Recap
Remind participants about how our experiences, learning and role models around us build up stereotypes and prejudices in our own minds about ourselves and others.
Identifying prejudices and feelings in ourselves allows us to better examine the feelings and motives of others; the Media analysis unit provided opportunities to identifying the motives behind online hate speech and the feelings they intended to elicit.
The Media production unit offers opportunity to try out different strategies to create content that meets a particular motive or elicits a particular emotion.
Prompt Questions
These questions are provided as examples to initiate and guide discussions around the topic in this focus area.
- Have you ever seen campaign videos online? (e.g. for a charity, a political party, a cause, etc.)
- How did it make you feel?
- What features of the video made you feel that way? (e.g. the story being told, the use of images/video clips, the use of audio, artistic effects such as black and white, etc.)
- Did it motivate you to take any action as a result?
Main Activity
The SELMA project short definition of hate speech is:
“Any online content targeting someone based on protected characteristics with the intent or likely effect of inciting, spreading or promoting hatred or other forms of discrimination.”
Using media to evoke reactions
Show participants some examples of campaign videos/video coverage that evoke strong emotions, for example:
Using the provided stock footage, participants must work in small groups to edit and produce a video clip of 30 seconds about the topic of immigration.
Their goal is create a clip that will elicit one of the following:
- Fear
- Upset/distress
- Outrage
- Empathy
- A positive feeling (e.g. optimism, hope, inspiration).
Depending on time and technology available, as well as the skills/abilities of the participants, they could add additional elements to strengthen their film (e.g. different use of colour, subtitles/overlays, transition effects, etc.).
If video editing technology is unavailable or time is limited, a number of still images have also been provided and can be printed and sorted to make a physical “storyboard” of participants’ video clips. Alternatively, the still images can also be used in presentation software to create a storyboard or short piece.
Resources
Elicit a selected emotion by carefully editing stock content. Understand that online content may provoke an emotional response in order to benefit the producer.
