Canadian documentary project is peace journalism exemplar
(THESSALONIKI, GREECE)—I’ve officially been inspired, and that’s not easy to do.

Prof. Aphrodite Salas

Here at the International Summer Media Academy (THISAM), we heard an enlightening presentation by Prof. Aphrodite Salas from Concordia University in Canada. She presented details about a groundbreaking documentary project she and her students completed with an Inuit community in Inukjuak, Canada, which is 1,472 km from Montreal. In partnership with the indigenous community, they produced two 12-minute documentaries, one in the voice of an elder detailing the group’s mistreatment at the hands of the Canadian government, and the other about a hydroelectric project that will end the community’s dependence on environmentally-unfriendly diesel fuel.
(See  https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/inukjuak ).

These documentaries, and the process used to create them, are the essence of peace journalism. The films give a voice to the voiceless, telling stories using their authentic voices, while offering a counternarrative to traditional stereotype-perpetuating reporting about Inuit communities. Prof. Salas calls the process “story sharing” instead of storytelling, and emphasizes its collaborative nature. She said she was in touch with Innavik leaders for two years before filming ever started, working to build trust and the partnership necessary to produce the films. She calls this jointly created reporting “co-generative journalism.” I call it good reporting, and exemplary peace journalism.

Prof. Sherri Hope Culver

The 30 or so THISAM participants from around the world, students and a few journalists, have heard so far several presentations about new technology, Chat GPT and artificial intelligence, image manipulation, and so on. Also, Prof. Sherri Hope Culver from Temple University discussed media literacy. She presented useful media literacy questions that news consumers should ask, including who and why the content was created and whether the content contributes to tolerance and understanding. Finally, Prof. Signe Ivask from Estonia discussed how the rise of technology plus the chaos in the world (like Covid) have created an information disorder. She led an interesting discussion about fact checking.

The full THISAM schedule can be found here.             

THISAM continues this week in Thessaloniki. I’ll be proving the gathering a peace journalism orientation, and run them through a few exercises as well. Stay tuned for details.

THISAM students listening to, but not viewing, an in-class podcast.