NYU
Gallatin School of Individualized Study
Shifting Focus: Video Production and Community Organizing - Fall 2009
The course explores the role of media as an advocacy and/or community organizing tool, by asking what the role of documentary is in social change movements and what types of media actually help to create change. What audiences are targeted by these films? What do we want the impact of the film on these audiences to be? We want to explore the use of varying styles of documentary to observe, document, inform, and impact audiences emotionally, intellectually and politically.
In this course, these theoretical questions are put to the practical test of actually producing, in collaboration with community organizers, short pieces of “tactical media” that the organizers can then use in the course of the ongoing work of social change.
Below are the four pieces students made with local organizations.
1. Washington Heights CORNER Project
By: Salome Asega, Cloe Daneshgar, Caroline Kotter, Anna P. Mullen
8:02 | 2009
Washington Heights Corner Project operates as a NYS-licensed Syringe Exchange and Harm Reduction Education Program.
2. AIDS Service Center NYC
By: Jessica Assaf, Rebecca Davis
6:16 | 2009
AIDS Service Center NYC is a community-based non-profit at the forefront of the fight against HIV/AIDS and the effort to ensure that all New Yorkers have access to HIV testing, treatment and care. ASC fulfills its mission of helping many, one by one by providing culturally relevant programs for men, women and families coping with HIV/AIDS.
3. Healthcare Education Project
By: Maria Casey, Andressa Costa
5:56 | 2009
Education Project is a collaborative initiative of 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East and Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) to conduct education and advocacy efforts on critical health care issues.
4. National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee
Christopher Dimitrov, Jared Ingster, Antonella Lentini
5:09 | 2009
National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC) is an activist group that promotes tax resistance as a way to protest against and/or disassociate from war and militarism.