Process step : 1b (question)
Objectives
Empower participants to develop critical media literacy (i.e. ways of reading ‘between the headlines’), and to exercise their own voice in reporting on current events and their own lives.
Artistic medium : Storytelling and performance
Material
A stack of different newspapers collected from around your community, and of or close to the date on which you are doing this exercise
Scissors
Glue, tape
Larger plain paper (brown kraft or other) that people can glue on to
Progress
Explain to participants that we will be looking through the media today, and decide how we relate to it.
Start by placing all the newspapers in the middle of the room, and invite people to go through them at random – together we create three piles (designate their separate location in the room) – the LOVE pile, the I DON’T KNOW pile, and the HATE pile. Ask people to place their papers/articles in a given pile based on how they react to it.
Then, tell people that for this next step, we will MAKE the MEDIA. Invite people to go through any piles and take out materials they can work with – they will then cut them up, and glue these pieces on to their own brown kraft paper in order to ‘tell their own story’. Given them approximately 15 min to do so.
When the time is done, invite each person to present their collage/story (this can be any way they like: visual, descriptive, performance, etc.).
If there is time, invite those who would like to present once again, to do so this time impersonating a news reporter, or media personality.
Discuss as a group at the end what stood out for them in the exercise – when they were reading, when they were making the news, when they were listening to one another.
Comments
You will want the newspapers collected to be timely (of or close to the date on which the workshop is held) as this informs the context and headlines in which our group work is happening, and allows participants some familiarity with current headlines in the media.
This exercise can be done at two different paces – lightning fast pace, where each segment goes very quickly and so you are pushing people to jump on their instincts; or, take much more time with it, and allow for people to find more complexity and take time with each segment. Sometimes even a break between the collage and the storytelling can allow them to reflect on what they have just created.
Also, this exercise can get quite messy by the end, so plan for some time to clean up your space following.
Writing : Koby Rogers Hall
Source : Adapted from Augusto Boal, “Games for Actors and Non-Actors”