Conversation Starters
The core theme shared by all the conversation starter short films in the series is that the nature of political participation is changing in an era of networked communication. More and more we rely on each other for news and information, more and more we work through issues and concerns in conversation with others within our social networks, and more and more we tap the affordances of new media in order to mobilize for change.
As we do so, then, there are practical and ethical challenges: Young people -- indeed, all of us -- need to take responsibility for the quality of information they circulate, they need to recognize the risks and opportunities of political engagement, they need to understand the copyright implications of their choices to remix and share media, and they need to respect the contributions of others within their community. We want to use these interstitials to help young people to better understand what is at stake in participatory politics and to ask core questions before they act online.
How were these films and materials created?
All the interstitial films were created through a collaboration between MAPP, Pivot TV and Joseph Gordon Levitt's HitRecord. You can also learn more about HitRecord's creative process and the collaboration by watching their terms and conditions video.
This is the original prompt that the MAPP project shared with Pivot TV and HitRecord in creating the Credibility video:
How do we assess the quality of information we encounter online? What accountability and responsibility should we have over the integrity of the social justice content we decide to circulate? And how prepared should we be to defend the claims we make to support our arguments around political issues? According to a recent survey conducted by the MacArthur Foundation’s Youth and Participatory Politics Network, 85 percent of high school aged youth want more help in learning to discern the credibility of the information they encounter online. For us, this issue is most powerfully raised by our case study of Invisible Children’s Kony2012 campaign, but it is also one which almost every public awareness effort confronts sooner or later.
What does this collection contain?
This collection contains the following:
- Films: Four short conversation-starter films created through a partnership between HitRecord, Pivot and the Media, Activism and Participatory Politics (MAPP) Project at USC. The films cover the following digital age topics: credibility, private vs. public, remix and shifting the agenda
- Resource Packets: Four corresponding resource packets with sample questions, key points, key term definitions, and examples that will help you identify ways that these films may serve your community or students
- Supplemental Resources: Additional article resources on related topics to help you further explore the topics covered.
You can download "Conversations on Digital Voice" Introduction in pdf format here.