Scholarly Response: Digital Storytelling and the Flint Water Crisis

um-water-research-540x360This week, I found an interesting article from the University of Michigan-Flint regarding the topic of digital storytelling. The community of Flint, Michigan received over $100,000 in seed money to fund various projects in the clean-up of Flint’s contaminated water supply. In addition to long-term projects aimed at solving the city’s infrastructure, there will be funding set aside to teaching journalism and digital storytelling skills to Flint-area students during a summer class on environmental issues. Instructors from UM-Flint, UM-Dearborn, UM-Ann Arbor, and Genesse Early College will collaborate on the project.  According to Jeremy Allen at UM Public Affairs, “teachers will assist the students in producing digital stories describing their own and others’ experiences in Flint during the past months.”

With much of the mainstream media covering the presidential race, it’s hard to find any coverage lately on the impact of civic disasters like the one going on in Flint. Lead poisoning by a careless corporation is one thing, but lead poisoning as a result of lazy government oversight is another. Getting the perspectives of Flint citizens who have been impacted by this health crisis could give digital storytelling some greater visibility and credibility.

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