ABOUT -ISM (N.) NATIONAL GOALS THE STAFF BOARD OF ADVISORS WHY THE NAME -ISM (N.)

FOUR WAYS -ISM (N.) USES MEDIA

Students can use media as a tool in various ways to engage actively in issues of diversity and civic responsibility. Four ways -ISM (N.) uses media include:

  1. Media as an experiential education tool - By functioning as a member of a diverse group (documentary production crew), young people must learn to collaborate successfully to achieve an agreed upon objective.

    The value of video as an educational tool is much more than the final video products. Video creation is an experiential process - akin to that of service-learning - that deliberately connects action with reflection and learning. In fact, the key architects of the -ISM (N.) curricula came from strong service-learning backgrounds that influenced the -ISM (N.) pedagogy.

    The -ISM (N.) course begins with the production of individual video diaries; this initiates a process for students to explore their identity and community with autonomy in regard to style and content. Later in the course the students work together in teams to produce a common video documentary which requires negotiating these same decisions about content and style with others who are different. In this process, students often experience the risk, tension and reward of diversity: "teachable moments" that make the intellectual theories and ideas come alive. Their collaborative video production work emphasizes a pedagogy that requires a deliberate reflection process, teaching students to analyze their own interpersonal and intergroup dynamics. This results in enhanced communication and civic skills, enabling students to be more successfully engaged in our ever-increasingly diverse society, workplaces, schools, and communities.

  2. Media as personal exploration and expression - By using the video-diary format for personal storytelling, young people explore their own sense of identity and community, reflect on their role in larger societal structures, and take risks by exposing themselves and their ideas to "others" who are different from them.

    bell hooks explains the value of personal storytelling in the classroom, "It has been my experience that one way to build community in the classroom is to recognize the value of each individual voice. To hear each other (the sound of different voices), to listen to one another, is an exercise in recognition. It also ensures that no student remains invisible in the classroom."

    In addition, personal storytelling offers a powerful mechanism for social transformation by engaging various audiences (interpersonal or intergroup) through individual lives. As filmmaker Lyn Holst states, through their video diary productions, students "transparent vulnerability forces us as an audience not just to identify, as in the best drama, but to venture further with the filmmaker toward a new understanding of what it is to be human. When you chose the video diary form, you automatically put yourself at risk in the process - to be part of the revelation of the film in some way."

  3. Media literacy for critical thinking - By exploring the perspectives of a perceived audience during the production of their videos, young people are required to take into account their varying subjectivities and biases, as well as those of others.

    Media literacy is the ability to think critically, asking questions about the role of ideology, economics, politics and additional factors of subjectivity - including race, class, culture and gender - in the creation of meaning in the media. Young people learn that media - just as their own interpersonal and intergroup communications - have social and political implications, have the ability to construct "reality", can often neglect the representation of diverse perspectives, and have a connection to power and institutional change.

  4. Media for social change - By participating in the development and distribution of media programming for the larger community within and beyond their campuses, students learn the power of media to function as tools for social change.
The goals of civic participation are realized through these four uses of media. Young people learn fundamental skills of civic engagement such as articulating their interests and perspectives to a diversity of people, understanding other people's points of view, engaging in relationships across lines of difference, building trust, recognizing how the exercise of power relates to diversity, and collaborating with a diversity of people to make a difference in personal and institutional relationships.
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