Dear Readers,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Reasonable people may argue that if Emmanuelle Chriqui sucking on a Popsicle is what it takes to make some people care that there is a country called the Democratic Republic of Congo, then, well, that’s a good thing. And if Nicole Ritchie babbling nonsense about mothers eating their babies increases attention to Darfur, that’s a good thing too. I’m not so sure.
When these videos “educate” Americans that Africa is a boiling mess of rape, starvation, and war, we get people who believe that Africans are only able to survive thanks to OUR aid, so we must “save” them. As we’ve debated on this blog before, this can lead to the support of wrong-headed policies that could have a real impact (a bad one) on real people’s lives.
And when we reassure people that they are “making a difference” by performing the most mundane, irrelevant of tasks (like buying a coffee, clicking a link, or sending a text) we squander the finite time people have for learning about people they will never meet in places they will never visit. We absolve them of the responsibility and hard work it takes to educate themselves about the world around them and do something constructive (like be an Aid Watcher!).
As for real suggestions: Don’t let my inability to come up with the miraculous recipe for the perfect advocacy video serve as an excuse to stop criticizing what is blatantly bad right now. As we keep saying on this blog, stopping something that is harmful is still positive change. Figuring out how to educate disaffected or uninformed people and get them to act is a difficult problem, and it needs a lot more than a blog post’s worth of time to solve.
So while I don’t claim to have the definitive list, I will venture a few preliminary suggestions. Honestly, these strike me as a little thin and in some cases fairly obvious, but again the examples of bad practices I cited in the original post would suggest otherwise. Please do draw on your expertise to add thoughts and other suggestions in the comments (as well as any examples you think are praiseworthy) and maybe we can come up with some workable principles.
1. It’s okay to assume that people know nothing about your cause. But it’s not okay to use this as an excuse to pander to the lowest common denominator, like sex or celebrity worship.
2. Don’t exaggerate numbers to attract more attention. This throws any claim of credibility and objectivity you might have into question. Do use accurate numbers to convey the scale and importance of your cause. Be as specific as possible in the limited time about exactly where, why, and when the crisis is occurring. Simplistic and extreme portrayals generate simplistic and extreme policies.
3. If you are using celebrity spokespeople, make sure they are well-informed about your cause and respectful of the people in the video. Though not the perfect example, I think the videos and slideshows here (see the second video from the bottom, for example) avoid sensationalism, do a good job of being specific about what is going on, and make good use of an informed celebrity spokesperson.
4. If you are going to use images of Africans, don’t engage in blatant stereotyping, and be respectful of your subjects. The Good Intentions Are Not Enough blog has some good posts on the use of photography in aid marketing; similar principles could apply to videos.
5. Be transparent about what you will do with donations and proceeds from merchandise sales.
6. Be honest about the impact that the action you are requesting will have on the cause you are supporting.
11 Comments
Sadly, the following also needs to be added:
7. Consider that it might be a bad idea for poorly educated children under the age of 18 confess to war crimes on tape
Even the good documentaries (e.g. War Dance) fail to remember this little dictum.
“Don’t exaggerate numbers to attract more attention”
Great, but how about applying this to the anti-aid propagandists too? Dambisa Moyo claimed that the poverty rate in Africa rose from 10% in the 1970s to 70% today, for example. That’s completely false, but she seems to get a free pass around here because she’s an aid ‘sceptic’.
What about supporting Africans to make their own videos on the topics/subjects that are important to them? Or working on an educational/training process with youth teams that include both African and non-African youth? If the process is good, well thought out, and respectful to all those involved, and cemented in reality from the ground level, everyone can learn something. I’ve found that when you work on videos within a framework of equality and respect, and people that the videos are about have ownership, they are subjects not objects of the video/video making process, and they participate in deciding themes, identifying resource people, selecting shots and images, and editing their own stories, it’s much harder for outsiders to show false and demeaning images or give the wrong messages. Working with participatory video, the end ‘product’ may not be of the absolute highest “MTv” quality, but the learning goes deeper and lasts longer.
Laura, I’ve really enjoyed these recent posts (all the more b/c I am a media creator for orgs working in Sudan) keep it up!
Linda – The Zanzibar Int’l Film Festival does projects with young Zanzibaris to help them learn about shooting, editing, story, and animation. Good project, could help more local advocacy get more attention in the long run.
Laura – I totally agree about (b)advocacy promoting ‘saviour complex’. I wrote something a while back which touches on this, criticising the use of over-emotional language in aid arguments.
http://aidthoughts.org/?p=203
Linda – The Zanzibar Int’l Film Festival does projects with young Zanzibaris to help them learn about shooting, editing, story, and animation. Good project, could help more local advocacy get more attention in the long run.
Laura – I totally agree about (b)advocacy promoting ‘saviour complex’. I wrote something a while back which touches on this, criticising the use of over-emotional language in aid arguments.
http://aidthoughts.org/?p=203
I can’t help but notice the guideline-format in light of Easterly’s recent post. Instead of hard-and-fast rules, could we have something like, “Treat the people you are trying to help with dignity, whether or not you think they will know.”
I agree with Linda about supporting people to make their own material on topics that are important to them. I was really pleased to see you using NOOW as an example of well-informed celebrities. Both Pitt and Clooney studied journalism and their use of language and tone – as with the other guys in NOOW – put them ahead of many professional charity comms people. Still, with celebrities I think their audience wants to copy them rather than listen to them so I’d rather NOOW passed on their great communication skills to the people they speak about, instead of causing lots more people to feel that they should be speaking on behalf of others. Peter Gabriel with Witness, Danny Glover with Louverture Films and the FilmAid folks are good examples; I’m always on the look out for more.
I can totally see how you caught a little flack for your last post. I think linking to my awful blog was your first mistake and, frankly, I can’t believe you didn’t know better. As bloggers on the advocacy side of things (as opposed to you aid people) have already figured out: You never, EVER voice even mild approval of the Save Darfur Accountability Project publicly. Don’t link to us, suggest our arguments are valid or even say you think we’re funny. Sure, you can read the blog and even agree with all or parts of it, just – For the love of God! – do so privately.
Also, I think Mister Z’s point in the last comment thread is still worth discussing. I’ll actually tweak it a bit and, instead of asking “How are your critiques based on evidence of what’s effective?” I’ll ask “Is there evidence to suggest that the types of videos you and I critiqued are actually effective?” For example, what evidence did ENOUGH have that suggested the popsicle video would be “effective?”
I can’t answer that for ENOUGH, but I can try to find my own evidence. However, one problem with finding an answer is that effectiveness can be hard to define, even with very preliminary investigations. For example, out of the 10 “Celebrities Speak Out” videos on the Come Clean 4 Congo site, that popsicle video was the second most highly viewed but the lowest ranked so far. So, it was effective in that lots of people saw it, but does the fact that people might not like it affect the way they respond to its message? Will people still absorb the intended message of a video they rank poorly? (Hint: Focus groups generally say “no.”)
thanks Ranil and Booksquirm. I’ll check out the Zanzibar film fest. I’m working on a youth media project also that comes from that perspective. We still need to perfect the ‘outward’ piece (which I supposed is the crux of the issue on Laura’s blog – how to get people on the ‘outside’ to pay attention and do something/change behavior), but the films made by the youth do seem to help generate dialogue locally with community members, peers, local decision makers, local leaders. Ranil are you on twitter? (I see that you are booksquirm) I would love to get a nudge there when you post new thoughts and blog articles….
cheers, Linda
The “saviour complex” has always bothered me about our attitude towards Africa. I think when people stop being so condescending to Africa as a nation, we may start getting somewhere. As in India, the answer is to go directly to the people and employ them in whatever way possible.
I heard complaints about the “demeaning” outsourcing of administrative work to India, but look at India’s economy these days. They found their niche and they worked it. Africa needs to do the same.
Working through the government -does not work-. They have squandered aid (see http://www.newsy.com/videos/africa_aiding_or_abetting for more on that) and they will squander anything else we give them. I’m convinced direct employment is the answer.