Dr. Steve Presence's Reel News In The Digital Age

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Media can be very selective when it comes to showing content to its viewers. Popular media outlets are not controlled by the people watching them but larger corporations which send extremely generous donations and sponsorships. While others settle for the typical agenda driven headlines some individuals take initiative to find the stories that really matter and provide a difference prospective on current events. The chapter written by Dr. Steve Presence called Reel News in the Digital Age: Framing Britain’s radical video activists brings to light the process and progression of video-activism and its correlation with technological advancements. In my opinion, this chapter was written very well with regards to the presence of factual writing …show more content…

Moreover, the purpose of this chapter is to talk about the Dr. Presence (2016) “contemporary oppositional British film culture” (p. 103) has Dr. Presence stated; realizing that the other side of the film culture in Britain is being ignored by the mainstream. He goes on by saying that it is important to recover the history of the “underground” film scene to understand the nature of contemporary film and what direction it will take in the future. There is confidence in Dr. Presence’s work because of his work relating to film, politics and avant-garde. Along with a current project he is working on which is a book version of his thesis, The Political Avant-garde: Oppositional Documentary in Britain since 1990 which touches on similar topics such as this chapter, he was been an active member in the film studies and radical film festival settings. Dr. Presence’s professional title is a Research Associate at CMIR, teaching interested minds in undergraduate and postgraduate studies. Dr. Presence has also worked with other industry professionals in his field on research …show more content…

Even though platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo gave almost anyone access to share amateur videos and the opportunity to increased the reach and exposure of contemporary films in Britain, the mainstream films and videos remain superior online. Even illegal offline platforms such as The Pirate Bay and Kickass Torrents were dominated by Hollywood and largely funded feature-films. This meant that smaller individuals and companies did not have an equal chance of getting the same exposure compared to popular films. Another problem video-activism faced was finding and allocated resources and funding to create films. Usually this meant compromising the standard of living for those creating the videos because they were typically bootstrap funded films. Many organizations with this similar problem had to come up with financial strategies whether it be through commercial/advertising commissions or applying for funding. One example as to why Reel News was unique was because of its unique strategies of funding through donations and subscriptions, this allowed Reel News to produce premium content and have full control of what would be shown and no external influences would have a say. With regards to the history of activism, in the 1990s

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