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.