Panos South Asia Multimedia workshop: Day 1

Turbulence at 35,000 feet high reflects the same down below

Too long has there been a one-way, top-down flow of information - from the north to south, rich to poor, haves to have-nots. It is important to redress this imbalance with a reverse flow - from the bottom-up. This is the zone grassroots media or local content will have to fill, to ensure a truly democratic media.

The trip here was pleasant - a chance to reflect on the turbulence in our world, while flying 35,000 feet in the sky. Yesterday we tried the local fast food called "Mo Mo" from the street stall. Its a little ball made of cornflower with chicken stuffed inside and served in some kind of sauce. It's delicious!

Today, Sep 21, we began the first session of the 9-day multimedia local content development workshop organised by Panos South Asia in Kathmandu, Nepal. There are participants from all over south asia - Pakistan, Bangladesh, Buthan, Sri Lanka, India and Nepal.

ICT - information and communciation technology, is not an end in itself we were told. Rather, it is a means to an end which is - raising and mainstreaming marginalised voices to effect development (ICT4D).

This definition assumes significance, as too often, mainstream media lays claim to using ICT as part of their strategies. But this generally means merely using new technologies to tell the same old, slanted stories. Instead of a means to empowerment of the marginalised or as a tool to bring forth voices from the grassroots it is the same old story of one-way traffic from the haves to the have-nots. Old wine in a new high-tech bottle.

Once it is clear what is ICT4D, it becomes immediately apparent there are a number of challenges we face. Be it lack of technology penetration to the grassroots and marginalised or basic infrastructure issues.

It was also interesting to hear experiences of how digital storytelling, something we do at GoCreat, is used by a couple of organisations in Bangladesh and in Nepal, currently at the workshop. In the former case, DST is used for peace and environment awareness. In Nepal, a rural village library project aims to collect lived experiences and re-told as digital stories. These stories are collected in a local content library for access by anyone. Stories collected range from enterprise/entrepreuner experiences, alternative energy experiences or environmental experiences such as garbage disposal techniques.

Language itself is a major issue in local content development and audience plays a major role in deciding the use of language. Panos, for instance, uses English for most of its local online radio content as the audience is global stakeholders in development policies. So, it becomes very important in creation of local content, who that content is meant for. If it is local, it is important that the content must be accessible in the local language.

It was also interesting to be part of a conversation with a journalist from Kashmir and journalists from Pakistan. We are not as different as our politicians and even mainstream media would like us to believe.

Over the next 8 days we will together focus on the methods used in creating multimedia content - from writing for the web, building visual literacy in stills and video and using web technologies for making the local content accessable to a global audience. We will be working on an actual story from scripting to storyboard to shooting video, editing and uploading to to web.

This should be hectic but fun, so stay tuned!