POSITIVE INFLUENCE: SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVISM
Ages 16-29
Fall 2020, Online
In this art and advocacy workshop, student fellows will create issue-based digital campaigns for social media, using a variety of platforms to amplify their voices and inspire positive change. Working with instructors and community activists, they’ll identify the issues they most care about, then delve into the causes of inequity and explore possible solutions, sharing their findings with their online audiences. Through research, interviews, and their own close observation, they’ll become experts in their chosen subjects; and by developing skills in videography, photography, and storytelling, they’ll learn to formulate and articulate their messages for maximum impact. Their smartphone videos, images, and graphics will become calls to action for their followers on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger. They’ll become “influencers” for positive social change, changing the world with their cameras. Each fellow will develop an individual campaign grounded in their own interests, and through supportive collaboration with each other and with instructors, will produce a professional product. Campaigns will be shared through the fellows’ own social media, on BYFA's Dateline Baltimore platform (link), on the program website, and at a public event. Limited to 8 student fellows.
Positive Influence: Social Media Activism is a co-production with Megaphone Project.
Gwen Richards is Board Chair of Megaphone Project, Baltimore’s Social Justice Film Producers, and a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art’s Social Design program. Her background includes broadcast production at WEAA, 88.9FM and WBAL-TV 11 News. She has over ten years of experience in public health leadership and advocacy.
Elijah Davis is a digital media artist who hails from the dead steel city of Youngstown, Ohio. Her work focuses on aspects of surveillance, personal trauma, and nostalgia. She is currently working towards her MFA in UMBC’s IMDA program.
Michelle Mokaya is a Johns Hopkins University undergraduate in the School of Engineering. Although her concentration is still undecided, she is passionate about using her degree to work on sustainable projects that could help improve the lives of those in marginalized communities.
