Global Kids' Digital Media Initiative

This is a critique of A Child's War from In Media Res, which is a MediaCommons Project that describes itself as such: "Daily, a different media scholar will present a 30-second to 3-minute clip accompanied by a 100-150-word impressionistic response. The goal is to promote an online dialogue amongst media scholars and the public about contemporary media scholarship through clips chosen for either their typicality or atypicality in demonstrating narrative strategies, genre formulations, aesthetic choices, representational practices, institutional approaches, fan engagements, etc."

On July 16th, Radhika Gajjala, of Bowling Green State University, selected our A Child's War.

The language is a bit heavy in the use of academic lefty language - "How do we negotiate voice and agency in global contexts. The key is to examine seriously these issues and to understand how even very well meaning re-presentations of the Other in contexts of globalization can get appropriated in the service of policy that may allow for further exploitation and oppression of such populations." - but, hey, I didn't get my masters in American Studies for nothing!

The critique essentially points to youth in the first world (my term, not hers) pointing attention at human rights abuses in the third world (again, my term) and asks why not point to abuses in the first world. It is a valid point to raise. However, to complicate it further, while the youth in this Global Kids program are now in the U.S., this presumes they were born here as well and did not immigrate from other third world countries, as many (if not most) have.

More of her critiques, and some fascinating responses, here.