Title: A Story of Conflict and Collaboration: Media Literacy, Video Production and Disadvantaged Youth
Abstract: Media literacy educators talk about the importance of developing essential social skills, such as collaboration, by using video production in the classroom. Video production with disadvantaged youth can also play a role of art therapy, as students use their creativity to come to terms with traumatizing pasts. This paper offers an account of a media literacy intervention that involved making videos with a class of foster youth. Using the methodology of portraiture, I describe highlights and pitfalls of collaboration that one of the teams experienced. I focus on moments of conflict, unleashed creativity and transformation brought by one video project.