Extension - Using Video
There are many advantages to using video to share ideas with an audience. To start with, it combines both visual and audio dimensions, bringing situations and faraway contexts alive in a way that written texts or photos on their own cannot. Video is attractive for training purposes because it shows actions that can be difficult to explain with words alone. Video is also an excellent tool for reaching illiterate audiences.
Video is highly versatile, and can go beyond entertainment to achieve development goals with particular audiences and objectives in mind. It can be shown in a variety of ways (e.g. at public gatherings, on television, on a mobile phone, and from the internet) with the potential to reach many people. Video can also be used to stimulate debates and discussions, and to help resolve conflicts. It can convey opinions and messages from one context or reality to another, in a way that makes unfamiliar issues more accessible to people - for example bringing farmer concerns to the attention of policy-makers. Video can offer an effective way of “documenting a process and compressing what could be a long story into a short film.” It can translate “complex problems and processes into easily digestible pieces” (Lie and Mandler, 2009). Furthermore, video is useful as part of a process, for example, to help collect data and to monitor changes over time.
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