Center for Intercultural Dialogue

The Center for Intercultural Dialogue announces its third annual video competition, open to students enrolled in any college or university during spring 2020. Deadline: June 1, 2020, at midnight (east coast US time). Submissions now open.

 

This year’s competition asks students to focus on listening, as listening is how intercultural dialogue starts.

Listening gives shape to speaking, inviting other people into a dialogue…Our acts of listening, like all communication, are shaped by our cultural and individual differences. – Elizabeth S. Parks

Listening is what happens when people stop focusing on what they say or do, and start attending to what someone else is saying or doing. Without listening, there can be no intercultural dialogue.

Intercultural dialogue is the art and science of understanding the Other. – Peter Praxmarer

Intercultural dialogue can include international, interracial, interethnic, and interfaith interactions, but it is always active (people doing something) rather than passive (people thinking about something).

Faculty members are invited to discuss intercultural dialogue in a class, perhaps showing winning entries from 2018 or 2019, and to suggest that students produce very short videos as their response. Students are encouraged to be creative, show off their knowledge and skills, and have fun with the topic.

The top award winner will receive a $200 prize. And the top three winners will receive a copy of Elizabeth Parks’ 2019 book, The Ethics of Listening: Creating Space for Sustainable Dialogue, courtesy of the publisher, Lexington Books.

All award-winning entries will be posted to the CID YouTube channel, and highlighted on the CID website, LinkedIn group, Facebook group, and Twitter feed, through posts describing the creators and highlighting each of their videos. Perhaps most important to student learning, all entries will be sent comments from the judges. Past winning entries have come from Italy, the UK, Peru, Spain, Denmark, Hong Kong, and the USA.

In addition to the rules below, a list of Resources and FAQ have been posted, as well asReflection by winning students, which provides peer-to-peer advice. Contact Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, CID Director, with any questions.

Competition Rules:

1. Entries must be between 30 seconds to 2 minutes in length. Longer videos will be disqualified.

2. Entries may be submitted May 1-June 1, 2020. CID is not responsible for any entry that is misdirected, corrupted, or not received by this date. Judging will occur in June, and winners will be announced in July.

3. Submissions will be evaluated based on: originality, clarity, showing how listening permits intercultural dialogue, effective use of technology, and overall impact.

4. All part-time or full time undergraduate or graduate students (post-graduates for those outside the USA) currently enrolled at any university or college or community/ technical college/school, anywhere in the world, are eligible. If high school students wish to join in, they are welcome as well. Students can work independently or in groups. Given the topic, incorporating more than one viewpoint may be particularly appropriate. Ensuring that at least someone in the group knows something about the idea of intercultural dialogue, and at least someone has created a video before, should be useful.

5. Videos should be created by students, not edited and corrected ahead of time by their instructors. Students must submit videos themselves.

6. In addition to a video, each entry must be accompanied by a completed brief information form about the creator(s). This will be used as a resource in contacting winners, and then in sharing information about them on the CID website and other social media at the end of the competition.

7. By submitting your entry, you are attesting that you have the necessary authorization to use the images, audio, text, music, and any other content contained in your video. Please do not enter if you are in violation of, or uncertain of your rights to, any copyrights, patents, trademarks, video, music or other intellectual property. Consult your faculty advisor if you have any questions or doubts about the content of your entry. Online resources include the Documentary Filmmakers Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use and the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video; these and other such best-practices codes are available from the Center for Media and Social Impact.

8. Submissions found incomprehensible, inappropriate, or in violation of intellectual property rights for any reason in the sole judgment of CID will not be accepted into the competition.

9. Funding for the first prize cash award is provided by the Broadcast Education Association (BEA), one of the members of CID’s parent organization, the Council of Communication Associations.