Article:
Live-streaming for frontline and distant witnessing: A case study exploring mediated human rights experience, immersive witnessing, action, and solidarity in the Mobil-Eyes Us project

dc.creatorGregory, Sam
dc.date.accessioned2021-07-16T08:59:43Z
dc.date.available2021-07-16T08:59:43Z
dc.date.issued2021-06-06
dc.description.abstractRhetoric around live-streaming and immersive media and tech-nologies often focus on their ability to mobilise solidarity. Mobil-Eyes Us (2016-19) was a project focused on live-streamed witness-ing and meaningful solidarity in collaboration between the human rights organisation WITNESS and favela-based activists in Brazil. Contextualised in human rights witnessing and live-streaming re-search, this paper analyses usages of live-streams for human rights and learnings around the relationship between frontline and dis-tant witnesses. It discusses how relevant and structured live-streamed experiences as well as opportunities for action move viewers to appropriate solidarity. Data included over 100 live-streams by frontline witnesses, as well as project experimentation with content and strategies. Key research questions focused on more equitable relationships of ‘mediating distant suffering’ and asserting the agency of frontline community journalists and activ-ists, and on strategies for confronting patterns of denial that rights violations were occurring or patterns of audiences joining only for live-streamed violence. Understanding livestreaming also as a form of immersive witnessing, the project focused on avoiding perpetuating voyeuristic ‘improper distance’ between viewers and the streamers or neglecting intra-community participants joining via live-stream. The paper assesses how curation and intentional narrative arcs rather than singular events or a reliance on sponta-neity and simultaneity, as well as the inclusion of experiences of ordinary life and joy, help facilitate connection and solidarity. Fi-nally, it notes challenges encountered managing live-streamed simultaneity with escalating risks, and the opportunities for further research into co-present witnessing in new media formats.en
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/16272
dc.identifier.urihttps://mediarep.org/handle/doc/17125
dc.languageeng
dc.publisherNECS
dc.publisher.place
dc.relation.isPartOfissn:2213-0217
dc.relation.ispartofseriesNECSUS_European Journal of Media Studies
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subjectOnlinemediende
dc.subjectLivestreamde
dc.subjectMedienaktivismusde
dc.subjectZeugenschaftde
dc.subjectFacebooken
dc.subjectlive streamingen
dc.subjectmedia activismen
dc.subjectspectatorshipen
dc.subjectwitnessingen
dc.subject.ddcddc:791
dc.titleLive-streaming for frontline and distant witnessing: A case study exploring mediated human rights experience, immersive witnessing, action, and solidarity in the Mobil-Eyes Us projecten
dc.typearticle
dc.type.statuspublishedVersion
dspace.entity.typeArticleen
local.coverpage2021-07-16T11:20:54
local.identifier.firstpublishedhttps://necsus-ejms.org/live-streaming-for-frontline-and-distant-witnessing-a-case-study-exploring-mediated-human-rights-experience-immersive-witnessing-action-and-solidarity-in-the-mobil-eyes-us-project/
local.source.epage171
local.source.issue1
local.source.issueTitle#Solidarity
local.source.spage145
local.source.volume10

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