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Send to friendBased in Hungary and Romania, the Black Box Foundation works to improve attitudes towards the Roma minority by helping them produce television programs for local channels. The Foundation creates production teams, trains them in video production, secures airtime, and sees that programs are exchanged between teams.The Roma minority is the primary subject of prejudice in Hungary and Romania. The general public’s overwhelmingly negative attitude toward the Roma is strengthened by the mass media’s portrayal of them in a context of poverty and criminality, and their inability to access the media has effectively left them without a voice in which to address their image in the majority culture.
To address the public’s lack of knowledge about Roma culture and daily life, in 1997 the Black Box Foundation began a project to train people in television production and to help them acquire airtime in which to inform local viewers, both Roma and non-Roma, about issues affecting their community.
The Foundation solicits applications, and from the chosen applicants creates five-person teams. As the teams are meant to be models of cross-ethnic cooperation, members are Hungarian, Roma, and Romanian. Foundation staff members first work to build trusting relationships with and among team members, discussing individual viewpoints, and addressing the sensitive issues that will be brought up in the program. Teams then participate in a training program in Budapest where, in addition learning the fundamentals of television production, they are able to consult with experts on minority issues.
During the last three days of training, teams produce their first films. They are then provided with a camera, lights, microphones, and other necessary equipment, which they use to produce their own monthly programs at local television stations. Team members act as writers, camerapersons, reporters, directors, editors, and presenters of the programs. The Black Box Foundation supervises and regularly monitors the project for six months following training. The Foundation negotiates with local broadcast companies to secure regular airtime for monthly television programs; production teams, however, work independently and are required to find their own resources in their respective communities. Completed programs are broadcast at the crew's local television stations, and are also exchanged between the teams of each country.
The Black Box Foundation has trained approximately 150 people in twelve locations in both Hungary and Romania. Outcomes among the production teams have varied. A number of teams still broadcast regularly on local television, and members of one crew were hired by a local station. Although other teams no longer broadcast on their television stations, they now use their skills and equipment to record the activities of their human rights organizations.
Although it involves a long and complicated process, the program has helped change the way minorities are viewed and treated in the region, reducing ethnic tensions and prejudices. It has also helped to show how human rights activists, with training in only the most basic video skills, may use television as a powerful medium for exploring and promoting discussion of human rights issues.
Edited 16 February 2003
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