Meaningful Witnessing in the United States, India & New Zealand: The Possibility Space for Digital Video Within Human Rights, Protest Movements and Activist Practices

This dissertation examines the emergence of digital video practices rooted in human rights, social justice issues and protest movements through a number of select case studies in the United States, India and New Zealand. This project analyzes and critiques the formation of digital video practices through the lens of Manuel DeLanda’s interpretation of assemblage theory. Examining interactions between crucial elements present in a possibility space that aid in the cultivation and assembling of budding forms of digital video, this study considers the implications in the relationships between both material and expressive qualities of these assemblings. The central argument of this thesis asserts that digital video practices centered on human rights, social justice and protest movements require adaptable linkages between supportive structures, creative capacities and digital video technologies in order to produce sustainable and creative digital video practices buttressed by documentary agendas that fuel their dynamic evolution. My research seeks to engage with the complexities of agency and technology and examines their significance in different contexts by providing a constructive outlet for practitioners to share the process behind their methods in order to offer insight into their creative workflow. Digital video technologies are proliferating at a rapid pace, yet very few video practices have formed that suggest linkages to documentary traditions. One can bear witness, yet to traverse video documentation in order to create a rhetorical argument of meaningful witnessing is a complex process that requires more than easy access to mobile video tools connected to the Internet. The case studies analyzed in these three democratic nations support the argument threaded throughout the project; digital video practices have the potential to thrive, albeit in pockets where formal or informal support systems are present and through assemblages where digital video technologies are constantly being adapted and an investment in human capital is paramount to the privileging of digital video tools or online platforms. Case studies that focus on individual practices in New York City and New Zealand reinforce the difficulties practitioners face when attempting to cultivate video practices without supportive structures. Comparatively with other case studies in India and New York, individual practices with long-term organizational support navigate challenges and re-assemble their practices in order to remain sustainable and influential. This study also engages with assemblage theory in the context of documentary history and contemporary digital video practices and reassesses the historic relationship between emerging photographic, film and video tools and the lens based practitioners that harness these apparatuses for documentary purposes. Like assemblings themselves, these creative associations are never smooth at their inception, but require adaptable solutions and adjustable reassemblings in order to maintain the potential for sustainable practices to develop and flourish. This dissertation argues that as digital video practices continue to evolve, they have the potential to redefine creative approaches to documentary media and the opportunity to confront historic traditions of the documentary form

Against remediation

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Feature Papers "Age-Friendly Cities & Communities: State of the Art and Future Perspectives"

The "Age-Friendly Cities & Communities: States of the Art and Future Perspectives" publication presents contemporary, innovative, and insightful narratives, debates, and frameworks based on an international collection of papers from scholars spanning the fields of gerontology, social sciences, architecture, computer science, and gerontechnology. This extensive collection of papers aims to move the narrative and debates forward in this interdisciplinary field of age-friendly cities and communities

A Future for Public Service Television

Television is on the verge of both decline and rebirth. Vast technological change has brought about financial uncertainty as well as new creative possibilities for producers, distributors, and viewers. This volume from Goldsmiths Press examines not only the unexpected resilience of TV as cultural pastime and aesthetic practice but also the prospects for public service television in a digital, multichannel ecology. The proliferation of platforms from Amazon and Netflix to YouTube and the vlogosphere means intense competition for audiences traditionally dominated by legacy broadcasters. Public service broadcasters—whether the BBC, the German ARD, or the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation—are particularly vulnerable to this volatility. Born in the more stable political and cultural conditions of the twentieth century, they face a range of pressures on their revenue, their remits, and indeed their very futures. This book reflects on the issues raised in Lord Puttnam's 2016 Public Service TV Inquiry Report, with contributions from leading broadcasters, academics, and regulators. With resonance for students, professionals, and consumers with a stake in British media, it serves both as historical record and as a look at the future of television in an on-demand age

Design revolutions: IASDR 2019 Conference Proceedings. Volume 4: Learning, Technology, Thinking

In September 2019 Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University was honoured to host the bi-annual conference of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR) under the unifying theme of DESIGN REVOLUTIONS. This was the first time the conference had been held in the UK. Through key research themes across nine conference tracks – Change, Learning, Living, Making, People, Technology, Thinking, Value and Voices – the conference opened up compelling, meaningful and radical dialogue of the role of design in addressing societal and organisational challenges. This Volume 4 includes papers from Learning, Technology and Thinking tracks of the conference

2019, UMaine News Press Releases

This is a catalog of press releases put out by the University of Maine Division of Marketing and Communications between January 23, 2019 and December 31, 2019

(In)formal perceptions and arguments on tourism governance multifaceted concept

A brief exploratory approach to (in)formal perceptions and arguments on tourism governance multifaceted concep