The
documentary “Invisible Children” is about the children between the age of 5 and
14 of Uganda being abducted to become soldiers. The LRA would force them to
kill at least 20 people a day including their parents. The age at which the
kids were abducted made it easy for them to be brainwashed easily. Children
from that age group were chosen so that they could go to school and abduct
other kids so that they would be forced to join Joseph Kony’s army. Some kids
would hide in hospitals to avoid being captured at night. They would study and
do their homework there under very little light. Some children living in an orphanage were
offered protection but lived under extremely poor conditions, often eating once
a day. Kids would often mention having gruesome nightmares while they were
captured, one child said he needed to see blood daily in order to comfortably
go on about his day. The documentary adds a lot of emotions when they focused
on the children’s eyes even when they are not crying. It gives a feeling of
sadness that this children say that they can not even cry anymore. The
documentary is credible because everything that they show is current and are
actual recordings that they did. They show how this is not right for children
by demonstrating logic.
This film
is related to citizen journalism because its a prime example of it. An average
person went out and documented something that not many people knew about and
brought back a great product. He completely embodied what being a citizen journalist
is all about. They had to do research in order for them to be able to retrieve
all of the information that they displayed in the documentary.
My opinion
is that many of this information you yourself have to actually see it in order
to believe it. We all perceive things differently. The internet complicates the
situation because it makes it a controversy. The questions should be approached
with an open mind.
It is safe
to say he is too involved in the coverage of the film because making it completely
took over his life. He tried so hard to make the campaign work, and in the end
it got him nowhere and the campaign died. Everyone knows what happened to him
with his public melt down. The fact that
he fell to deep into the subject affects the way he made the film because it is
not professional it is completely personal. It is a negative to be too involved
in a subject you are covering because journalism is a profession; it cannot be
personal.
If you want
to be a citizen journalist, you cannot be biased at all. It has to be as
professional as possible. Being biased
makes your work unreliable because there is not two parts to the story. The story
only follows the side that the maker wants you to follow.
There were
only citizen journalists involved in the making of this film. No professional help
was used. the partnership between professional and citizen journalists would be
beneficial to both. It would help the professionals by making them look more
open minded to new ideas and bend the rules a little. The citizens would strive
because they have the capacity to make credible products, the problem is that
they are not as disciplined as the professionals and tend to make more
mistakes. If they had the help of the professionals, they would have a louder
voice in the media.
No comments:
Post a Comment