Questions to media workers, bloggers and communicators:

[Nadine Toukan]

Are you a media worker? And/or do you use any media for advocating/communicating on issues important to you?

I am developing a discussion session on women’s rights and the role of communication & media, and in preparation for it would like to know how you are using media for gender related content if you're an advocate for anything that matters to you.

Note: the term media in this context refers to traditional as well as social media and blogging.

What are you doing to keep your conversation alive?

For example....

If you blog, what issues are important to you and how is the conversation growing through blogging and what action is impacted?

If you're a filmmaker, do you use film to tackle certain social issues that matter to you, whether in fiction or doc?

If you advocate for women's rights, how are you using media?

If you're advocating against crimes in the name of honor, how how are you using media?

If you are working on creating awareness within society about the rule of law, how are you using media?

If you're working on generating a conversation about women's financial rights, how are you using media?

If you're advocating for legal changes that impact women, how are you using media?

If you're passionate about education and are leading a conversation around the topic, and it includes/impacts gender issues, how are you using media?

If you believe sex education is deficient in our curricula and you have a point of view on that, how are you communicating your thoughts and/or engaging others in the dialog?

If you are bothered by general harassment in the street while walking around your city, how are you using media?

If you're running for elections in a union, parliament, etc - how are you using media?

If you have something to say about the female quota, how how are you using media?

Anything you're willing to share about issues that matter to you and the media you're using would be great - whether within the above areas or something totally different. Share any questions and/or concerns you have about what is covered/not covered in the media which you believe should be.

Thanks a mil for taking the time to share your thoughts and work.

[Deena Dajani]

Thought I would share a project one of my lecturers was working on when I first started uni; she was working with prostitutes in the Nottingham area who were a nuisance to the community, continuously being complained about to the council. Obviously these girls were too scared to talk, or make their stories visible to the public, and felt they were in fact victims of society. Together with a local visual artist, they worked on producing visual images that told their side of the story, anonymously... some are serious, others are funny and many are absurd. The lecturer and visual artist then worked with the residents of the community for the same ends. The idea was to create a safety box where both sides could feel ‘safe’ expressing their concerns and frustrations to the other.
This lead to an exhibition in the town hall called ‘safety box’ – encouraging a safer Nottingham through understanding, not stronger crime provisions. This was later turned into a website: http://www.safetysoapbox.co.uk/gallery1.htm
So I guess this form of advocacy used the media to humanise the position of the ‘underdog’ – many of the images show women keen to tell the residents that they use condoms, that they have children who don’t know what they do... basically that they are decent human beings. It wasn’t Maggie or the visual artist who spoke, it was the women themselves.