How will the election change our work?
For many of us, the USA’s 2016 election was a referendum not only on democracy in the U.S., but on the role of the media to support or diminish it.
At Immerse, we care about not just how nonfiction stories are told but why — whose experiences they reveal, how they illuminate society, how they move viewers, listeners and participants to identification or action.
Too many of the stories about this election neglected these critical questions, choosing instead to focus on the horse race, to present false equivalencies between wildly disparate candidates, or to dwell on the statistics of projections that turned out to be entirely false. And now, we keenly feel that the First Amendment is under threat.
We think the media at large can do better. We know that we can do better, be better — using new tools for storytelling, reporting, and reflection to bring the urgent issues facing our country and the world to life.
We also know that those same tools and platforms can serve interests inimical to democracy, human rights and fair play. Facts can be weaponized. An open platform can be turned into a panopticon. Digital methods of organizing are just as available to those who seek to spread hate as those who seek to spread love. Sentiment can be twisted to grab eyeballs and sell ads.
For the nonprofit media community, funding is also a question: what happens when federal dollars for the arts and media are redirected, and foundations are compelled to re-route their dollars to direct service?
We are here to converse about it all. Our tagline is “creative discussion of emerging nonfiction storytelling,” and we mean it. Let’s talk together about these questions and more.
Let’s also craft solutions together.
A persistent question in documentary and journalism is how to seize the possibilities of combining various media forms in order to tell compelling stories about issues that matter. In this issue we take a close look at the concept of “transmedia” — where has this practice been, where is it going, and what is the role of creative movements in supporting new media forms?
We’re starting off the conversation with two features: a provocation from author and maker Andrea Phillips, and a reflection on the term “transmedia” from scholar Henry Jenkins. Our respondents include veteran producer Caitlin Burns, game designer Alex Fleetwood, writer/designer/director Christy Dena, MIT researcher Sue Ding, producer/professor Ramona Pringle, and storyteller and experience designer Lance Weiler. We anticipate that others will weigh in on transmedia’s past, present and future over the course of the month.
Our next issue will consider questions of who and how to shape futures through digital and participatory media. We believe that creating alternative narratives is central to digging out of the despair and paralysis many of us are feeling.
We welcome your ideas for other topics. Drop us a line: editor@immerse.news.
— Jessica Clark, editor, Immerse
Immerse is an initiative of Tribeca Film Institute, MIT Open DocLab and The Fledgling Fund. Learn more about our vision for the project here.