Media Representations: Why Our Stories Matter

Goals of this training: In this training we explore how our voices should be central to our media representations. Participants use their stories to explore an issue, initiate and develop a campaign or message. This training is useful for those looking to identify issues and create action plans based on their own understanding of their community. Generating stories helps participants understand how their experience shapes their knowledge and expertise.  Through this, we lay the groundwork for how our voices can be reflected in the media. All of our trainings end with collective reflection, where participants have a chance to share what they learned from the training and what they hope to continue to explore.

Objectives:

• Generate and share our own stories about the community and understand why our stories matter
• Analyze mainstream media’s representations of our communities versus our own knowledge and experience
• Start to develop an action plan rooted in our stories and experience to form a campaign or project