This course is an opportunity for collaborative media production between students in Gaza and at Evergreen. We will explore means of low-budget video production using the tools many students have at hand, as we develop an eye for media critique and responsible use of images to tell stories, while simultaneously developing strong personal bonds between groups in dramatically different places and contexts. This course is an experiment for effecting social transformation through new media communication.

In this course, we will work together with peers in the Gaza Strip to create a series of short videos exploring our own relationships with themes we find important in our own lives and how we relate with the rest of the world. Such themes could include the meanings of water, food, culture, gender, transportation and politics, ideas that we so often take for granted, but have dramatically different meanings dependent on the geography. Students will work with video editing software to create short, complex video narratives that deal with the topics at hand. Students will also explore the ways to get the best quality video out of the tools they have at hand, using common devices such as camera phones and tablets to document serious topics.

Classes will combine lectures, seminars, and workshops, as well as group discussion sessions with peers in Gaza. Students will be expected to contemplate readings on the nature of the media and our perceptions of the Middle East and to develop a powerful theoretical and practical vision for creating a vision of solidarity through digital media. Videos produced in this class will be posted on a public website to foster continued conversation about the topics chosen.

This course is open to students with any level of knowledge of the middle east and any level of video production proficiency. Beginning students will be exposed to basic media production skills and to the foundations of media criticism made real through their own production. Advanced media students will be able to convert their high-level production skills to an easily-available medium and will be able to put their ideas about creating critical media into action.