Equalizing Voices through Media Education

I have a friend who has been a longtime advocate for racial equality through her policy work. One day, she surprised by sharing how she was considering switching over to work in the entertainment industry. She thought appealing to the public opinion directly might be more effective as a mean of changemaking.

Recently, I have been coming across non-profit organizations that support young people develop their skills to express their views by creating contents for various media platforms. For example, there is the International Youth Media Summit (IYMS: https://iyms.org/). It was founded in the aftermath of 9.11 to “learn how to cooperate and understand each other – in spite of ethnic antipathies – when that cooperation was necessary to create a film that they were passionate about.” At their summit every year since, they have been bringing diverse group of young people from various international backgrounds to “work together on media projects that would motivate others in their generation to take action.”  I was invited to their screening event in Hollywood last month. Some of the participants had recently lost their loved ones to armed conflicts. Some were victims of systems setup against people like them. Others were anxiously worried about their future. They produced short films to raise their voices against injustices and to promote healing, empathy and empowerment. I was moved. (Please watch their movies on their YouTube channel)

LA based non-profit, TC & FAM Beyond for Education helps their young interns to learn, experience, and earn professional working credits on TV shows, commercials, and short films by working alongside with seasoned veterans in the field. Their weekly productions of “Creative World” airs on the KXLA channel 44 every Sunday from 6-6:30pm. I visited their studio a while ago. They produced a three-part series out of it to be featured in their production. The first aired two weekends ago, and it is not available for viewing on YouTube.

Today, anyone with a smartphone can capture moving images, and anyone with access to the internet can upload content through the social media. Education and training on how to utilize these tools and platforms would help equalize diverse voices and realize the ideal of democracy. As someone who practices one of the oldest medium, music, professionally, I am all for creating harmony out of our diversity to empower us in our interconnectedness. I salute everyone who works hard to be heard.

This is the English translation of the entry #130 from my bi-weekly column, “The Way of the Pianist” in Nikkan San to be published on June 2nd.