Our Innovations

The Knight Center for International Media was created to address the assumption that the world will not solve its most pressing problems without communicating more easily and effectively across national and cultural borders. The Center is focused on innovative and experimental approaches to adapt evolving digital technologies for easy flow of valuable news and information addressing the word’s underreported yet critical issues across borders.

The basic principles of the Center’s experimentation focuses on:

  1. Crossing language barriers

  2. Experimenting with visual storytelling

  3. Enabling and giving authenticity to local reporters and storytellers worldwide

  4. Building online networks of journalists, mediamakers, media teachers and students interested in using journalism and media for bring attention to underreported issues of global significance. Innovation focuses on engaging virtual communities in generating compelling visual journalism aided by digital tools.

One Water

Independent documentary filmmakers have often been daunted by the fact that their films attract an audience of the converted. Very often they fill rooms with audiences that are pre-subscribed to their perspective. The One Water project is an experiment that uses the making of a high definition film about the global water challenge as a starting point for global media making, journalism and education focused on raising awareness of water issues around the world.

To date the project has created four high-definition films aimed at different audience segments:

Non-verbal 22-minute short titled 1H2O, filmed in 5 countries, can be shown in locations worldwide to prompt discussion and engagement with water issues locally across language barriers. Screened widely to diverse audience from top meetings at the United Nations headquarters and the World Water Forum to schoolrooms in remote villages of Ecuador, India and Africa. The film was packaged with four films made locally in four countries (Bahrain, Colombia, India and South Africa) and broadcast nationally in each of the countries.

A feature length (67 minutes) film One Water that is targeted at the international community to bring attention to the topic of water by mixing compelling imagery and soundtrack with high profile international voices to bring attention to the subject through screenings at top festivals and international meetings.

A television length (48 minutes) scripted version meant for mass audiences and standardized for the purpose and narrated by celebrity actor Martin Sheen.

A website http://1H2O.org was launched in 2008 to gather international water journalism from around the world.

The website http://knowater.org will be launched in 2009 as a supplement to the Knowater curriculum for K-12 schools. Experimentation with adoption of this curriculum to fit the standards and cultural frameworks for schools internationally is ongoing.

Our City

The Our City project focuses on the transformation and challenges facing cities around the world. This is a long-term project, committed not only to identifying the challenges facing inevitable and rapid urbanization but also the creation and sharing of knowledge aimed at the betterment of urban life.


World Press Photo

After hosting the world renown World Press Photo annual exhibit in South Florida for the first time in 2007, the Knight Center contributed to enhancing the exhibition's experience the following year through developing a "Winner's Gallery" section of the World Press Photo Website with innovative online tools designed to take the experience of looking at world class photography to an entirely different level. The Center continues to develop this relationship and is currently working closely with World Press Photo to design innovative ways to enhance the photo exhibit experience digitally and extend the reach of the exhibit further into the educational realm.


Nuestra Mirada

This online community of Latin American photojournalists was built by Pablo Corral Vega and Professor Kim Grinfeder as part of Mr. Corral Vega's term as a Resident Professional at the Knight Center in 2008. While online communities by themselves may not capture our imagination immediately, this network is an experiment to test if such a network can produce compelling cross-border visual cotent. Currently the Center is working closely with Corral Vega to publish online photo magazines that will publish visual reports by local photographers from cities around Latin America.


SomosFoto

The SomosFoto workshops began in 2006 as a way to bring together Latin American photographers to work with North American editors in a Latin American city to work together in a workshop setting. Since the Knight Foundation grant to the School of Communication, the workshops started to become thematically aligned with the Knight Center's interest in the Millennium Development Goals. The workshops were a beginning of building a network of professional photojournalists in Latin America and ultimately resulted in the work of Ecuadoran photojournalist Pablo Corral Vega spending time at the Center as a resident professional in 2008 and building the online photojournalist community.

TAB

This project by the Center's first Resident Professional, Maggie Steber, was an experiment to create a mock up of what the newspaper of the future might be. Ms. Steber taught a class at the School of Communication that focused on completing this project. Ms. Steber presented the project publicly in several venues after its creation.