Rix Multimedia Techniques on "Planet Advocacy"
Planet Advocacy, the magazine of Action for Advocacy, explores, in the cover story of its last issue, the increasing role of multimedia in advocacy, interviewing Andy Minnion, director of Rix Centre.
Action for Advocacy already have a history of working with both the Rix Centre and UEL’s School of Social Work as a result of past collaboration to deliver courses in Advocacy at the University. Advocacy is at the heart of the Rix Centre’s research, development, teaching and training. Andy Minnion, the Centre’s director uses the term "Multimedia Advocacy" to describe this specialist work for which the Centre has something of a growing reputation. In the feature the Rix Centre is described as the institution that is “leading the way in developing new approaches to working with people with learning disabilities through the use of multimedia”. For the feature Andy Minnion retraces the path of multimedia advocacy from its foundation “in the youth and community media projects ...of the 1980s and 1990s" in which artists and media practitioners worked with various marginalised groups to create media that would challenge stereotypes. Moreover, he alerts Action for Advocacy readers to some of the risks associated with multimedia advocacy; “some teachers and teaching assistants have other agendas and see multimedia as simply a way of developing a student Record of Achievement. The danger is that the advocacy element and student ownership of the multimedia work can be lost. Multimedia is a chance to bring in these person-centred values to other professions. This is an example where it is important that multimedia is a process, not a product”. The latest findings of the Rix Centre’s work and Andy Minnion’s research will be made available for everyone during “My New Media Life”, the conference organised by the Rix Centre that will take place at the British Museum on Wednesday 1st October 2008.
