This was a really great project and case study. Here are my “10
lenses”:
1.
Context: The organizers identified
that children are hearing more about their values from TV than from any other
source (school, church, etc.) and the stereotypes they are presented as in the
media are the stereotypes they become.
2.
Content: The project
addressed this issue of teenage and race stereotypes in the media and
challenged that narrative. The teenagers in the “performance” revealed their
true identity and opinions, discussing race, sex, and other triggering and
important topics. The entire project was also challenging people to listen to
this alternate narrative, because they wondered if people even cared to hear a
different story.
3.
Form: This project took the
form of a self-guided performance. Audience walked around a parking structuring
while listening in on the conversations of teenagers sitting in parked cars
scattered around.
4.
Stakeholders: The
stakeholders were the teenagers; their parents and teachers, people who would
benefit from the change the experience might bring; and the community, those
that witnessed the event and those that benefit from any positive changes that occurred
from it.
5.
Audience: The community.
6.
Engagement Strategies: Get
local teachers and students involved, in both the creation of the project and
as actors/participants. Hang posters to advertise for the performance. Their
engagement strategy during the performance was to use the form of
eavesdropping, which creates an interesting dynamic; it is voyeuristic and has
a forbidden feeling of hearing and seeing something that is private. This
candidness would promote a sense of genuineness.
7.
Goal: To show authentic student
dialogue and provide an opportunity for the teens to communicates across
cultural divides. To reach the media. To have the audience perform the act of
listening, and therefore model that behavior for society. To show teens doing
something positive, not negative like they are portrayed.
8.
Values: The organizers
wanted to promote media literacy, with the teens and beyond. They believed that
if you expect great things from kids they will do great things, but if you only
expect bad things from them then they will do bad things, they then gave teens
the opportunity to show this good behavior booth in the performance and in the organizing
of it. They believed in and wanted to use and showcase the natural optimism of
youth is alive in them. The believed the messages society send to these teens
were not useful, so they wanted to show a different narrative.
9.
Resources: Space – the parking
structure, teenage “actors, volunteers, advertising, the media.
10. Outcomes: The audience’s opinions were changed in regards to the
teenagers. The teenagers felt heard.
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