Media Activism In An Era of Unreason: Recognizing Poverty

On Monday, October 5, the United Nations will recognize World Habitat Day, a day to confront the challenge of the lack of affordable and decent housing for those in poverty. Currently, one third of the world’s urban population live in a slum, meaning that one in three people that live in an urban center have little or no access to clean water, are subjected to overcrowded dwellings and neighborhoods, and lack secure rights as tenants.

 

The world population continues to skyrocket, creating an even greater stress on our resources and environment. For me, this brings to mind the lack of media coverage about the causes and effects of poverty.

 

Last fall a nation of progressive, young, educated, creative folks managed (with some help from wealthy, old, privileged, cliché-generating powers-that-be) to elect our Man of the People to the nation’s highest office, bringing us a newfound sense of empowerment that seemed to last up until the late Senator Kennedy’s seizure at the inaugural luncheon. The election of President Obama was a promise that the people still had a voice in this country, which by now seems like a giant lie despite a strong majority of liberal voters. The media now says we have an embattled president, a militant right wing and a bunch of Wall Street tycoons that have declared that the heist of hundreds of billions of dollars made for a financial recovery. 

 

Amidst these manufactured narratives, I’ve declared myself a media activist.

 

I recently started my new project, Common Breath Media, as a way to create a dialogue about the commonalities we all have as humans on this planet. Confronting the threats to these basic needs should be as obvious as remembering to breathe. Eliminating the extreme gaps in wealth, creating solutions for the environment, having fair access to media, and assuring that people around the world are afforded their basic rights as humans – these are basic rights that our globalized world should be able to deliver, regardless of the will of the powerful minority. 

 

Acknowledging World Habitat Day is one way we as media contributors and consumers can recognize the plight of the over 100 million homeless persons throughout the world, and the hundreds of millions more that live in unsuitable conditions. In a world that’s facing climate change and depleting resources, these are likely to be the first people to be negatively affected.

 

Of course there are ways that anyone can help those in need. Habitat for Humanity (a sponsor of World Habitat Day) is one organization that works to expand people’s access to housing–not only in the states, but worldwide–and is always looking for people’s time and support. But what I think is also needed is a greater consciousness about the plight of the poor globally, which is where the media is failing to present the real issues. These are matters like the vulnerability of the poor to environmental injustice and climate change, and the global trend of urban renewal that has really proven to be neighborhood gentrification. Somehow these prevalent realities do not get wide coverage by the dominant journalism outlets.

 

Perhaps confronting these issues from a city like Madison is a bit ambitious, but it’d be no different if I were located in Washington, DC, Copenhagen, Jakarta or Shanghai. The world is in the midst of a media revolution where we can connect to anybody from anywhere, and if we’re to make this moment productive for independent media outlets, we should realize that this connectivity should be part of the process.

 

Here’s a few ways to get connected:

 

 

 

•Acknowledge your support for World Habitat Day on your social media profiles to help spread the word.

•Support independent media programming like the many public radio stations and community journalists on the web.

•Get inspired by groups like the Rebel Diaz Arts Collective, a group that’s creating new collective spaces for the performance of art.

•If you’re in one of the many hundreds of bands here in Madison, consider being an associate of the Punk Junk Band Program, which helps raise money for homeless shelters in your own community.

 

Photo by khym54