Real Communication With Audiovisual Means.

Author: Schouten, Dirk
Published: Nottingham, 1998
Source: http://utopia.knoware.nl [25.09.2003].

Abstract

"When you are dealing with books, looking at paintings, analysing papers, or studying films, you have a theory (a set of thoughts) which you set next to the text as you work. Or, to put it differently, you have a viewpoint from which you consider the book or the film", claims Dirk Schouten in his essay. Preconception, or theory, is always present, not only when consuming media but also when producing media. In addition, Schouten shows that audio-visual media create the illusion of presenting the truth: "a fact is considered to be really true when it has been on television."

Schouten, Dirk

Dirk Schouten is one of Europe's most innovative media trainers. He has worked as cameraman, editor and sound engineer for many of the Dutch broadcasting companies before studying at the Dutch Film Academy where he majored in 'Media in Social Processes'. Since that time he has worked as a media-facilitator for UNESCO (consultancy and media projects in Portugal, Austria and Nepal), at Leiden University (Dept. of Clinical Psychology), Erasmus University Rotterdam (Faculty of Business Administration), the Amsterdam Polytechnic (Master of Education), Nottingham University (MEd) and many others, varying from liberation movements in Zambia to universities in Poland and Slovakia.