“CONNECTED” Theme Activity – AFR 2000: Blacks in Media: Race, Gender & Cultural Representations

Dionne Bennett, Ph.D.

African American Studies Department

AFR 2000: Blacks in Media: Race, Gender & Cultural Representations

CONNECTED TO DEMOCRACY

MEDIA, BLACK LIVES MATTER, AND DEMOCRACY

CONNECTED TO DEMOCRACY: MEDIA, BLACK LIVES MATTER, AND DEMOCRACY*

Please answer ALL of the following questions in one or more sentences per number.  Again, write at least one sentence to ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS. (If a number has more than one question, you still only are required to write one sentence but may write more.)  If you wish to produce a creative response to one or more questions, please do so, but, also, please answer the other questions with sentences or other creative responses. IF YOU CAN THINK OF A MEDIA OR CULTURAL EXAMPLE THAT REPRESENTS ANY OF YOUR ANSWERS, PLEASE REFER TO IT IN AN ADDITIONAL SENTENCE.

ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS

ALL ANSWERS ARE FROM YOUR POINT OF VIEW. 

1. What Does Freedom Mean? (FROM YOUR POINT OF VIEW)
2. Is Freedom Important in or to the Media? Explain your answer:  If yes, then why? If no, then why not? If both, explain.
3. What Does Democracy Mean to You, To Your Communities, to America, to the Media you see and use?
4. How are the Movement for Black Lives (also called the Black Lives Matter Movement), Domocracy and/or Voting in Elections, and the Media connected?

Explain your Answer.  You may explain in your answer that there are NO connections or that two of the three variables are connected but the third one is not. You may want to identify WAYS that they are connected.

• Should the Connections between the elements in question 3 (#BLM, Democracy and/or Voting, and Media) be strengthened or made more visible or audible and to whom and by whom? Explain your Answer. If your answer is no, then explain why not? If your answer is yes, then explain how? Again, you may address the connection to two variables separately from a third variable.)

Additional Instructions:

1. Please feel free to answer these questions personally, politically, intellectually, artistically or in relationship to any other framework or context that you choose.
2. Please be prepared to discuss your entries with the class.
3. You may write in the form of prose (complete sentences) or poetry/rhyme. You may also fulfill any part of this assignment with an artistic presentation that you create yourself. (poetry/rhyme, visual art, music, dance, or any other art form).(You may include images from other sources but the overall creation should be yours.)

NOTE: If you wish to produce a creative response to one or more questions, please do – I LOVE THEM! —

 but please answer the other questions with written sentences, which may be short.

•  If you decide to create images or sounds (through drawing, collage, instruments or computers) to represent the experience, please provide a little text to discuss either the experience or the image you have created. 
• If you answer using a handwritten poem or image, please take a photograph of the image and upload it along with the written text for that question.