WEEK 6

Media and Society: Video in Culture, Community & Art

During this week's lesson, I got to watch four very interesting community videos and my thoughts on how they can make change in people is: yes, I do believe they can. I, myself, experience a mixture of feelings throughout watching the videos. For example, during watching Within Within (by Sharon Liu Sum Yu, 2017), I felt a somewhat sad but also kind of happy and patriotic because the content and art that she expresses through her video is truly, mesmerizingly profound and beautiful. If I still remember correctly, she said something about how the we, the society, are the ones that shape the country and it made me feel like I have to do something (positive) to portray myself as a citizen of my country. Another example is Phone Call From Cairo (by Yiotis Vrantzas, 2012) where the feeling is much heavier because he showed how the conditions are in Cairo with a narrator (anonymous phone caller) in the background talking about the condition and situation there. He said something about how the country is ruled by the wrong, power-obsessed people and how the society and government are corrupted. Other than that, Hail The Bodhisattva of Collected Junk (by Ye Mimi, 2013), a community video where the content is told in a form of a song. In the seriousness of its content, it gave out quite the exciting and comedic vibe throughout the entire video. As a conclusion, I do think people can change and community videos could move people to action given if there is a strong feeling and impact from the message towards the community they belong to. To spread awareness to the people and creating a movement that suggests good values and actions is what we need in today’s society: to make a change in the community for the better.