The conceptual framework for this project is drawn mostly from the work of Peter Dahlgren who in his work on citizens, agency a

Who We Are:

The Collective Commons is an advocacy campaign that uses digital storytelling combined with grassroots organizing through forum screenings and an audience centered approach to development. Through the use of personal stories of those affected by homelessness the campaign seeks to reawaken and reframe the issue in the city of San Francisco, which has the highest per capita rate of homelessness of any major American city. There are 7,000 homeless people in San Francisco at any given time; some advocacy groups estimates put the number as high as 15,000. The issue has been kicked around city hall and on up to Sacramento but after decades and hundreds of millions of dollars, the city still has the dubious distinction of being the homeless Mecca. Decision-makers and third sector advocates have yet to come up with a viable solution; the simplest answer has been to throw money at the problem or attempt to build adequate housing despite the citys absurd zoning regulations, which to date has hardly yielded any progress.

The Collective Commons is committed to changing the perspective on the issue by getting out there and documenting the first-person perspectives of those affected, those on the street. From the hard-core and destitute, to street performers, to families living out of vans and shelters, to children alone on the streets and the enclaves, the project seeks to document seven different perspectives, asking those who live life on the street their take on homelessness in the city and what can be done. Thus far it has been politicians and advocacy groups and to date there has been little to no empirical progress.

Through using a mixed format of online and offline strategies the Collective Commons seeks to build a model for advocacy based on the perspective of those in need through the medium of digital storytelling that will result in seven compelling segments that will be distributed via online platform, to local and national news affiliates, alternative media outlets in both print and broadcast, as well as a DVD of all segments used to organize associates and members of the advocacy community in the Bay Area .It is the hope of the Collective Commons to expand the audience of the homeless dilemma, to reach people who do not consider themselves advocates or activists and to frame the issue as a matter of humanity and compassion. The Collective Commons is based on transparency and accountability, its website uses open source software open to all and as part of its mission, hopes this model can be used in other metropolitan areas who are facing the same crisis.

Conceptual Framework: The conceptual framework for the Collective Commons is derived from political philosophy, social theory and analysis, citizenship studies, cultural theory and identity politics. Its goal as a public advocacy campaign is action and organization around digital storytelling videos to create a new space for new kinds of subaltern civic practices. It is both about the politics of recognition and the politics of belonging. The scope aims to question norms pertaining to inclusion and exclusion, while addressing how the rights, responsibilities and identities of citizenship should be understood and accommodated.

The Collective Commons operates on a specific understanding of civil society that is situational, subjective and housed in a common understanding of collective citizenship. Our methods are based on associational relationships that develop social interaction between heterogeneous identities and approach conflict with productive and constructive methods. The civil society that the Collective Commons operates in is a realm of action, creation and meaning making that penetrates into all four dimensions of civic life; the civil, political, social, and cultural. Within these dimensions, we see differences not as insoluble problems but rather as points of departure for civic participation. In the past, many projects, organizations and state-run initiatives have tried and failed because they have served to foster separatism and difference where the attitude toward homelessness became one of tolerance and eventually one of indifference. The project is aimed at homelessness, which is not new; what is new is the method and the goal of penetrating a closed enclave and connecting to rights, liberties and policy-issues of a societal problem that affects all citizens. The Collective Commons is not based on abstract concepts, it seeks to engage a particular community to achieve tangible goals of re-awakening the humanity of the issue, redefine We-They boundaries and the politics of difference, to reconnect with shared values and cultural. The philosophy that drives the Collective Commons is an optimistic one that serves to mobilize and direct concerns for civic awareness from the private and public spheres.

There is a gap between mere association and membership and actually engaging the realities of certain socio-political situations, the aim of the Collective Commons Digital Storytelling initiative is to bridge this gap by providing a unique, first person perspectives that will evoke the shared values and experiences which bond people together. Indeed the digital storytelling format is in many ways a reflexive project, an ongoing process of shaping and reshaping the identity of the homeless in the context of pluralized social forces and cultural currents.Civil society interaction has evolved to unite the classic face-to-face association with the expanding technologies and opportunities for networking, but it is easy to press a button and donate or join a listserv, Collective Commons seeks to engage at all levels through e-advocacy and grassroots organizing around video.

Dahlgrens dimension of interaction consists of two aspects. The citizens encounter with the media: the communicative process of making sense of interpretation; and the interaction between citizens, between citizens and power holders of various kinds. It links mediated civic interaction via Internet and interactive digital communication with real, tangible action. The public sphere does not begin and end when media content reaches an audience, this is but one step in larger communication and cultural chains that include how the media output is received, discussed, made sense of, re-interpreted and circulated among and utilized by citizens.

Both the Sierra Club and the ACLU followed this model in 2005 with documentary outreach campaigns. The Collective Commons recognizes this as an effective and rational means to approach a situation and the goal of broadening awareness and inspiring action through the use of video and story telling to make an issue come alive while showing that the boundaries between the public and private spheres are in fact fluid, connected by all aspects of lived, personal experiences. We proceed with an audience centered approach to development. The impact of the video will rely on the framing of the issue that provides interpretations not readily available in traditional news coverage. During the production process, filmmakers can take advantage of survey research, focus groups, and interviews with stakeholders to craft stories that make the subject of greater personal relevance to targeted audiences.

Political scientist David Whiteman argues that a narrow focus on the size of the audience for a film, its box office receipts, or how the film might shape viewers attitudes or behavior misses the mark when it comes to understanding social impact.According to Whiteman, evaluations of impact should be broadened to include the entire filmmaking process, from production to distribution. Many films are not stand-alone products, but, as in the case of The Sierra Club Chronicles and The ACLU Freedom Files, are embedded within a larger activist movement. For the Collective Commons it will be about examining the videos influence within a particular socio-political context to understand how it can catalyze and reinvigorate an advocacy group and related associations. In this way one can see that it is essential for a video such as this to be directly linked to community forums and public screenings to create a space for alternative interpretations about the issue that is not available within mainstream discourse. Following Whiteman again, the video campaign is supported by the knowledge of the production and pending release in order to initiate responses and reactions from elected officials, stakeholders and other elites who will react to the building anticipation of the videos impact on public perception and coverage in local media.

Issues that play out in a fragmented media system must compete with other issues and choices. A video project such as this is likely to reach a small and particular audience on its own, but promoting community-based forums and targeting specific audiences in the overall development of the videos message can soften this selectivity bias. The cognitive map of the Collective Commons can be seen as embedded within the matrix of a large discourse culture that surrounds the issue of homelessness that influences activist groups, stakeholders, decision makers, and journalists throughout the stages of production and distribution.

Media Action Plan: OBJECTIVE: The objective behind the Collective Commons production is to motivate people to watch the stories and get involved in local activities, to learn about the issues surrounding San Franciscos 10 year plan to abolish homelessness, and to participate in grassroots advocacy online and offline in order to promote real change in the communities and people affected by homelessness. At the Collective Commons we are aware that one video may not have a measurable impact by sales or online views, which is why we must look at the issue networks surrounding the video and use that towards producing a second season where we take what weve learned, suggestions from communities, and the degree of change in the 10 year plan and factor that into to the next campaign. The Collective Commons seeks to create virtual and actual public spaces through cinema verite video to develop new kinds of subaltern civic practices unbound from institutional frameworks.

AUDIENCE: In the end, it must be up to the decision-makers in City Hall to revisit their current public-policy solution to the homeless epidemic. District Supervisors like Ross Mirkarimi and Matt Gonzales and Angela Alioto Chairwoman of the Ten year Planning Council, as well as Mayor Newsom represent the top tier of the target audience as well as state and city agencies such as Department of Human Services, Department of Social Services, and the Human Services Agency. The broad audience base is the network of nonprofit homeless charities in the city that provide education, resource distribution, and funding to shelters and services providers. Another main target audience will be the San Francisco Homeless Services Coalition and the Coalition on Homelessness, which will be vital in establishing networked connections throughout the advocacy community. Having identified the main target audience it is important to note that coalition forming around decisive action will have to be the mainstay of our civic engagement, which necessitates distribution of informational materials to the city-wide public that lets them know about the Collective Commons initiatives.

FUNDING & SUPPORT: While as of yet it is unclear if the Collective Commons will receive grant support the ingenuity of such an endeavor is that it can be produced on a limited budget. The question is, however not always about actual capital but human capital as well. The group will send grant proposals to the Ford Foundation, the William K. and Katherine T. Macarthur Foundation, as well Bay-Area producer Marc Smolowitz who has produced films such as Trembling Before G-d, The Weather Underground, and The HIV Story Project. Additional support will come from community organizations like the Telegraph Hill Dwellers Association who have a vested interest in re-engaging the citywide homeless pandemic. Guerilla advertising and volunteer canvassing campaigns will flank the production and outreach aspects of the action plan as well as solicitations of donations via the website as well under the campaign slogan: This is the face of your city. We must link with San Francisco Film Institute, the Bay Area Video Coalition, Media Alliance, the Film Arts Foundation, San Francisco Film Commission, San Francisco Film Society and SF Cinematheque to foster solid relations in the creative communities, which will be crucial for additional screenings and production resources. We will develop relationships with the Academy of Art, California College of the Arts, San Francisco State University, University of California San Francisco and other institutions to get student and recent graduate students who are either film students, or academics interested in social welfare and offer them internships, production credits, and where possible, academic credit. All of these target groups will provide valuable networking opportunities throughout the course of the project. This method will cut costs of not only technical resources but paid human resources as well.

NARRATIVE CHOICES: The video will be shot in a cinema verite style, which gives the audience a direct and emotional connection with the subjects on the other end of the camera; it situates them within the issue itself and frames them as part of the problem and solution. The segments of the video will profile homeless families; artists and street performers; children under 18; there will be a segment that profiles the local nonprofits, advocates and district supervisors who have given their time and money to helping towards a solution; there will be a segment devoted to mental health and medical support; there will also be a profile of the homeless ecology from the enabling policies at city hall to the foundational problems of drug-abuse and alcohol with a close profile on the citys 10 year plan. Narratives will be drawn from people I have developed relationships over the years in the beginning in order to gain trust in the homeless communities.

STRATEGIES & TACTICS: The Collective Commons is based in e-advocacy, but any online presence must be connected to offline action. Our website is where the videos will be posted, yet part of the campaign is about the process, and generating a buzz will be a preliminary goal of the project. Thus the campaign follows a two-tiered platform. Its about planning on the front end of production and using that to organize, organize, organize.

1st Stage: E-Advocacy Foundation- We must first develop collectivecommons.org and manage content with Drupal. The website is the cornerstone as it provides suggestions for content sections and tools to create an effective online presence. The website will begin with a home-page that provides the navigational aids, placement links for taking action and donating as well as sign up forms to receive updates and calls to action- following by About Us, Contact Us, and a Take Action Page which are self explanatory. In addition to these basics we will have a Collective Commons online press room containing news releases and press kits with campaign and associational information. Our Media Coverage Page will feature links to other online sources of media coverage for the campaign and related homeless information. Rounding out the main contact will be an Endorsement page with links to those organization and individuals that endorse the campaign with links to their websites, as well as a Donations page and a Calendar/Schedule of important events.

Additional Content:

GIS open source mapping software -serves as an interactive cognitive map to the key locations, people, and housing developments involved in the production. Users can also upload images, information to certain locations, tips to the production crew, or ways to get their organization on the map with the project.

Blog- those in the field and program directors will maintain a blog of daily activities. This will provide valuable traffic to the site through links with other community-based and mainstream blogs in the Bay Area.

Social Media- Collective Commons is on Facebook! As well as a Twitter feed for all those involved to post daily updates.

Podcasts: Weekly podcasts from directors and program coordinators as well as advocates from the outreach community giving praise to the project and raising awareness about the issue.

NewsMedia: liaison with local news media outlets: San Francisco Chronicle, SF Guardian, SF Weekly, SF Examiner, The Public Press, and other community focused newspapers. Create a buzz through blogs and social networking to pitch stories to local network television for potential news coverage.

Radio: We will liaison with local Pirate Cat Radio about project to build hype about launch. I will talk to my good friend KGO Radio Host Scott Lettieri for an interview and pitch him weekly updates to command valuable air-time.

Television: Use the Public Access TV station to public service announcements about getting involved in the project or about its launch. This will reach a key demographic of offline, below poverty line supporters. Finally at this state it is crucial to develop relationships with Link TV, Current TV and PBS.

2nd Stage: Launch & Outreach

When the video segments have been completed and post-production has wrapped the first order of business will be to post the video collectiveommons.tv as well as sites like You Tube, DoGooderTv, OneWorldTV, Link TV online, and Current TV online to name a few. In order to maximize our audience we will actively pursue news releases and public relations in the weeks building up the release. The next phase will be the organizing offline viewing forums and screenings of the film. To do this we will use PartyLaunch.com, which is a Web-based that promotes events, like house parties to its users. Also through website and listservs we will promote download parties:

community newspapers and blogs like the Public Press, Pirate Cat. We will release the DVD in

stream with the citys Films in the Park events and open each film throughout the summer with a segment, combined with handouts of DVDs and flyers in the crowds. Immediately following, we will distribute hundreds of free DVDs to local nonprofits, church groups, shelters, community centers and organizations, as well as sending copies to major media networks both local and national. The distribution of the video to city hall will be a major initiative as well. Using meetup.com and similar sites in addtion to our own networks, we will organize a press rally and subsequent march to City Hall where the subjects of the films and supporters of the video will deliver the DVD to District Supervisors and the Mayor himself, generating considerable media attention.

Intended Outcomes: As stated in the objective the goals of this project are to expand the awareness level and reinvigorate the cultural debate around the homeless issue in San Francisco. The intended outcomes are to reframe the current of thought in policy-makers, advocates, and the general public whereby homeless people are not seen as just derelicts, drug-users and drunks, but the problem afflicts entire families and children; put plainly that homelessness has a human face. Furthermore the message of the film and movement around it will call attention to this fact that homelessness does not exist on an island- thus we resituate a perception that has fallen into indifference that sees the homeless as but part of the city landscape. The call to action also incorporates the message that shelters are not dens of nefarious and sickly behavior and with the right approach can build on the good work that some of them have been doing. The main factor is to push the agenda by asking the individuals who are on the street the alternatives to throwing money at the problem. In the end, we want to change the current policy that enables homelessness rather than offers solutions.

Challenges & Limitations: Of course, a hypothetical plan works hypothetically. The main issue is the scope as determined by funding. However, I am confident that this project could be made on a meager bones budget without funding from major organizations but further associations with production companies like Brave New Films could be made possible with a successful campaign. Beyond that it is a matter of pushing a sensitive issue back in front of people who have been keen to ignore it for years without any real civic action. Given the sociological climate of San Francisco however, I think Collective Commons can create a buzz worthy attraction that will be based on style, content and vision.

Measurement & Evaluation of Success: Pending the success of this project it can be replicated and carried out at a grassroots level throughout the nation. The first indicator will be online activity on our site, using Google Analytics and Woopra as well as measuring You Tube downloads and other similar sites, potential viewers from broadcasts on Link TV and Current TV as well as PBS. Also, membership in local community organizations, monitoring of news media that covers the event and of course whether or not policy-measures are taken and the 10 Year Plan is reintroduced as of immediate importance on the City Hall docket.

At-a-glance: Faces of the City

Length: 7 episodes, 10 minutes each

Format: mini-DV and super 8

Credits:

Executive Producer: Marc Smolowitz

Director: Samuel Chapman

Cinematography: Local cinematographers, Film School Students and graduates.

Production Budget: $50,000

Production Funder: Ford Foundation, Macarthur Foundation.

Promotion Outreach Budget: $10,000

Year Produced: 2011

Website: collectivecommons.org / collectivecommons.tv

Distribution & Outreach

Broadcast on Link TV via satellite and digital cable to 28 million potential views.

Potentially 10s of thousands of Downloads from Google.Docs; LinkTV.org, CurrentTV.com, You Tube, DoGooder, OneWorldTV, Collectivecomons.tv

500-1000 DVDs distributed free to individuals and organizations.

Copies Sold through CommonCollective.org

100s of local screenings and events. (Films in the Parks Series)

The Collective Commons

Digital Storytelling Campaign 2011

The Faces of the City: A Street Narrative

Samuel James Chapman

Civil Society, Governance & Communication

Dr. Kate Coyer

Dept. of Public Policy

Central European University

April 9, 2010

The Collective Commons

PRESENTS

The Face of The City:

A Street Narrative

movies

in the park

Date: June 6, 2011

Location: Washington SQ: North Beach SF,CA

8:8:30 p.m.

Come and see the first neighborhood screening of THE FACE OF THE CITY: A STREET NARRATIVE in Washington Square Park in North Beach. Meet the filmmakers, producers and storytellers.

Cover art by Marco Sassone, 1994; Home on the Streets.

http://www.sfhsc.org/

Dahlgren, P.(2008) Media and Civic Engagement. New York: Cambridge University Press. p 2.

Civil: aims to guarantee the basic legal integrity of societys members.

Political: serves to ensure the rights associated with democratic participation.

Social: addresses the general life circumstances of individual.

Cultural: the rights to have ones own traditions and language, as well as a series of rights that particularly link up with both the common good and minority needs in relation to the modern media.

Ibid. Dahlgren.

Dahlgren, P.(2008) Media and Civic Engagement. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Edwards, M (2005) Civil Society, the encyclopedia of informal education, www.infed.org/association/civil_society.htm

democracy resides in ultimately with citizens who interact with each other and also interact with power-holders of various kinds

Dahlgren, P. Media and Civic Engagement. New York: Cambridge University Press. p 8.

Hirsch, Karen.(2007) Documentaries on a Mission: How Nonprofits Are Making Movies For Public Engagment. Ford Foundation. American University.

Whiteman, D. (2004). Out of the Theaters and Into the Streets: A Coalition Model of the Political Impact of Documentary Film and Media. Political Communication.p5170.

Hirsch, Karen.(2007) Documentaries on a Mission: How Nonprofits Are Making Movies For Public Engagement. Ford Foundation. American University.

Ibid Hirsch.

The San Francisco Plan To Abolish Chronic Homelessness: http://www.ich.gov/slocal/plans/sanfrancisco.pdf

The importance of professional networking is key. I know Marc Smolowitz from my days with The San Francisco Public Press, he is a valuable resource and actively pursues and promotes projects like The Face of the City.

HYPERLINK "http://miab.tacticaltech.org/" http://miab.tacticaltech.org/ / http://www.informationactivism.org/

Chandler, A. (2007). Click Here For Change: Your Guide to the E-Advocacy Revolution. Community Technology Foundation, CA. pp 20-22

ibid Chandler

Pirate Cat Radio is a studio, performance space and community asset located at 2781 21st Street, San Francisco. We provide a 24/7 program stream accessible on on the web by individual listeners. http://www.piratecatradio.com

http://www.curvo.com/presents/scottlettieri.html

Spin Project: Strategic Communications Planning. (April 2009): https://spinproject.rdsecure.org/article.php?id=113

Thanks to SF Chronicle reporter Kevin Fagan and photographer Brant Ward for this special report:www.sfgate.com/homeless/

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