A knowledge network for media funders
By Meghan Ventura | Community & Operations Manager, Games for Change
With VR’s promise to help us see the world from someone else’s point of view, one word has become nearly synonymous with virtual reality projects on real-world issues—empathy.
This report from Edison Research examines the impact of AIR’s Localore: Finding America project, and offers strategies for journalists and audio producers seeking to tell more representative- and community-based stories.
Media Impact Funders and Foundation Center Announce New Mapping Tool for Media and Philanthropy
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By Games for Change
Every year, the Games for Change Festival celebrates the most impactful digital games that touch on social issues and aim to inspire their audiences to action. As video game’s audience increases—with gamers in 60 percent of American homes, according to the Entertainment Software Association—so does their potential to impact even more lives.
Gun violence was the focus of several documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival this year, most notably Newtown, which premiered at the festival on Jan. 24. The film, directed by Kim A. Snyder, revisits the residents of Newtown, Conn., in the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre that left 20 children and six teachers dead. Newtown is a gripping exploration into a community’s profound grief and what happens after it becomes the center of a national debate around gun violence.
The WITNESS Media Lab, which is dedicated to empowering citizens using video, shares insights on advancing “the effective use of eyewitness videos for human rights.”
In 1999, as the war in Kosovo was raging, independent producer Caroline Baron tuned into a radio story covering the crisis. Read more
Guest Post by Sara Federlein
Last month, The New York Times “reviewed” the still-in-the-works Participant Media Index designed to measure the impact and engagement of social issue documentaries. Anyone in the nonprofit world knows that “impact” and “engagement” are the buzzwords du jour. Read more
“Newsrooms regularly miss opportunities to bring the community into the storytelling process, leaving many voices excluded and important stories untold,” writes Molly de Aguiar of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation in this Local News Lab piece highlighting successful engagement strategies at ProPublica, Sandy Storyline, and The Christian Science Monitor.
“How does ‘networked gatekeeping,’ where both moderators and the community act as the editors of news, impact breaking news production on Reddit?” asks USC Annenberg doctoral student Alex Leavitt. In this Medium piece, Leavitt uses Reddit’s coverage of the recent LA earthquake as a powerful example.
This documentary follows the Emergencies Team — or E-Team — the boots on the ground division of a respected, international human rights group. Read more
Not all political issues lend themselves to popular online marketing techniques, observes Micah Sifry of Tech President: “It’s really striking that a decade into the emergence of online political organizing, there is still no commonly accepted and easy-to-use tool that would enable groups to conduct large-scale debate and deliberation aimed at producing a common pro-active policy on anything.”
See highlights from MIF’s coverage of PopTech including powerful contributions from fellows such as Joyce Kim of Stellar. Read more.