Social action and community media production
What
is Social action media? Social action media is used as the main product to
raise awareness of a certain subject. Social media often with the purpose of
prompting action or change amongst its intended audience. Community media is
produced and displayed within a community, which doesn’t look to gain money and
focuses more on providing a service & help to the people within that
community. Community media would be a group of people who would have the same beliefs and interests but also sharing experiences which would allow them to come together in an issue they strongly believe in, therefor this a key part of community media as they try to solve situations and problems.
Social
Action Media
Social action media is usually has zero
profit and has the best intentions of trying to help the community, this form
of media usually takes on questionable subjects as a way of prompt change. There
are many subjects that are repeated and targeted in social action media which
include: smoking, alcoholism, homeless, green peace, racism and many more. Many
of these documentary/ films will be factual or dramatized. Factual films will
show you the worst thing, which could happen, smoking causes death they will
show you the death of someone who smokes; not all smokers die of their habit, show
these events happening the film makers will want it to spark an interest in
stopping smoking. On the other hand, filmmaker's may decide upon taking a more
confrontational approach, by asking certain individuals about there use of
smoking, drinking or drugs depending on the documentary main purpose.
The main purpose of social action media
is to prompt change. This change can take place on a local, national and even
an international level depending on the matter of subject an example of local
could be reducing the percentage of homeless people in your area. The national
could be reducing bullying all over the country and international could -be
raising awareness for Ebola spreading into your country. The content of the film
also changes depending on the extent. Local productions generally focus on
causes relevant to the community. On the other hand, productions with a larger
popularity usually approach much more dangerous subjects with the knowing that
they will attract more attention. Productions on a national level will be
subject to thorough planning as they are only targeting one country so need to
be able to reach out to everyone in that country if they wish to have a worthwhile
effect. To achieve this a certain level of marketing is required, which
wouldn't be required if the production was only to be distributed on a small
scale. Social media is the modern way to target your audience. YouTube is a
good way to be able to get a message across to your audience effectively we
know a huge example of this would be Kony (Invisible Children) Which got over
10 million views and was known all over the world within 3 days of the video
being posted online.
Here is an
example of International social action media a short clip from BBC news explain
the death rate, what country effected, what do we do about it? How to cure it?
And the presenter also explains that there will be a meeting from the World
health association, which explains the crises and how it’s an international
media.
Ebola Virus
The way the presenter speaks about on the news broadcast already sounds worrying and display an effect of real life, for example this is real and its not a film, so people will have to take lot of notice to what he is saying. It's a clear voice over of the video being captured in Nigeria as the BBC never sent any of their reports to africa during the outbreak due to the high risk and threat of them catching it. The words used within the first few seconds 'DEADILY' and the use of 'security' explaining it's a dangerous and life threating outbreak. The cameraman captured some footage from inside some of the ebola camps with people walking around in huge suits with mask allowing them not to catch the deadly disease. They then capture some interviews of people who are working to stop the illness and for them to explain whats happening and describing to the world that its getting out of control slowly, this will then impact the audience to be worried and to then find out more about whats happening in nigeria. No music was involved throughout the report due to it being unprofessional and adding such an effect when the presenters already adds the serious and real life effect to it. Creates an impact due to the audience there for being worried for their life, the BBC then wanted people to react in such away to show awareness and there for making sure that people are safe when flying to the africa nation in the summer of 2014. The audience then would show fear by searching about it online, tweeting about it, finding more about it to make sure that they're safe from the virus.
The impact of social action media has been
the subject of much analysis. Many people hold strong opinion that people are
becoming very de-sensitised to the media allowing many films becoming
unaffected. An example: anti smoking films shocked people in previous
decades by displaying the insides of the human body, lungs of a smoker etc. But
as people become more knowledgeable to Photoshop and image software and editing
skills, they become more aware of how real some of these campaigns can be.
However, some social action campaigns have demonstrated to be quite effective.
KONY 2012 social action media is a prime example. When Jason Russell first
posted this on YouTube he never quiet knew the response he would receive.
Thousands and thousands of people on social media shared, retweeted, posted,
liked and commented on this social media documentary encouraging people to
watch it and get involved. Within 3 days the whole of the world knew about Kony
and who he was, which eventually they stopped Joseph Kony and decreased the
percentage of kids being taken from the rebel leader as the whole of the world
came together even including the president of America Barrack Obama. This is
evidence of the social media on a larger scale showing it can work to stop
certain thief’s, crooks and any other types of criminals across the world with
help from the internet.
Kony 2012, started of slow with lots of detail from the voiceover and in the background you can slowly hear music begin to start, music with such a tension and rise it adds suspense to the video for the audience to then get involved. Over 100 million people watched this video with it going live on every social media page including, facebook, tumblr, twitter everyone was talking about kony. The music adds such suspense it makes you want to stay and watch it until the very end, the use of colour and pictures and the certain types of video and how he video it makes the short documentary very exciting and interesting to learn about. How he has edited all the shots he has taken and also taking other different videos from youtube to make apart of his video to interact with all types of people. This video reached over 100 million views, it was trending worldwide on twitter for more than a day, allowing lots more people to tweet about it. It interacted with millions of people all other the world. They used lots of short interviews and showed lots of video they filmed in africa to show this is real life and they always referred to YOU to help them, they instantly interacted with the audience by saying we need YOUR help, YOU need to help us. The music of electronic music of 'i cant stop' was very good as it created an atmosphere and really made the audience listen, it wasn't blasted in your faced just played in the background as the tension got closer. The director of kony 2012 created an impact with this with how it was presented, every believed in what he said by how he contacted the president of the United States, lots of people took notice of it, getting involved, buying things, tweeting about it, hopefully to there for stop KONY but they didn't know it was just a publicity stunt. With how it was presented it seemed so real and even the creator never thought it was get the attention it did, it was a great way to show how social action media has progressed over the years.
KONY 2012
Community Media
What is Community media? Community media is a group of people
with the same interest and experiences. Community media is any form of media that is created and controlled by a community an example of this would be a radio
station, which would promote local events and gatherings in that specific
community. Some radio stations invite
participations to join in there discussions, which are about the community
area.
The video was describing about what they love about Kane Fm and what the DJ's love about it. One of the Dj's actually told the camera about how they went to a Kane Fm event, really enjoyed it and loved how the staff and Dj's were so she wanted to give something back and ended up being a Dj for their radio. How this impacts the audience is by watching this it shows how anyone can be a dj or anyone can get involved with their company as they are the local radio station in Guilford, Surrey. It shows small clips from live acts in their studios with then interviews of their dj's discussing what they like about Kane Fm. They enjoy the fact they can play any music they like without the record producer telling them what to play and when, they enjoy expressing themselves by playing music they want for that day. They make an impact to the audience by showing them this is how our radio station is run, it may not be big or gain money but we have a laugh and anyone can come down and start gaining experience by djing for us.
