Mapping Our Memories: Tributopia Launches Memorial Day

Posted on May 23, 2013 by ITVS Staff

Tributopia, the project inspired by the ITVS-funded documentary The Grove, is a free iPhone app for creating virtual memorials and remembering lost loved ones by posting tributes on an interactive map. Tributopia invites engagement by connecting memories to a specific place. With the augmented reality feature, users looks through the viewfinder and can find virtual tributes overlaying the real world around them. Tributopia launches in conjunction with Memorial Day, just before Gay Pride Month.

Filmmaker Andy Abrahams Wilson gives us this inside look at the inspiration behind the app and his take on the changing interactive media landscape:

How did making The Grove inspire your idea for Tributopia?

The AIDS Memorial Grove founders envisioned a nature-based memorial in which individuals could till their grief and find comfort in seeing their own human experience reflected in nature. While the stigma of AIDS created invisible victims and survivors often excluded from traditional rituals of burial and remembrance, having a special place to remember and share was especially important.

While I was in the midst of production on The Grove, I vacationed in Mexico and witnessed scores of roadside memorials adorned with flowers, pictures, and photos. I was mesmerized and wanted to know what happened and whom it happened to. It was as if those shrines wanted to speak to me, to tell me their story. I began to realize how vital the connection was between memory and place, and between community and communication. Hence, the idea for Tributopia was born: a way to use new media to tell stories of loss – to connect memories to place and join in a community of remembrance.

What was the experience like, going from being a “traditional” documentary filmmaker to working in the interactive media space? Was there a large learning curve?

There was an enormous learning curve. We tend to take for granted our mastery over our own craft. Suddenly I found myself facing a technology, terminology and business model that were alien to me. While we cling to the idea of “storytelling” as a unifying theme and comforting commonality, I really did feel like I was entering a brave new world! Continue reading →

Up Next From the Half the Sky Movement

Posted on March 4, 2013 by ITVS Staff

On March 4th, the Half the Sky Movement releases a wide-reaching Facebook game designed to inspire many.

The Half the Sky Movement is cutting across platforms to ignite the change needed to put an end to the oppression of women and girls worldwide, the defining issue of our time. Inspired by journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book of the same name, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide brings together video, websites, games, blogs and other educational tools to not only raise awareness of women’s issues, but to also provide concrete steps to fight these problems and empower women. Change is possible, and you can be part of the solution.

Last year, the movement released the documentary series as a special presentation of Independent Lens on PBS, making decisions along the way that would help the series reach a wider audience and bring awareness to the work of the nonprofits on the ground in 10 countries. This proved successful when the October broadcast garnered one billion mentions on social media – a true feat for a 4-hour long documentary on these sensitive issues. Continue reading →

Can’t Make Media That Moves Millions? Livestream with Hari!

Posted on February 27, 2013 by ITVS Staff

Media That Moves Millions looks at the unprecedented phenomena of user-generated media campaigns that have inspired masses of participants and rocked political systems. Join the social conversation while we Livestream with PBS NewsHour’s Hari Sreenivasan live from the event on Thursday, February 28, from 9am to 11am EST.

Watch live streaming video from independentlens at livestream.com

Sponsored by ITVS and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), the Media as Global Diplomat series of summits has highlighted the changing role of today’s media in public diplomacy and peacebuilding since 2009.

The first part of the Media that Moves Millions event will feature activists from such campaigns as We Are All Khaled Said, Half the Sky, Kony 2012 and A Million Voices Against the FARC, as we seek to better understand why they were able to mobilize civil society so successfully. The second portion of the day will offer hands-on instruction by experts from Facebook, Twitter, Text Haiti 9099 and Indiegogo to individuals and organizations alike seeking to use the ever-expanding toolkit of media for social change and peacebuilding.

We highly encourage participation from those unable to make the Washington, DC event to join the social media conversation (using #GlobalDiplomat) or view the event online here. PBS NewsHour correspondent Hari Sreenivasan will be hosting the livestream broadcast on-site. In addition to watching the panels live, in real-time — Hari will be answering questions from bloggers and citizen journalists from around the world and providing a behind-the-scenes account of the event.

Using Social Media to Inspire Peaceful and Positive Change

Posted on February 25, 2013 by ITVS Staff

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and ITVS have partnered up to present Media that Moves Millions summit on February 28, 2013 in Washington D.C. The event marks the fourth installment of the Media as Global Diplomat leadership series, aimed at leveraging global media to highlight innovative models for international conflict prevention.

Media that Moves Millions looks beyond the headlines to understand the role of social media in mass movements for peaceful social change. A gathering of tech savvy peacebuilders and change agents, the day long summit will feature many of those people and organizations at the forefront of innovation, including: Nicholas Kristof, journalist, author, op-ed columnist, and a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes; Ben Keesey, CEO of Invisible Children; Frank Sesno, award-winning American journalist; Matthew Perault, manager for privacy and global policy at Facebook; and Alec Ross, senior advisor for innovation to the Secretary of State. Other notable speakers include president and CEO of the United Nations Foundation, Kathy Calvin, CPB president and CEO Patricia Harrison, and Sally Jo Fifer, President & CEO of ITVS.

The first part of the Media that Moves Millions summit will explore campaigns that have captured the world’s attention by successfully using participatory media for social change, including the We Are All Khaled Said, Half the Sky, and Kony 2012 campaigns. Continue reading →

Brad Lichtenstein on How BizVizz Can Help You Shop Smarter

Posted on February 5, 2013 by ITVS Staff

Filmmaker Brad Lichtenstein, the man behind the new app BizVizz

BizVizz is a brand-new free iPhone app that makes corporate behavior transparent and available to all. Just snap a picture of a brand’s logo or bar code, and presto: A simple, graphic screen tells you the financial truth about 300 of America’s largest corporations.

Independent Lens sat down with BizVizz co-founder Brad Lichtenstein, the filmmaker behind the award-winning PBS Independent Lens documentary, As Goes Janesville, to find out more about the app.

Congratulations on BizVizz going live! OK, so let’s set the scene for the app’s practical use. I’m shopping. I see my favorite cereal, and scan the logo on my smartphone using BizVizz. Up pops all kinds of information about the company: profits, donations, taxes paid, government subsidies, etc. What am I supposed to do with this information?

A lot of people these days are very conscious of how the products they use and consume are made. Fair trade, green, how a company treats its workforce — these are values people care about. We think BizVizz is another way for people to shop their values, especially when we are into our fifth year of economic recovery and asked to sacrifice.

We think people will care when they learn that one company pays their fair share of taxes vs. another that pays none at all. BizVizz is such an easy way for people to find out this information, plus it’s fun to take pictures of logos — though maybe not so fun to learn that all of the brands on the typical grocery shelf lead to just a couple of companies.

Could an app that easily reveals this kind of information be seen by some as anti-business?
BizVizz shows that this exerting influence is not a Republican or Democratic thing. It’s a power thing. Ordinary citizens don’t have the political muscle to write tax laws. We think of BizVizz as a tool to give people like you and me some power to point out how the system is unfair, and influence on the law-making process is something that money buys in America, which ultimately corrupts our democracy. Continue reading →

Introducing BizVizz: A Corporate Responsibility App Inspired by ‘As Goes Janesville’

Posted on February 4, 2013 by ITVS Staff

By Brad Lichtenstein
Director, As Goes Janesville

Inspired by the Independent Lens film As Goes Janesville, the BizVizz app serves as the transmedia component of the documentary, enlightening users how specific companies behave when it comes to corporate and social responsibility.

There’s a scene in As Goes Janesville (airing tonight on Independent Lens), towards the end, where the city council votes to approve a $9 million incentive package for Shine Medical Technologies. Shine is a startup looking for a town in which to set up their medical isotope operation and, like many companies, it is compelling cities to compete with offers. Though Janesville is desperate for jobs after losing their GM plant, $9 million is 20% of their budget. This is the scene that inspired BizVizz, our corporate accountability app.

I was aghast when filming this scene. There was no public hearing prior to the vote. There was no public disclosure of a third party audit of Shine Medical. While the City Manager of Janesville expressed some reservations to me on camera, there was barely an opportunity, through the media or otherwise, for those reservations to be discussed by the taxpayers who were footing the bill. What galled me was not so much the gamble with public money, but how the democratic process was subverted. A selected handful of business leaders working behind closed doors with the city council were deciding what to do with the public’s money.

One brave guy stood up just before the city council vote and said “ I feel like a pair of brown shoes in a room full of tuxedos….nine million dollars…maybe 125 jobs…no guarantees.” That’s what I felt like with my camera, observing this unfold: a pair of brown shoes in a room full of tuxedos. I badgered my subjects with questions about why this deal was never put before the public but none of them felt that democracy required the public to know or engage more, beyond the role city council played.

What happened in Janesville happens everyday in America.

BizVizz is an attempt to give the public more access to corporate behavior. Corporations spend millions on their image and message so that we don’t question what they do. We figured people might like to know how much a company pays in taxes, if they receive government subsidies, and who they support with campaign contributions. All the information found on BizVizz is shareable on Facebook and Twitter, helping to put a little power back into the hands of ordinary people. Continue reading →

Social TV Makes Big Progress in 2013

Posted on January 28, 2013 by ITVS Staff

By Kelsey Savage, PBS Interactive
Originally published on the PBS Station Products & Innovation Blog

Lounging around on your couch, clicker and blanket in tow, might not seem like the most overtly social activity. Yet, these days, even when we’re spending the evening parked in front of the television, we’re able to connect with our friends immediately about a show’s plot progression. In particular, Twitter has been leading the way for developing a strong social TV landscape.

In Nielsen’s annual “Station of The Media: The Social Media Report”, social TV demonstrated a growing user base. By June of 2012, over a third of Twitter users tweeted about a program on television, with the age 35-44 demographic being the most likely to comment on a TV show. In order to measure the power of social television, Nielsen will be working with Twitter to establish “a syndicate-standard metric around the reach of the TV conservation” by fall 2013. For the first time, broadcasters will be able to get an estimate of the number of people that participated or were exposed to an online conversation about their programming.

Public Media has also been capitalizing on the growth of social TV. Most notably, tech-savy, Downton Abbey lovers can check their Twitter feeds for instant feedback about the Dowager Countess’ latest sassy remark through the #DowntonPBS hashtag. PBS has also facilitated celebrity moderators, like Austenprose (@austenprose), The Daily Beast (@televisionary), Tom and Lorenzo (@tomandlorenzo) and Vulture (@vulture), to join the conversation. Their second-screen remarks add another dimension to the viewing experience. They make Downton feel like more than just TV show and more like a community. Continue reading →

Feelin’ Lucky? Enter the #SoulFoodJunkies Pin It to Win It Contest

Posted on January 8, 2013 by ITVS Staff

Score an Independent Lens gift basket, including a collection of Independent Lens and Soul Food Junkies inspired cookbooks, by entering our #SoulFoodJunkies contest on Pinterest.

How do we celebrate both the the premiere of Soul Food Junkies on January 14th and the launch of our Independent Lens Pinterest page? Well, with our very own #SoulFoodJunkies Pin It to Win It campaign of course!

Starting on Tuesday, January 8, pin any one of our seven healthy soul-food-inspired recipes with the hashtag #SoulFoodJunkies and be entered to win a collection of Independent Lens/soul-food-inspired cookbooks, including host Stanley’s The Tucci Cookbook and Soul Food Junkies own Bryant Terry’s Inspired Vegan and Vegan Soul Kitchen. We may even include a little Independent Lens swag for your trouble — think rockin’ T-shirts and water bottles dedicated to your favorite independent documentary show!

So check out our recipes (maybe even submit your own!), tune in to Soul Food Junkies Monday on PBS (check local listings), and get pinning! The contest officially closes Thursday, January 17th at 5pm PST.