4 ms·
It can seem that way on the surface, but remember that the person receiving the money can also donate it to charity - if they so desire. Not all the interviews
by marcamillion 16y ago
It can seem that way on the surface, but remember that the person receiving the money can also donate it to charity - if they so desire.
Not all the interviews will be of homeless people - but many will.
The intent really wasn't demeaning - in the sense that homeless people are going to be taken advantage of, for 'your' entertainmment. More, I am really interested in the stories of homeless people - for instance, look at what happened with the homeless guy with the golden radio voice - and rather than just interviewing them, why not compensate them (fairly, as someone else pointed out, $60/hr isn't a bad wage) for their time.
Disclaimer: I am not doing the interviews, however the guy doing it is a friend of mine, so I am kinda close to the project.
- liedra 16y agoI'm sure the intent wasn't to be demeaning, but surely you can just go down and talk to people, if you're interested in this sort of thing? Do you have to video them and publish them to the world? My recommendation would be to interview them, but then anonymise and write them up as a series of blog entries rather than have a series of published videos.
- marcamillion 16y agoI hear you liedra, but I respectfully disagree. I am sure there are many others that would be interested in learning their stories too. Who knows, maybe one of them might go viral and it can change their lives. Who knows? It would be kinda selfish to hear their stories and not share them, don't you think?
- liedra 16y agoSure! This is why I suggested writing them up :) But I think it's also very important to respect the people you're interviewing. They're a vulnerable group for a reason, and you need to take particular care with vulnerable people. Here are some useful articles on the subject: * http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/social_sciences/report-60656.html http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/social_scienc... (homeless young people suggest that offering cash incentives is not a good way to go about research) * http://www.homelesshub.ca/(S(yoldjoie4yd15x45fir1sn3t))/Resource/Print.aspx?id=48837&g=printtopic&t=2147483647&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1 http://www.homelesshub.ca/(S(yoldjoie4yd15x45fir1sn3t))/Reso... (a set of research guidelines for dealing with homeless people) If you really want to help homeless people out, share their stories, and contribute to improving their quality of life, you should respect that there are some serious ethical principles that you need to be aware of and keep in mind. Otherwise, all you're doing is "entertainment".
- marcamillion 16y agoFair enough, I will pass along these links to my friend. Thanks :)
- jag0 16y agoHi Liedra. I DEFINITELY take your feedback as it really is a perspective I didn't think about. As Marc mentioned the intent isn't/wasn't to exploit anyone for entertainment purposes. What initially wanted to do was raise people's awareness that homeless people aren't just all 'bums'. The best way to do this seemed to me to be to let them tell their story. I agree I could do a transcript version of their story but I feel like: 1. That would be far less engaging, and as a result far fewer people would actually see their story (less people read nowadays that you think) 2. The chances that people would SEE, understand and lend a helping hand would be less. Think about it, would Ted Williams have ended up getting that HUGE break if his interview had just been a transcript? I feel like video is a much more emotional medium and as such would engage viewers far more. However, the idea kind of transformed and I figured it would be better to interview ANYONE that people would find interesting and make them the offer. So by far most of the interviews will be people that are 'well off' that the public finds interesting. Thanks for the links btw.. very useful stuff that I hadn't stumbled across before!