Ithaca College

The Park Center for Independent Media (PCIM) and the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF) at Ithaca College (US) are launching a new international initiative to convene scholars, producers, and journalists to probe teaching cocreation during pandemic and protest.

The first international convening on Cocreation in Documentary and Journalism during Pandemic and Protest was held on Thursday, July 9, 2020. Cocreation operates on a horizontal model of collaboration rather than a top-down model of a single author or writer.

Producers and scholars of documentary, journalism, and new media explored innovative teaching strategies for small scale cocreation documentary and journalism production and theory during pandemic and protest at their universities and colleges. 

Twenty participants joined from the United Kingdom, Greece, Canada, Kuwait, Australia, Scotland, and the United Kingdom. They represented a range of institutions including California College of the Arts, York University (Canada), Concordia University (Canada), University of Rochester, University of the West of England (UK), University of Bristol (UK), University of Lincoln (UK), University of Kuwait, RMIT (Australia), University of St. Andrews (Scotland), RMIT University (Australia), University of Illinois-Champaign, University at Buffalo, Hendrix College, and Ithaca College (US),

This event followed the international webinars on cocreation and participatory media organized by Park Center for Independent Media (Co-creation in Documentary during Pandemic and Protest, June 24, 2020, with the journal Afterimage) and the iDocs webinar at the University of the West of England, UK (Co-creating in times of corona pandemic, July 2). 

The PCIM/FLEFF initiative plans to advance conversations and collaborations between practitioners and theorists of documentary and journalism to contribute to this ongoing national, international and cross-institutional dialogue.

More convenings are slated to coordinate with efforts at iDocs in the United Kingdom and at other journalism and communications programs internationally on this urgent topic of cocreation, pandemic, and protests across documentary and journalism.

For more information, contact Raza Rumi, rahmad@ithaca.edu or Patricia Zimmermann, patty@ithaca.edu