This free online workshop by video activist group Reel News will show how video is an essential organising tool in winning disputes and struggles, both in the workplace and in the community. It will give activists the tools to use video to your own advantage.
Three recent rank and file campaigns will be discussed to show how videoactivism performs a completely different function to media coverage:
- BESNA dispute of 2011, involving electricians;
- the Durham teaching assistants dispute of 2016;
- the current meTU campaign against sexual harassment and violence in the trade union movement.
There will be time to discuss how lessons learned from these campaigns can be applied to struggles that workshop participants are currently involved in.
Workshop facilitator Shaun Dey will explain how you can use your phone to make your own videos of your own struggles, with enough tips and guidance on both filming and editing to get you started – without having to buy any extra equipment or editing software.
Whether you’re involved in a strike or a community struggle, whether you’re an environmental activist or a social justice campaigner, whether you’re battling racism, or dealing with one of the many other challenges that working-class people face right now: come along to the workshop and get some ammunition to help you win.
About Reel News
Reel News is a London based video activist collective established in 2006. Reel News was born out of Indymedia: alternative digital media production based on the idea that mainstream media either ignores or misrepresents the struggles of ordinary people, and the principle ‘be your own media’. Reel News started out of a realisation that nobody was taking the ideas of Indymedia and systematically applying them to working class struggles, particularly in the workplace. Since then, Reel News has been involved in a number of victories, working closely with rank-and-file workers.
About the Facilitator
Shaun Dey is the co-founder and main cameraperson and video editor of Reel News. Previously a trade union shop steward involved in numerous unofficial strikes, Reel News not only seemed an obvious area to concentrate on, but also a crucial one.
Videoactivism: using film as a weapon to help win struggles is the first of a series of workshops run as part of the project Performing Resistance: theatre and performance in 21st century workers’ movements. Please contact us for more details.