mass media

Holocaust Remembrance: Education Against Extremism & Building and Better Future

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In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, NGO Relations, Advocacy and Special Events Section and the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme, Outreach Division and the Department of Public Information organized a meeting to discuss the importance of education against extremism. Throughout the briefing, the curator of the Permanent Exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Dr. Steven Luckert, continually placed special emphasis on the role that propaganda had during the rise of the Nazi party. The Nazi movement was a rapid rise of power. Within a few years, the Nazi party won 230 seats in parliament, becoming for the first time the largest party in parliament. It was advertised as a “party of youth, a party for the future.” Widespread propaganda was so efficiently distributed by the Nazis that it was one of the most effective factors leading German constituents to vote for an extremist party.

Dr. Steven Luckert explained that Adolf Hitler was one of the first German politicians to craft a public persona by practicing and perfecting charismatic gestures, creating a trademark logo, and using slogans that appealed to mass mindsets. Dr. Luckert noted that Hitler recognized women’s influence in Germany. The majority of women voters were swayed by the party as well, although there were no promises of progress for women’s rights. Hitler’s campaign of propaganda was carefully curated. It included influencing children through boardgames and anti-semitic word problems in mathematics textbooks and the promise of protection from Jewish people rather than a war of aggression against them. Dr. Luckert’s in depth analysis of Hitler’s rapid rise to power called for a more careful consumption of widespread modern media and warned of the influences it has on societies today.

Meeting: “Holocaust Remembrance: Educating against Extremism, Building a Better Future” (In observance of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the victims of the Holocaust (27 January)) (organized by the NGO Relations, Advocacy and Special Events Section and the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme, Outreach Division, Department of Public Information (DPI)

Date/ Time/Location: Thursday, 26 January 2017; 11:00 to 12:30; UN Headquarters Conference Room 1

Speakers: Kimberly Mann, Manager of the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme; Steven Luckert; Curator of the Permanent Exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Jamey Fischer, Professor of German and Cinema and Digital Media, University of California, Davis and Director of the Davis Humanities Institute; Thomas Schieb, Minister Plenipotentiary of Germany to the United Nations; Virginie Ladisch, Head of the Children and Youth Programme at the International Center for Transitional Justice; Gillian Kitley, Senior Officer and Head of Office of the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect

Written By: Janice Park, WIT Representative

Behind The Scenes: The Lack of Women Working on Film

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Sofia Coppola

Today, Ms. Baassiri began the discussion with introducing the topic of the meeting concerning the role and depiction of women in the mass media.  Then, Ms. Schulman spoke of her experiences as a Hollywood film producer and as the president of “Women in Film,” which is an organization that seeks to raise awareness about gender equality in the mass media and to gather statistical data concerning this issue. She mentioned that a lack of representation of women in the mass media is often rooted in the fact that most of the boards of film studios are not gender-balanced and most films are directed by and catered to men. In order to change this pattern, “Women in Film” recently organized a retreat to which various members of the film industry were invited to discuss ways of bringing systematic change and gender equality in the mass media.  Additionally, she stated that current projects that the organization is working on include organizing gender-balanced peer groups that meet with studio executives to closely examine their hiring of staff and creating an accreditation system for evaluating the nature of the output of film and television companies.

Then Dr. Smith spoke of her research concerning the role of women in cinema and focused her discussion on the impediments that females face in securing behind-the-scenes work in the film industry.  She also elaborated on the idea of the fiscal cliff for female filmmakers, which is the notion that as the financial risk or budget of a project increases, opportunities for women to direct decrease.  Additionally, after performing various interviews with members of the film industry, she found that many studio executives feel that there is a lack of female directors due to the perception that they are uninterested or inexperienced in directing big-budget films or projects.

Meeting: Women’s International Forum: Cathy Schulman’s Lecture on Gender Equality in Hollywood

Date/Time/Location: Tuesday, March 8, 2016; 13:15-14:30; Trusteeship Council Chamber

Speakers: Ms. Sahar Baassiri, Moderator and Journalist; Ms. Cathy Schulman, the Academy Award Winning Producer of “Crash” and the President of “Women in Film”; Dr. Stacey L. Smith, Associate Professor and the Director of the Media Diversity and Social Change (MDSC) Initiative at the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

Written By: WIT Representative Shubhangi Shukla

Edited By: WIT Representative Alex Margolick