Media & Influence: Khabrieh

The challenge:

Media in Lebanon is highly politicised. Most political parties have their own television and radio channel, newspaper, and sometimes even a website, and social media platforms. There is a general consensus that political parties use their founded and funded media channels to broadcast propaganda that exaggerates the differences between social groups, rather than encouraging communities to concentrate on their similarities and the opportunities for collaboration. There are little to no neutral, positive media channels in Lebanon, and those that do exist constitute a handful of self-initiated blogs or underground home-made publications.

The idea:

A crowd-sourced social media channel consisting of a blog with links to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The channel invites youth to contribute their own audio/visual/textual non-sectarian non-political content to the channel. The channel also provides training in peace journalism to active contributors. Initial ideas for content includes documenting the various environments where a dish of hommos exists in Lebanon, or approaching youth from various regions and asking them to wear a sherwel and have a go at Dabkeh (thus focusing on simple and humourous common elements).