Preparing to Protest: Direct Action, The Arts of Protests & Media Impact
Creative cultural resistance and digital visual technology have increased the ability of those who feel locked out of official channels and institutions to seek social justice through collective direct action such as marches, rallies, teach-ins, and street theater. “Preparing to Protest” explores (1) proven techniques for maximizing the visual impact of protest activity; (2) strategies for using technology in ways that are effective, creative, daring, and ethical, i.e., respectful of the importance of social connections to building and sustaining a movement; and (3) the concrete role that lawyers play in assisting activists to use, and protecting activists from, powerful visual technology like the cellphone camera, for example.
Part I focuses on tactics that are visually impactful and likely to attract the media attention required to build people power from the ground up.
Part II considers how activist/artists can generate images that are effective in that they are authentic, reflect genuine risk-taking, and turn the received reading of popular culture on its head.
Part III explores protest media makers’ obligations to act ethically in creating, editing, and distributing their work with due regard for the social connections that make a social justice movement sustainable.
Part IV describes how law impacts the use of visual technology on all sides in the context of protests for social justice with experts in different fields—criminal defense, civil liberties, and international human rights
https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/news/4731-documenting-social-justice-prot...
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