University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2014-06-10 A Renewed Challenge for Change: Participatory Media Production for Transformative Change at EMMEDIA Gallery and Production Society Becker, Eric Peter Becker, E. P. (2014). A Renewed Challenge for Change: Participatory Media Production for Transformative Change at EMMEDIA Gallery and Production Society (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/24996 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/1569 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY A Renewed Challenge for Change: Participatory Media Production for Transformative Change at EMMEDIA Gallery and Production Society by Eric Peter Becker A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIRMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION & CULTURE CALGARY, ALBERTA MAY, 2014 © Eric Peter Becker 2014 Abstract This research investigates an important initiative undertaKen by Canada’s National Film Board (NFB) during the 1960s and 1970s called The Challenge for Change (CFC). The focus of this initiative was to address social justice issues specific to rural poverty in Canadian communities. A renewed interest and revitalization in the CFC principles including a process oriented, participatory (documentary) media production program focused on local, community-based social, political and environmental justice issues. This research identifies a variety of programs from 2002 to 2012 at EMMEDIA that shared many of the same principles of the CFC. The goal of this research was to evaluate the capacity of EMMEDIA’s media arts model to continue the work CFC started with an expanded goal of transformative change – social, political, and environmental. This research identifies the worK EMMEDIA has done in process oriented, participatory media arts production and exhibition to facilitate a model for real transformative change. ii Dedication One of my biggest supporters throughout my life was my late Aunt Penny. Along with the amazing support of my family, she gave me motivation and encouragement to pursue my dreams. This worK, motivated by a challenge to maKe our world a better place, is dedicated to my Aunt Penny. I wish she were still around to see my accomplishments. I miss you Aunt Penny. iii Table of Contents Abstract . ii Dedication . iii Table of Contents . iv Background . 1 Chapter 1: Introduction . 4 1.1 Research Motivations . 4 1.2 Defining the Documentary . 10 1.3 Thesis Structure . 12 Chapter 2: Documentary – Historical Agent of Social Change . 14 2.1 Documentary History . 14 2.2 History of Persuasion – Grierson’s Documentary . 17 2.3 Beyond Persuasion - Critical ThinKing Documentary . 23 Chapter 3: The National Film Board of Canada’s Challenge for Change . 31 3.1 Institutionalizing Documentary . 31 3.2 NFB’s Challenge for Change Program . 33 3.3 Challenge for Change Principles . 39 3.3.1 Decentralization of the Means of Production (and Exhibition) . 40 3.3.2 Democratizing Means of Production (and Exhibition) . 42 3.3.3 Process over Product . 45 3.3.4 Participatory Production (and Exhibition) . 47 3.4 Challenge for Change Summary . 49 Chapter 4: Artist-Run Production Centres . 51 4.1 History of Artist-Run Production Centres . 51 4.2 EMMEDIA Gallery and Production Society . 57 4.3 EMMEDIA – Fostering Grassroots Activism with Media Art . 61 4.4 EMMEDIA Principles . 63 4.4.1 Community Integration and Dialogue . 64 4.4.2 Democratizing Means of Production . 65 4.4.3 Facilitate Media Arts Exhibition and Distribution . 68 4.4.4 Promote Social and Cultural Consciousness . 69 4.5 EMMEDIA Summary . 71 Chapter 5: Critical Analysis . 73 5.1 Documentary Media as Agent of Change . 73 5.2 Critical Analysis – Comparing and Contrasting Models . 78 5.2.1 Alternative Public Sphere . 78 5.2.2 Participatory Democracy . 83 5.2.3 Alternative Distribution . 95 5.2.4 Social, Political and Environmental Change . 101 5.3 A Renewed Challenge for Change . 109 Chapter 6: Conclusion . 116 6.1 Summary of Findings . 116 6.2 Contributions to the Literature . 121 References . 125 Appendix: EMMEDIA Gallery and Production Society Organizational Mandate . 131 iv Background At the time of this research (2010-2013), I witnessed two issues central to my research motivations negatively impacted by the push of late capitalism and neoliberal politics. The first issue involves the continued global deregulation of environmental legislation in the name of economic development and growth. Now 20 years since major global initiatives for climate change, Rio de Janeiro’s Earth Summit in 1992, Rio+20, the most recent (June 2012) summit on climate change brings us bacK to the beginning as many of the achievements of the original Earth Summit have fallen to the wayside. Prior to the first Earth Summit, global development dating bacK even as far as the invention of cinema over 100 years ago, created conditions leading to the establishment of the environmental movement. The harmful effects of the last hundred years of continued industrial grown and accompanied pollution from fossil fuel burning, has developed a frightful situation of global climate change, notably global warming. It didn’t taKe long before the consequences of neoliberal influenced, un-regulated economic growth, and expansion of global capitalism, received attention from the global scientific community who started noticing the negative implications of rapid expansion and development. In 2012, the implications of the 2008 global economic crisis shaped participation in recent attempts to rally international environmental agreements, especially from those industrialized economies most affected by the economic and credit crisis. The recent attention on economic growth at any cost, including at the cost of international environmental agreements on climate change, motivated such reports as the United Nations Environment Programme’s Global Environmental 1 Outlook, that concluded drivers such as population dynamics, economic demand and unsustainable consumption and production patterns are processes that lead to impacts on the environment” (2012, p. xix), allowing Earth to speed down an unsustainable path. Ultimately, these negative implications of environmental deregulation bring local concern to global problems. The second and more relevant issue to this investigation, is the negative effects of years of Conservative Canadian government rule on funding one of the longest standing cultural entities in Canada’s history, the Nation Film Board of Canada (NFB). Continued Federal arts and culture spending cuts have forced our Canadian documentary legacy to close both its Montreal and Toronto viewing rooms and completely shut down the NFB’s landmarK office on St. Denis Street in the heart of downtown Montreal. Part of a $6.68 million budget cut imposed over three years by Canada’s Conservative government was announced in the 2012 federal budget (CBC News, 2012, web). I present this research, the important role documentary media plays in social democracy, and its long history of doing so at the same time neoliberal politics deem it worthy of the chopping block. Ironically I find hope for this contribution to the literature in finding solutions to political policy that works in resistance to greater social democracy through documentary media. As a government run institution, the NFB continues to face tough questions regarding its viability and validity by fiscally conservative policy maKers. My focus for this research centres on publically funded, independent, community arts organizations that present an established, local integration of media production and exhibition model to meet local, grass-roots concerns. Furthermore, 2 arts organizations such as EMMEDIA Gallery and Production Society are less susceptible to short-term cultural funding visions of one specific branch of government – as is the case for the federally funded National Film Board of Canada. All three branches of government publically fund EMMEDIA. Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts and Calgary Arts Development Authority provide arms length allocation of public funds to arts organizations. Based on a one to three-year application/funding cycle, organizations liKe EMMEDIA reapply for a variety of funding streams. After an independent juried evaluation, organizations are awarded specific funding types to sustain operations and organizational mandates. My research shows that these arms length, publically funded arts organizations are better suited to organize and execute initiatives at a grass roots, community level and react better to the local needs of their communities. 3 Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Research Motivations Documentary film has a long legacy of representing social issues. From the earliest examples from explorers’ travelogues, nonfiction filmmaKing has taKen many steps forward, in content and technology, in documenting issues of interest to knowledge seeking audiences. Ultimately we are curious beings, seeKing out Knowledge and learning about the world outside our local