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Images & Voices of Hope Overview
Our Vision
Media as an agent of world benefit and a magnifier of images and
stories of hope and possibility.
Our Mission
Images & Voices of Hope is a global transformational dialogue intended to
connect and expand the community of journalists, artists and media
professionals who understand the need for positive images to produce positive
change in the world and who commit themselves to broaden their coverage to
increase the probability of positive outcomes.
Our Strategy:
- Creating and supporting meaningful dialogues around the world where
media professionals can explore the transformative power of images of hope
and develop strategies to shift the culture of media towards a more
balanced reporting and a focus on that which gives life to humanity.
- Linking these media professionals via the Internet and an annual Summit
- Showcasing the work of media leaders, who are using their influence to
bring about positive change,
Who is Images &Voices of Hope?
- Images and Voices of Hope is a rapidly expanding community of
journalists, media professionals, and artists who are coming together in
dialogues to advocate, recognize and celebrate a more balanced media and
who are committing themselves in their own work to a broadened coverage of
the world that includes the possibility and probability for positive
outcomes.
- The Director of this initiative is Judy Rodgers, who has spent much of
her life writing and producing for radio and television - initially for
Twentieth Century Fox Video, then for CBS-Fox Video, Video Publishing House
and New World Entertainment.
- The World Summit, the workshops, and the Web Site are produced by a
virtual team convened by Rodgers.
- The dialogues are locally generated and locally relevant. Media
professionals in those areas convene these dialogues with support from a
virtual team who donate their time.
- The convening sponsors of this initiative are Case Western Reserve
University's Weatherhead School of Management, The Visions of a Better World
Foundation, and the Brahma Kumaris.
Background:
Since 1999, when Images and Voices of Hope opened its first conversation
in New York City, new conversations have opened in over 20 cities in North
and South America, Africa, Europe and Asia. Thousands of media professionals
have come together in these dialogue and the three World Summits. The last
Summit drew over 90 media professionals from all over the world - Jordan,
Israel, Poland, England, Brazil, Chile, Philippians, Hong Kong, Canada, and
the U.S.
Images &Voices of Hope has run two skill-building workshops, on creating
and sustaining public dialogues using Appreciative Inquiry, a methodology
focused on discovering, understanding and fostering innovations through the
gathering of positive stories and images (http://ai.cwru.edu). Approximately
100 people attended each workshop. Appreciative Inquiry is a theory and
approach to organizational change, which is widely used by organizations
around the world from British Telecom to the US Navy. Images & Voices of Hope
uses Appreciative Inquiry to search for the strengths and assets within media
communities.
These dialogues have raised critical awareness:
- That media is a force for positive change: In Toronto the
Archbishop Desmond Tutu addressed the owners and publishers of the city's
primary newspapers and broadcast outlets, thanking them as representatives
of the international media community for the support they gave to the
anti-apartheid movement and urging them to see the role they have to play
in the world. He subsequently offered to become a trustee for Images &
Voices of Hope.
- That news can be compelling without being terrifying.
Twice in 2002 - once in Rio de Janeiro and once in Miami - network news
anchors told dialogue participants about how they believed they could shift
the way the news is presented so that it tells the important story, but
doesn't lead with terrifying headlines.
- That horrifying stories can be told in ways that generate
compassion instead of fear. In Tampa a newspaper reporter talked
about a story he wrote about a man who had killed himself by covering
himself in kerosene and setting himself on fire. Instead of stressing the
self mutilation aspect of the story, the journalist wrote the story the
man's wife told him of a good husband, father and citizen drawing accolades
from the reading public.
- That the advertising community can be a powerful force for
shifting the mood of a culture. McCann Erickson Chile created and
brought to the Summit a multimedia advertising campaign called "Piensa
Positivo" designed to lift sagging morale in Santiago.
- That the arts need to step more fully into their role as a force
for community and societal transformation. Two faculty members at
the Rhode Island School of design convened an Images & Voices of Hope
dialogue at RISD bringing 70 artists together to look at the impact of the
arts on society. Out of this conversation came a graduate curriculum on
Hope and two art exhibitions. The president of the college delivered a
singing speech on the need for artists to engage more meaningfully in
social action.
- That investigative journalism is powerful when it sets out to
expose extraordinary kindness and courage. Roberta Baskin, formerly
of ABC's 20/20 and currently of Bill Moyer's' "Now" presented at the 2002
summit, telling about how she broke the story on CBS of Nike's sweatshop
factories in Viet Nam, where women employees at Nike were being paid less
than minimum wage and were subjected to conditions of physical abuse. She left the summit determined to use her influence to
amplify the work of those who are creating new constructive models for
business and political action.
- That news services can add to the reservoir of available material
by showcasing the strengths, assets and talents of the world.
Lawyer, Sergio Vergara, of Santiago Chile has started a positive news
service for Latin America.
Showcasing the Work of Influential Media Leaders:
Many influential media figures have been attracted to participate in the
IV of Hope dialogues:
- The host of the IV of Hope dialogues in Miami for five years has been
David Lawrence, former publisher of the Miami Herald who now works
fulltime to build a movement for high-quality early development, care and
education. The Herald was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for community service
for the way that they, under the leadership of Dave Lawrence, responded to
Hurricane Andrew in 1998.
- World music star Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees gave his home in
Oxford for an IV of Hope dialogue and spoke passionately about the
importance of music for world transformation.
- Christina Carvalho Pinto, a highly awarded advertising
executive in Rio de Janeiro and CEO of Full Jazz Communications,
showcased sample ads from the Cannes film festival for advertising at the
2002 Summit and in Rio calling on advertisers to use their medium as a
force for constructive change.
- Monica Herrera, founder and president of four communication colleges
in Latin America and department chair for the communications school at
Universidad Mayor in Santiago, Chile has introduced a new curriculum on the
transformative power of media using Appreciative Inquiry.
- Martyn Lewis, former anchorman at the BBC, delivered a keynote
talk to 80 journalists, artists and media professionals in Oxford about the
importance of using their access and influence for good.
- Pablo Walker, managing director of McCann Erickson - Chile and Maribel Vidal, VP of Strategy for McCann, have created an advertising
campaign called Piensa Positivo and a mentoring program for young aspiring
advertising professionals who would like to amplify the constructive social
impact of advertising.
- David Finn, founding partner of the award-winning public
relations firm Ruder Finn, addressed an audience of 500 about what is possible
when public relations professionals insist on the highest ethical
standards.
Impact
We can attest to the impact on the media community and on the rapidly
expanding network of journalists, advertising executives, performers and
visual artists who join these dialogues every year. At the film festival for
last year's summit we had to open a second screening room and add additional
screening sessions each day to accommodate the high number of interested
entries. We can also vouch for the number of new conversations opening
spontaneously - in Hong Kong, Istanbul, and in Boston in the next several
months.
What is harder to know is how to quantify the impact on the millions of
people in their living rooms, at their offices, and around the dinner table
who - in a time of unprecedented anxiety - may be glimpsing a world of light
beyond the more visible darkness, who see and are transformed by these media
activists and their growing images and voices of hope.
Moving Forward:
Our strategy going forward:
- To support the creation of regional and global networks of journalists,
media professionals and artists committed to enlarging the options for the
world through a positive and constructive world media
- To encourage new work in media that elevates vision, amplifies
possibility and showcases life affirming stories in the world.
- To recognize and celebrate those in media fields who are launching
magazines, opening wire services, creating film festivals, developing film
and television projects that make the constructive action in the world more
visible and tangible for the viewing global public
- To encourage scholarship that explores the generative capacity of
affirmative media
- To partner in the development of curriculum in journalism,
communication and the arts that emphasizes the powerful role media plays in
the unfolding of world events.
What we can do with financial support:
- Create materials to support the dialogues around the world: short
films, interview materials, background and research, examples of
constructive media and so on.
- Enhance the Web site to allow for facilitated discussion space and
translation of materials into various languages.
- Pay a Director and small staff who can devote their full time to the
initiative
- Provide travel subsidies to students and participants from the
developing world who want to come to the annual summit.
- Provide honoraria and travel subsidies to courageous visionaries and
exemplary leaders in media to participate in dialogues around the world.
- Create a media festival to attract and award new work, and in so doing
encourage the creation of a bank of photographs, films, stories, and other
media of hope.
- Subsidize scholarly research to explore the impact of constructive
media on society.
- Pilot curriculum in schools of communication, journalism and the arts
that encourages constructive media.
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