Call for Application: “Representing the marginal in the media: Tirana of the outsiders”. AIPA (Albanian Institute for Public Affairs) and Marin Barleti University will organize a two-week training project on June 6-20, 2014 entitled “Representing the marginal in the media: Tirana of the outsiders”. The workshop will be conducted by Eda Derhemi (PhD) University of Illinois at U-C, Fulbright scholar at Marin Barleti University. The training module schedule is from 11:30 am – 2:00 pm while time of interviews is different and depends on the case study. The invitation is open to young Albanian students of social sciences, civil society members and journalists of the press, television and electronic/institutional media. Acceptance will be granted on first come, first serve basis, considering that each module can accommodate up to 18 persons (three groups of max. 6 persons each). Please send us your request for participation via e-mail at [email protected] The final essays that will be the product of the project will be published in one of the main Albanian newspapers. “Representing the marginal in the media: Tirana of the outsiders”. The alternative journalism (also called engaged or independent journalism) is a type of journalism that focuses on issues often left unmentioned, if not silenced, by mainstream journalism. Topics and issues that do not see the light of publication and subjects that never are part of news in dominant/mainstream media, are central in this type of journalism; its ethical and responsible stand is explicit and of great weight. Albania, although considered a “developing country” shares many traits typical of so-called third world-countries, in which the society increasingly produces a marginalized group of ex-citizens who are dropped from middle class conditions into a state where human dignity is non-existent and even unperceivable by these members of the society. Furthermore, the society does not see these members anymore: they become like sidewalks or street corners that are not even noticed by citizens. The lack of social sensitivity towards this group and the normalization of its position is a fearful feature that leaves open the door of excluding larger numbers of community members. It also is characteristic of a non-cohesive and fragile community. The project targets exactly this state of the capital’s society. Through the resulting articles it aims to recover a sense of citizenry. The articles will expose the problem to the public approaching the subjects as some of us, reaching to the hardships of their lives. The humanizing narratives intend to evoke self-reflection and understanding, and not the pity of the audience towards these thrown out and “disgusting” members of the community. The goal is to bring the eyes and the mind of audiences to them, as well as to start a dialogue and a monologue that questions our culture, our values and our institutional system. An example that could help in understanding what kind of subject will be in the center of this journalistic project is the 60 or so year old man that sits for hours on the sidewalk of the Pedonalja e Tiranes “Murat Toptani” and sounds the bag pipe (gajde) in a miserable state. The ideological position of this project is framed by a social and civic responsibility that sees the marginalized not as an exception that is produced by special idiosyncratic features of the subject herself, but as social products. Besides reinstituting the human position of the “Other” and raising the awareness of the society at large about the meaning and practice of marginalization, the study of each group will focus on the underlying social and institutional problems that predetermine and give birth to the phenomenon of marginalization, as well as on the meaning of objectivity and social responsibility in journalism. Journalists are one segment of our society, but a segment with a particular power to change and improve it. A restoration of values and social responsibility among them and a reconceptualization of what journalists conceive as their mission, can bring a new voice in the chaotic environment of transition in politics, culture and communication.
Posted on: Thu, 05 Jun 2014 09:20:19 +0000
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