with Sonja Eismann, Founder and Publisher of Berlin-based Missy Magazine
Major media outlets purport to address the whole of society with objective reports about all areas of public interest. However, there are large segments of populations that feel left out by their choice of information. For it tends to sidestep supposedly minoritarian issues or to reproduce dominant, stereotypical discourses on often marginalized topics such as gender, class, race, or different abilities. Therefore, groups that do not feel adequately represented by mainstream media or do not gain access into its often highly elitist working positions have resorted to establishing their own channels of information.
In this workshop, participants look into the different modes and possibilities of independent publishing. It gives an overview of the different media and their particular opportunities – free radio and TV broadcasting, social media with blogs, vlogs and podcasts, and independent print publishing, be it in the form of widely circulated magazines or informal zines, which we will focus on.
Departing from Sonja Eismann’s experience as print journalist, the workshop will discuss the most essential topics that lead to the successful founding of a new, independent media project: What do we want to write about, and why does it matter? Who are the people that we want to write for and how do we reach them? What is the style that we want to convey our messages in, verbally and visually, and why? Who do we work with? And how may we find sustainable financing for our project?
In open discussion rounds as well as in smaller work groups in the workshop we try to find answers to these questions, drafting potential concepts for alternative media. These shall result in a group wall newspaper that might be adapted into a zine.
The workshop is organised by Goethe-Institut and Selatan, as a follow up of the networking trip Feminism and Pop Culture in collaboration with Missy Magazine for cultural practitioners from Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand to Berlin in August 2018.
PARTICIPATION
The participants are encouraged to register beforehand, as we only have 30 seats. Please send your short biography and one sentence why you want to take part (in English) to the email:
maya.maya@goethe.de. Deadline:
14 Feb 2019, 5 PM Jakarta time.
All basic materials are provided but feel free to also bring your own equipment such as: paper, some pens (in different colours, if possible), old magazines, scissors, glue, and even typewriter.
Please let us know if you have any special condition/needs so we can help you to facilitate.
Sonja Eismann
is one of the founders and editors of Missy Magazine, a feminist bi-monthly on politics, popular culture, and style based in Berlin. She studied Comparative Literature, English, and French in Vienna, Mannheim, Dijon and Santa Cruz, California. Over the past 12 years, she has published ten books, among them “Hot Topic. Popfeminismus heute” (“Pop Feminism Today”, 2007), “Glückwunsch, du bist ein Mädchen” (“Congrats, You Are A Girl, 2013), “Ene Mene Missy. Die Superkräfte des Feminismus” (“The Superpowers of Feminism”, 2017) and “Freie Stücke” (“Free Will”, 2019). She regularly writes and lectures on topics such as the representation of gender in popular culture, feminist theory and activism as well as the utopian potential of fashion, and she teaches at universities in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Back
