Judy Rodgers's blog

I see that the Haiti earthquake is fading from the front pages and headlines, as of course it must do.  It reminds me of a presentation our friend Keith Woods (who is on his way to National Public Radio) made at an Images & Voices of Hope Summit one year.   His brother was a prison guard at a prison in the South of the US and was a victim in a prison take-over when prisoners overpowered prison guards imprisoning them and changing clothes with them.  When the outside world got wind of what had happened, police officers were afraid to shoot because they didn’t know who were the prisone

This year the world lost Thomas Berry, the cultural historian who, in his book Dreams of the Earth, first said, “the world needs a new story.”  I don’t think there are very many people in the world who would disagree with this – especially among the world’s media and arts community, which is constantly engaged in writing and disseminating the stories of the world.

Institutions commit to things, but at the end of the day it's often one determined person who makes it happen.  In a recent story in digital marketing magazine, Click Z, Zach Rodgers tells the backstory of the "Hopenhagen" campaign as the "Climate Change Ad Campaign That Almost Wasn't" [http://www.clickz.com/3635862].  We all have lived this kind of situation:  in the moment of excitement throngs of well intentioned institutions pledge their support.  This is what happened with "Hopenhagen":  a dozen agenc

I don’t think we can ever really understand a place until we move into its streets in the midst of its people and until we listen to what they talk about and what they remember.  Every place has experiences that have galvanized them as a people and moved things in a new direction.  Often the media plays a crucial role in framing these experiences in ways that crystallize a thousand thoughts and feelings into one clear understanding.

Next month a group of journalists will gather in Johannesburg to talk about the role of media in South Africa at this time.  South Africa seems to be at a turning point.  Those thrilling days of miracles and courage of the new South African democracy set the world's imagination on fire.  Virtually everyone when asked to name the world's greatest living leader said  then, and would still say today, "Nelson Mandela.  But the refusal by Pretoria in March to grant a visa to the Dalai Lama signalled a different era in South Africa.  The native culture of ubuntu, with its emphasis on reco

This week one of Germany's most popular women's magazines announced it was moving from professional models to "real women": [ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33178280/ns/today-today_fashion_and_beauty ].  Who knows if this is an independent move or if it is a response to the Unilever / Ogilvy famous Real Beauty campaign.  I suppose it doesn't matter.  What does matter is that media plays a big role in accelerating important ideas -- in this case the idea that it isn't healthy for women or girls to be continuously to

Well – you just had to be here.  The Summit was fascinating, inspiring, warm, funny, and rejuvenating.  David Fanning reflected with us on the impact of the Web on television (“We’ve changed the contract.  We are creating films for the ages”) and shared a newly released FRONTLINE segment on the war in Afghanistan.  June Cohen told us how they prepare “TED stars” for their 18 minute “talk of a lifetime” and showed us some of her picks of TED talks.  Mike Hughes gave us a reprise of his deeply moving commencement address to the graduates of the class of 2006 at Virginia Comm

Friday was all about screening each other's work and being in conversation.  We heard from composer Joan Tower about her experience composing for community symphonies -- how community symphonies play for the love of music.  She told us about the inner workings of her Grammy winner Made in America and played a few minutes for us.  Kim Spencer told us about his 10 year journey to create Link TV and played a sequence which showed how different the reporting on Global Warming is around the world.  We heard from Thuy Vu about how Radio Saigon in Houston served as a beacon for the Vietnamese

We held our opening session of the 10th World Summit last night.  By the end of the day today there will be about 90 of us -- journalists, artists, playwrights, advertising executives and creatives -- all of us considering the impact of our work in media.

It was a Dutch sociologist named Fred Polak, who, in 1973, called our attention to the relationship between the images a society creates and its future.  For him the positive image of the future is the single most important dynamic and explanatory variable for understanding cultural evolution.    He suggests that the rise and fall of images of the future precedes or accompanies the rise and fall of cultures.  Think of Italy and England in their renaissance or even Silicon Valley in the 1980’s and 90’s.  This week another Dutchman, Robbert Zoon, is launching a new international Websit