A Plea for DIGNILOGUE
by Francisco Gomes de Matos, a peace linguist from Recife, Brazil (7th June 2013)
MONOlogue ?
Individuals isolates
DIALOGUE ?
Persons approximates
DIGNILOGUE ?
Humankind elevates
Let's elevate human character, human conduct, human communication
Let's engage in DIGNYfying dialogue
Let's (g)localize DIGNILOGUE as DIGNIfiers
We would like to invite everybody who shares our values to envision contributing the World Dignity University initiative with video-taped dignilogues.
When you think about dignity in connection with your work and your interests, would you feel moved to offer a topic, or a theme?
The World Dignity University site www.worlddignityuniversity.org will grow and evolve from now on, thanks to Linda Hartling and Ulrich Spalthoff donating their full time. Many more are contributing. For example,many of the videos you see further down have already been copied to two Chinese sites, video.sina.com.cn and, later, also on weebly.com!
Perhaps you would enjoy creating short video dialogues (5 – 10 minutes), where you first present yourself, then your reflections on dignity, and, third, with which themes you would like to contribute? Please inspire also your friends and colleagues who share our values!
The general process is explained here. For practical guidelines, see here. See also two examples of mutual interviewing, first and second. Building a library of ideas is our first step. Our World Dignity University initiative shall grow like a tree.
See further down what we have so far.
We launched our World Dignity University initiative at the University of Oslo in Norway on 24th June 2011, with ca. 50 people in the room, ca. 40 people from all around the world in our online chat, and many people watching the streaming. See more information here. The Vice-Rector of the university, Inga Bostad, was our host. (We are still deeply shocked about the violent attacks in Norway, less than a month later, attacks that threw into stark light how much we need to build a culture of dignity rather than hatred.)
– Part of this launch was Federico Mayor Zaragoza, who headed UNESCO for 12 years. See his important greetings.
Also the then Norwegian Minister of the Environment and Minister of Development Cooperation, Erik Solheim, very kindly prepared a video greeting for this launch.
See Evelin's video invitation to the World Dignity University initiative.
When you look at the HumanDHS Global Advisory Board and the Core, Research and Education teams, you see a "global faculty" of people who advocate equality in dignity as guiding values, not only in theory, but by walking their talk in practice.
Practical guidelines for making a video:
The general process is explained here. See two examples of mutual interviewing, first and second.
Please see selected web video rules which Uli Spalthoff made us aware of.
See Uli's practical guidelines (8th January 2012):
Don't start thinking about technology. There will always be a solution, given the many gadgets one has in these days.
Rather start with some basic thoughts: How long will the video be? What do you want the audience to take with them after watching it? What do you need to prepare?
Consider to have more than just a statement read in front of a camera. Maybe a question and answer format might be fine?
You find a lot of practical advice on the Internet, for example, a nice example created by a young person (added by Linda Hartling)
If you have a built-in webcam in your laptop, just use it. Depending on the computer, you will find some help pages somewhere explaining how to switch it on and how to record videos.
If you have a separate webcam, the necessary software and explanations are usually coming with it.
If you have a smartphone or digital photocamera, there is a good chance that you can use it for recording videos. Just consult the manual. If you own a digital camcorder, you probably do not need my advice at all, as you might have more experience than I have. A camcorder normally will give better results than photocameras, mobile phones or webcams.
With any device it is important to choose good lighting conditions and a quiet place. Any sound from the environment will be much louder in the recording than you expect. For the lighting, you have to check. Daylight is usually better than lamps. Important is not to record "against" the lightsource.
In most cases, the files created from the webcam or camcorder will be very large, not suited for attaching to emails. With mobile phones you may have a chance to get smaller files directly, as they compress the files to manageable size. With other devices, you probably have to convert (on your computer, after the recording) to a file format which compresses the video to smaller file sizes. This leads to reduced image quality, but when you want to show the video over the Internet, this is unavoidable. If you don't want to do the file conversion by yourself, you can upload it to our HumanDHS server and I will take care of the conversion. I can send a description how to upload, when needed. There are some more options, but I don't want to confuse you ...
Anna Strout shared a number of suggestions with us (sent on December 17, 2012):
• A quiet room with no ambient noise and no audience
• Allocate enough time for proper set up in between each dialogue
• Provide guidelines for how to structure the dialogue so viewers gain valuable information/tools from watching (ex., introductions, key topic stated, background given, best practices shared, reflection or call to action)
• 3 minutes max for each taped dialogue
• Good, even lighting a must (since 3 point lighting set up expensive)
• 2 chairs in front of a table where people are facing each other and engaging in dialogue, instead of looking at the camera. This allows for the camera person to capture arm gesticulations but avoid humiliating body positions.
• Table placed in front of clean, uninterrupted wall as background or create a relevant set/ backdrop (topical books, banners that fit within the frame) you can also use props (support materials, tools of the trade)
• It's helpful to have 2 cameras on 2 tripods: a steady camera with a well framed wide angle shot of both people; one camera to take reaction shots for each person or to zoom in for cutaways
• 2 lavalieres, one for each of the interviewees, and a set of headphones for the camera person
• If time allows, cut dialogue with photographs, graphics and images that illustrate key concepts
*The term dignilogue has been coined by Francisco Gomes de Matos, a peace linguist and Co-founder of the World Dignity University initiative. He created the following rhymed reflections (6th May 2012):
A new concept for Dignity Studies: DIGNILOGUE
Rhymed Reflections
DIGNITY calls for human character elevation
DIGNITY also requires conduct amelioration
What about the improvement of communication?
The quality of our interactions we should elevate
For communicative dignity everywhere we should educate
If our daily dialogues we want to dignify
Our communicative intentions let´s edify
If creatively DIGNITY and DIALOGUE we integrate
through DIGNILOGUE we`ll be able to communicate
Patrick Hogan, Editor of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language Sciences commented (14th May 2012):
"Hi! Thanks for your notes. It makes sense to combine a sense of dignity with dialogue.
Best wishes!
Yours, Patrick" |