Video Advocacy

Video advocacy has gained popularity as a tool of addressing human rights audiences. In fact, the goal of video advocacy is to supplement other forms of advocacy not to down play them. Essentially, video advocacy facilitates collection and recording of evidence at the scene of crime hence a more effective strategy than other forms of advocacy. Video advocacy provides exact evidence of what transpired in an incident, which is covered. Quintessentially, the witness maybe killed and the victim would be disadvantaged, but video advocacy can avert the situation. Video advocacy provides adequate support for any case, and can be submitted in a court of law.

The use of video advocacy has been applied in a wide range of situations involving contextual stories as well as, mass media reporting. There is dilemma that surface in instances of shifting testimony between different arenas, and maintaining intended impact in truthful representation of the original testimony. However, the media has not been keen to differentiate human rights advocacy incidences, and newsworthy coverage. There has been a mixture of the two with the latter creating sympathy to catch attention of the audiences. The fundamental power of the direct testimony, voices and experiences by those affected by human rights violation brings a precise understanding into achieving justice. On the contrary, the media has a different approach to human rights based issues. The journalist’s approach is mainly influenced by media preferences.

The approach to video advocacy should strictly be a focused way to enable human rights groups to collect, evaluate and disseminate information for maximum impact on the society. In fact, the society should gain a substantial complement from video advocacy to other existing forms of advocacy. A particular advocacy has given the obvious organizational and environmental restrains.

In reality, we operate in a modern world with powerful media hence the need to consider this in decision making with regards the management of witness relations in order to achieve the goal of the agency and their intent.