Media Activism in the Screening Room

In this 13-page paper, author Lucinda Engelhart shares her experience of an impact study of the Steps for the Future film project, a project of 36 (at the date of publication) films. The project reaches out to people in Southern Africa and around the world with films that challenge people's perceptions about HIV/AIDS, and the stigmatisation and denial that accompany the epidemic. This paper focuses on the community outreach component of the distribution strategy. It is characterised as "a trend in documentary practice to link production and circulation more strategically."

According to the document, in the larger history of media advocacy, there has long been a small but important trend through which minority subjects have gained the rights of production over their own stories. This is a process referred to as "cultural activism," in order to emphasise the combination of political agency and cultural intervention that these projects involve. With the Steps methodology the real activism does not necessarily take place in the production process but in the screening rooms. After broadcast, the film subjects come forward in person. It is they who travel with the films, show the films and talk to audiences. According to the author, their physical presence before audience members often creates a critical relationship that seems to open up new and unusual opportunities for discussion and potentially for action.

As stated here, media scholars have accepted that during film screenings a number of socially-generated meanings may emerge; yet, which one of these potential, mutually-exclusive meanings actually emerges is partly determined by the context in which the films are viewed. This paper argues that a critical element of this context is the presence of other people in the viewing space, the people with whom one shares the sequences of images. In presenting this argument, the document presents case studies related to the Steps for the Future film series and other film events that illustrate how factors such as group deliberation and group solidarity are essential to the ethnographic formulation of the audience.

Over the space of a year, the author travelled to various Steps screenings around Southern Africa, observing what was taking place. The research design incorporated observation and in-depth interviewing, with particular attention being given to the "after-life" of the films. This refers to the networks of information that may or may not be set up and the translation from knowledge to action both immediately after viewing and in the weeks and months that follow.

Despite diverse screening locations, including church halls, clinics, universities, disabled learner's centres, private homes, police stations and hostels, one constant feature of the community screenings was that audiences view the film material as part of a group. The phenomenon of group process in the viewing space is explored in this paper. The author's observations in the clinic and interviews repeatedly highlight two factors that appear to play a large part in the success of the screenings. These are the group reception of the films and the fact that the films are mediated by "authentic" facilitators. However, group screenings were not always successful, and in a few post-screening discussions, the kind of "safe space" that is sought was not achieved. The author concludes that "it has been clear that the way the screenings are set up is as important as the content of the films themselves."