Citizen Journalism Reflection and Response - Part B

If you are not able too see the video above click to see the documentary ...    Invisible Children 

This documentary is amazing, it is about three young men that decided to travel to Sudan and make a documentary about what was happening in that country. It caught my attention what one of them said, bobby mentioned that “ media is what defines our lives” , I think that is very true, media is all around us and pretty much that is what we do and participate every day in. Anyhow, they had heard that the boys as young as 8 year old were used as slaves and were used to fight in the war and these three young men wanted to go and witness that and gather information so they can bring to the U.S. so they started their journey.

 First they traveled to Kenya and had a welcome gathering there so they can be introduced to the community which is a tradition in Kenya. Later they traveled to Sudan to see if they find what they were looking for, the children and the war. At this point in the video they were showing footage about them vomiting, killing a snake and cutting a chicken head, it make me want to stop the video!! Only by seen this, I know that is no way for me to have the strength to ever do something like this brave men did. Yes I understand now that media is all around us, however, it is definitely not for all of us.

The young men found what they were looking for with the aid of one of the Uganda residents Jolly who took them to the town of Gulu  where they found the refugee camps and the kids that go to sleep outside their home so they can be protected from kidnapping and they go to the bushes to sleep on the grass. One of the journalists was following a couple of boys to where they sleep; these boys go away from the rest of the crowd and sleep hiding in the dark. But, what is amazing is that two of them were doing homework and studying!! I think that is amazing that after all the things they go throughout the day, at night they still have the strength to study!! Wow, that is a motivation right there for me!

The journalist interviewed several kids and learned that the kids become immune to what is happening there and are not able to cry because crying mean weakness and they can’t be weak. Once the kids are abducted they are so afraid of escaping that they become killers. Is very sad to see that this kids the only thing they can think of and draw is pictures about killing.

I love what this three young men, excellent journalist did at the end, they didn’t put any credits and instead persuaded by asking people for support for this invisible children. Great job!

As far as the Ethos, Ethical appeal. The authors presented themselves at the beginning of the film and they established a common ground by explaining the reason why they wanted to do this documentary which was to find out if it was true that the children were abducted and used to participate in the war.

Pathos was all over, by the journalist traveling to Uganda and personally living there and interviewing the kids and being there showing footage of the daily living of these kids, they created emotion, and emotion was all over the film! It is a topic that yes, is interesting to the audience and the emotional appeal was very effective.

The Logos was all the evidence used to support their thesis, they actually went to the camps were the kids were hiding and that is more enough support of the evidence. Overall, this film was amazing source of information.

This film relates to my semester topic, citizen journalism because we talked and learned that all of us are journalist because we experience and live around media. We talked about being actively involved by recording and letting others know what is going on around us. In this care these three young men are being actively involved by personally going to the place were bad things are happening and letting the rest of the world know and asking for help for these site. An excellent documentary.