Using Media Arts For Social Justice

   After watching the documentaries of Lesotho, I was very shock and started to know there are so many people who have same age with me are living in such tough environment. I realized that we have duty to disseminate social justice and make more and more people “start with us” to help those vulnerable people live more healthily and more safely. But how? For the contemporary, media is the best choice because its high speeds. Once information are published by media，almost everyone in the world can get it in several days. With popular use of Internet，the speed is still accelerating by times. It is no deniable  social justice is also advocated by some people or groups through media such as documentaries，public advertisements，music，Radio，TV Show，Newspaper and magazine etc.

Media arts make effects on social justice. Because of Media arts’ special glamour, people’s judgments are influenced gradually. A good guide in Media arts can make people enhance their qualities. In contemporary, people start to touch Media arts when they were very young. Branding exposure will through their lives all the time. Media arts pervade every aspect of not just their lives, but also the whole society.

《Start With Us》 by Prionnsias James shows us Besotho’s lives in Lesotho. They don’t have enough substance but abundant thoughts. They have many dreams and have strong desire to make their dreams come true. As an audience, I feel a little bit shock about this documentary that these people don’t lose their optimistic attitudes to their lives in such rough environment that Lesotho has the third highest HIV prevalence in the world - just under one in four people in the country are living with HIV. Also education there is also not very sturdy.

Many directors put their most efforts on public film and documentaries in order to make more people know more about vulnerable group and help most people realize many problems in society. One thing I'm concerned is that after watching these films, many people was shock, but just shock. And several days later, they will forget what has shock them. It will lead the media lose its meaning in some extends gradually. Will people become more and more indifferent about social issue because of common documentaries? When I asked James this question, he said that in his opinion, he thought it is worth to do. I believe other directors also think in same way.