- Truth, lies and social media accountability in 2021 In 2021, critical issues at the intersection of social media, accountability, and human rights are finally at the center of global public discussion. It took the attempted insurrection at the US Capitol to lead to social media platforms finally suspending former President Donald Trump’s accounts and forcing a discussion about online content, hate and violence. […]
- Reimagining the Archive: Rethinking Archival Practice and Theory The tone was set on Friday evening with Rick Prelinger’s animated keynote presentation, in which he spoke about the dynamic nature of moving image archives as sites of creation, participation, artistic practice, and activism rather than as places where content goes to die.
- Archiving Practices Strengthen Human Rights Video Online My name is Taz Morgan. I’m a new intern at the WITNESS Media Archive and was able to attend the two-day Open Video Conference last weekend. There were a few panels dedicated to the discussion of open video specifically in relation to archives, such as the session Yvonne wrote about a few days ago.
- What Does the Open Video Movement Mean For Archives? At the WITNESS Media Archive, we collect, document, preserve, and provide access to human rights videos. Each component in this archiving endeavor contributes to the creation of reliable and authentic records in support of advocacy, prosecution of justice, truthtelling, and historical understanding.
- An Archivist’s Perspective on Access and Privacy The New York Times reports that earlier this month, a US District Court granted a petition by Chevron to subpoena 600 hours of footage from Crude: The Real Price of Oil. The film, by director Joe Berlinger, documents a landmark lawsuit filed by 30,000 Ecuadorean Amazon residents against the oil company for allegedly contaminating the jungle and creating a “death zone” the size of Rhode Island.
- Archiving Human Rights Last year, 2009, WITNESS devoted a considerable amount of time to strategic planning from which emerged a new and re-conceived way of approaching what we do, which is, simply put, video advocacy.
- Archival access: ethics, rights, obligations Access is a primary archival value, driven by many things: legal or organizational mandates, copyright, available technology and resources, a deep-seated belief that access to information is the foundation of a free and educated society, and, in fact, a right. With human rights materials the challenges are particularly acute, sometimes pitting personal safety, security and […]
- Archives & the problem of access in post-authoritarian regimes Guest post from Bruce P. Montgomery, author of Richard B. Cheney and the Rise of the Imperial Vice Presidency: As a matter of discussion, it may be instructive to look at how many post-authoritarian countries in Eastern Europe and elsewhere have addressed their archives of repression. In most cases, efforts to pass lustration laws and […]
