On April 26, 2023, Rashin Fahandej provided a 90-minute virtual workshop on co-creation across differences to 16 graduate and 9 undergraduate students. Students came from Hamidreza Nassiri’s DTEM2421 (Digital Production for New Media) and PMMA6215 (Interactive Digital Storytelling) courses.
During the workshop, Fahandej introduced her “art as ecosystem” model, introducing students to a new way of thinking about media production that considers systems of power throughout the production process. Engaging students in questioning the established narratives on international and domestic levels (such as the distorted narratives on Iran and mass incarceration in the US), she set the need for changing the media ecosystem rather than engaging in incremental corporate strategies and performing for progressive ideals.
She then provided an overview of different co-creation practices using several digital media projects addressing issues targeting indigenous communities and other communities of color in the US and Latin America.
She then dived deeper into the principles and ways of co-creating media with communities. Students engaged in three hands-on exercises during the workshop. After the workshop, participants filled out a survey providing very useful feedback for this and future workshops. Students have provided very positive responses.
Additionally, the recording of the workshop was watched by three other students (two undergraduate and one graduate), who filled out a separate survey. While this survey shared many questions with the other one, it also asked for feedback on the recording and its usefulness.The data size for this survey is small, but students have provided generally positive feedback.
After running sentiment analysis for one of the survey questions, “How was your overall experience [of the workshop]?” we got the results below, showing a highly positive response by participants. (The sentiment analysis was done using Python and the Sentiment Intensity Analyzer module from NLTK, which rates sentiments on a range of -1.0 (very nagative) to +1.0 (very positive).) Responders include 15 graduate and 8 undergraduate students.
Watch the workshop’s recording here:
Access and download the pdf version of the handout here: