MEDIA NWATCH

A strategy adopted for KISSS.

BACKGROUND>>

Media Watch is an investigative performance concerning how popular media finds, uses and presents information and is led by KISSS project co-director Joanna Callaghan. Media Watch is driven by an interest in language, presentation and information dissemination.

Correspondents and Task Forces act as agents in investigating media coverage and presentation. Contributions will be fed into a central archive of material, that will include newspaper articles, television or radio news, photographs of bill boards, video documentary, performances, text or articles etc. The purpose of MW is to question how the media presents information and in particular how the media makes ‘news’.

With the bombings in London, Media Watch is taking place at a critical moment. It has been fascinating watching the media’s response, the volume and variation in source material now available (i.e. through mobile phones, domestic video cameras), and the opening out of ‘reporting’ to potentially be anyone with access to the technology. This raises important questions around accuracy, impartiality and the ‘who’ of the making of news becomes altogether another question. As the Guardian on the 11th July 2005 says ‘ a new era in the Citizen Reporter’.

 

HOW TO CONTRIBUTE>>

You can contribute to Media Watch through casting a critical eye on what you see, hear and read. This could be in terms of the style, the presentation, the language or the content. It could be directly related to the bombings in London or it could be in relation to other issues relevant to you in your locale. Media Watch is about critical analyses of media presentation and dissemination. It can be content related and/or concern the use of images or language. Examples of how you can contribute include:

>collecting newspaper/magazine/print based articles
>taping news on television
>writing a blog, article or essay
>sending an email
>joining the debate in the online forum
>taking photographs of billboards etc

These contributions form part of our central archive and act as source material for discussion in the forum and in live debate on 6x 60′ programs broadcast on London’s Resonance 104.4FM. Selected material will also form part of the touring exhibition. Plans are developing for a book project.

 

TASK FORCES>>

See the work of the MW teams by visiting the pages of each task force:

 

Billboards Task Force

Newspapers Task Force

Television Task Force

 

Links

media awareness network (canada)

abc media watch (aus)

Indymedia (uk)

mediachannel (usa)

spinwatch (uk)

"..the true birth of the ‘Citizen Reporter’ "

Guardian newspaper, 11th July 2005