Media for social change

 History has shown that poor and marginalized communities stand to gain the most from leaps forward in the democratization of information, so the excitement in areas like Vancouver’s maligned Downtown Eastside about the possibilities of Web 2.0 and beyond is palpable. With the Winter Olympics less than a year away, billions have been spent in preparations and many poverty advocates are concerned about how the city’s several thousand homeless and working poor will fit into the equation as Vancouver puts on its best face for the world. Against this background the film examines Social Media in action as a group named Fearless City embarks on a campaign to empower and protect its neighbours with cellphones, video-streaming, and the World Wide Web. 

Poverty rights activist Garvin Snider is featured in this webisode from the film and gives us his perspective on life and the unique struggles of living in the DTES.  Although a sefl-professed technophobe, as a distributor of the street paper Megaphone Magazine, he is engaged in one of the oldest and most accesible forms of social media  still active.