galvanized one of the largest lobbies in US history in response to a war in Africa and resulted in the passage of US legislation (2010) to stop the Lord’s Resistance Army. Started by three young American film-makers after they hitch hiked to northern Uganda with a camera bought on e-bay, it is today a multi-million dollar enterprise, using innovative social networking and creative communications. From roadies to ‘sit-ins’ and demonstrations, lobby days and lotteries, public challenges and competitions to economic development, infrastructure building and educational work, and interventions in peace talks and diplomatic circles, the Invisible Children are a rich example of storytelling that gives impetus to humanitarian action, including urging youth to think creatively on how to make a difference in their own day to day lives. Arguably, it is the ‘new breed’ of global citizenship and activism that turns the present humanitarian morass on its head. This is not without controversy. It seemingly turns suffering into a commodity, promotes war tourism and reproduces problematic racial narratives of saviours and survivors.
Each week your group will spend time on the Invisible Children.org website and researching the various facets of the initiative on the internet, we will briefly discuss your views and reactions as you learn and connect who is interested in what questions and aspects of investigation. The idea is to identify the different threads and form groups around these, some aspect of the movement (the policy, the fundraising, the humanitarian work, the advocacy) and for each group to take on some aspect of this.
So instead of submitting a written project proposal, we decided to do a video proposal....
Group Project Proposal from Visible People on Vimeo.
Media + Humanitarianism = ?
Sitting at the Boulevard Cafe on campus right, having a team meeting... and capturing the process on video, documenting this journey.
We managed to get an interview with Invisible Children's Director of Media and Communications, Jedidiah, for next week, March 16th! We're all looking forward to it! Drafted a list of possible questions to ask him at our meeting today... we definitely need to narrow the list down a bit. There are so many aspects of Invisible Children's media campaigns and brand that we're interested in unpacking the intentions and impact of.
....and we're on Twitter!
Follow us @visible_people!!!
Hello? Hello? Invisible Children's Silence
The five of us sent an email to Jason, Russell and Jedidiah the other day, asking for a brief interview with them for our research project on Invisible Children's various media tools and campaigns. Jason and Russell are both Invisible Children Co-Founders and Filmmakers, and Jedidiah is Invisible Children's Director of Public & Media Relations.
Test post
I'll put some goodies on after I get back from Chicago this weekend. In the meantime, post away, girls!
