1. CITIZEN JOURNALISM AND DIGITAL VOICES: INSTITUTING A COLLABORATIVE PROCESS BETWEEN GLOBAL YOUTH, TECHNOLOGY AND MEDIA FOR POSITIVE SOCIAL CHANGE By Robin Worley
2/4/2009 ‹ #› Adolescents lack protection of children or independence of adults. Frequently seen in the media as rebellious, often dealt with in terms of discipline and suppression rather than empowerment UNICEF states that many youths today are vulnerable and invisible. This is especially true for youths affected by HIV/AIDS Their stories need to be told not in numbers and statistics, but in their own voices. Significance: In the past, media has been been defined by hree elements: “exclusion, privilege, and maleness” (Patricia McFadden) Media is about power. Citizen journalism is shaking the entire structure of traditional journalism. The internet is a conduit for change. It has altered media in two ways: 1) enables nearly limitless distribution of content for litle or no cost, 2) has the potential to put everyone in the media business. The potential is there for marginalized youth to become empowered through citizen journalism. Purpose: The purpose of studying the impact of citizen media and digital stories is to understand how they are being used today, what impact they are having on the lives of participants, and how this might be shared with the most disenfranchised youths around the world to give them power to change their lives. For the first JUMP project, our focus was specifically on Kenyan teens who are infected or affected by HIV/AIDS. We wanted to let them share their personal stories and community news surrounding the topic of HIV/AIDS. Approximately 1.4 million Kenyans are infected with HIV/AIDS. 2
2/4/2009 ‹ #› Poverty isn’t just financial. Childhood poverty means that children are rowing up without access to different types of resources vital to their well being and necessary to fulfill their potential. These resources include economic, social, cultural, physical, environmental and political. Poverty is a state of being powerless and excluded from the life others enjoy. Education: in the least developed countries in Africa, fewer than 35% of students attend secondary school. Those who attend are faced with inadequate buildings and supplies and often unqualified teachers. Gender equity, one of the Millennium Development Goals (UN) is to increase gender equality. The goal is to “eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education.” Educated girls become empowered women, improving their own lives and the lives of their children. “Of the 113 countries that failed to achieve gender parity in primary and secondary school enrollment by the target date of 2005, only 18 are likely to achieve the goal by 2015.” (End poverty, 2000) Access to healthcare is a basic human right as outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The World Health Organization stated the obvious in 2007: children from poor households are at higher risk of being eposed to inadequate water and sanitation, crowding, and indoor pollution than children from wealthy families. Well off families have better care seeking patterns than poor families. Richer kids get better care than poor kids. Poor children are more likely to die. More attention needs to be given to interventions with a pro-equity effect. Conclusion: UNICEF and the Millenium Development Goals are focusing attention on the world’s poorest children, but that is not enough. Millions will fall through the cracks. It is up to all citizens of the world ot feel a responsibility toward the well being of the most vulnerable on the planet and do something to alleviate the suffering. 3
2/4/2009 ‹ #› Isak Dinesen said, “To be a person is to have a story to tell.” One of the goals of JUMP is to pull those who feel invisible into the light, to acknowledge their existence and help others acknowledge them as well. One way to do this is through storytelling. By sharing their stories, they validate their own existence by saying “I count too.” This can be a life-changing event for marginalized people who have felt discounted their entire lives. Ashley was one of the Kenyan JUMPers and she told her story of becoming an AIDS orphan and head of the household on video. She said sharing her story was one of the most important things she’d ever done. And though she cried through the telling, she later said that was the happiest day of her life. Myths, fairytales and the hero’s journey are very powerful in our lives. They serve as a model for all of us, showing us why we need to continue to work through our struggles rather than giving up or giving in to temptations. Stories give our lives meaning. Ursula LeGuin, science fiction writer, said, “The story—from Rumplestiltskin to War and Peace—is one of the basic tools invented y the human mind for th epurpose of understanding. “ In the information age: knowing how to interpret information has a much higher value now than the accumulation of information. CEOs and marketers have rediscovered the story. Annette Simmons, author of The Story Factor, said “A good story helps you influence the interpretation people ive to facts. Facts aren’t influential until they mean something to someone. A story delivers a context.” Stephen Denning, author of The Springboard, discovered the power of storytelling when he became CIO at th Wold Bank. “What is more important is that the story creates meaning for the audience and helps them to order in their minds a complex set of phenomena about the arrangements and changes that are being proposed in the organization.” In A Whole New Mind (2005) Daniel Pink lists a number of storytelling initiatives at some of th nation’s largest organizations and businesses: 3M gives its top executives storytelling lessons. NASA has begun using storytelling in its knowledge management initiatives. Xerox has collected its repair stories into a database called eureka. 4
2/4/2009 ‹ #› Also called citizen media to more clearly include all types of media, whether it’s video, blogs, podcasts, or digital stories. Citizen journalism is telling stories about the world around us and how it impacts us. It gives ordinary citizens the power to become journalists and report on the world as they see it. This is powerful for several reasons: 1) It gives us a new perspective as we hear voices that have not been heard before. 2) It empowers the voiceless and allows them to bring awareness to the challenges they face. Why has it emerged?The emergence of blogs in the late 1990s started the trend. The growth of blogs was fueled by an increase in bandwidth and low cost or free blogging software. Cell phones allow ordinary citizens to shre information through text, voice, photos and video anywhere and at anytime. Limitations: Costs of connecting to the internet are prohibitive for computer and cell phone users in developing countries. “ digital divide” was coined in the 1990s to describe this chasm between people and nations who have ready access to the Internet and those who do not. There are many obstacles to overcome to provide cheap Internet access to all developing nations. 2. Next challenge: literacy. Literacy rate in industrialized nations is 98.6% compared to the world’s literacy rate average of 80%. Sub Saharan Africa has the lowest literacy rates in the world at approximately 60% for adults over age 15. 3. Lack of web pages in local languages. The majority of web pages are in English, up to 80%, though there is a shift to relocalization. MS recently launched its Swahili Windows products targeting the 1– million Swahili speakers in Africa. 4. Censorship or repercussions from his country’s gov’t. Bloggers in Egypt, Cuba, China, Iran, Burma and Saudi Arabia have been imprisoned based on the content of their blogs, according to Global Voices and Reporters Without Borders.. Why become a citizen journalist: Blogging is hugely popular in the US because access is cheap and available and the first amendment protects bloggers. -blogs are influencing US politics. More than a quarter of voters read political blogs. They are the voice of the “little guy.” People can relate to them. --why would someone want to blog in a country where they face all those obstacles? Bloggers in dev. Countries often feel a mission to provide a missing perspective, like the “Bhagdad Blogger”, a 29 year old Iraqi architect who gave a very non-western view of the Iraq war. He had millions of readers and was quoted in the NY Times and BBC. -Witness.org is an important site that hightlights videos taken to expose human rights violations. --Global Voices Online is a host for bloggers from non western countries. They shine light on places and people other media often ignore. One of their bloggers was interviewed by Wired magazine. Wozy Yin of China said “China will never be free unless people like me are willing to risk their own freedom.” They blog for change. 5
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2/4/2009 ‹ #› This is a case study of JUMP: its goals, development, process and results. The method used will be utilization-focused evaluation as defined by Michael Quinn Patton. Patton asks, “How do we know what is good?” There are a lot of organizations in the world working on projects intended to improve the lives of their target population, but how do we know what is working nd what is not? “ Good” is defined by whether the organization meets its goals. In this case, the goal is based on the mission statement of JUMP: “to empower global youth by giving them a voice and the skills to make media that makes a difference.” The goal of Utilization Focused Evaluation is to produce an evaluation that is actually useful. “Program evaluation is a collection of information about the activities, characteristics, and outcomes of programs to make judgments about the program, improve the program effectiveness, and/or inform decisions about future programming.” -The first JUMP program was to serve as a prototype. It must be evaluated in order to achieve improvements in the future that may allow it to expand to impact many more lives of young people in developing countries. The evaluation is meant to point the way toward future successful growth of the JUMP program. ACTION RESEARCH: JUMP was clearly inspired by the action research method. I did not want to just observe a problem and analyze its significance. Rather, I first identified a problem (marginalized youths with no voice or power) then set about to find a solution. I wanted to help people in a problematic situation while at the same time furthering the goals of social science. So the process was influenced by action research, but the final evaluation is based on Patton’s model of utilization focused evaluation. That method is more effective to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the project for ongoing success. 7
2/4/2009 ‹ #› Kauai —high school students between the ages of 13-18. Some had traveled, some not. Most were interested in technology and media and were trained in how to produce media projects. Nakuru —city of 300,000 several hours north of the capital city of Nairobi. The students who participated were also part of another group called Repacted. Repacted is a social outreach org that uses street performances to raise awareness of a variety of social issues faced by young kenyans. Bright and accomplished. Kibera —second largest slum in Africa, one million residents. The Kibera JUMPers were already members of another group called the Kibera Community Youth Programme. They worked on projects aimed to improve the lives of Kibera residens, such as a solar panel project reported on by CNN. Mombasa —the third group was from Mombasa, a city of approximately 700,000 residents in southern Kenya on the Indian Ocean. They were part of a group called Kwacha Afrika, a group focused on social activism through dance and street performance. Group leaders: Dennis Kimambo, Fred Ouko, Jackie Kowa Mentors: Felix Masi, Steven Shames 8
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