| EngageMedia | |
| Founded Date: | 2005 |
| Origins: | Australia |
| Focus: | Social justice and environmental video |
| Homepage: | https://engagemedia.org |
EngageMedia is an Australian not-for-profit Video for Change organization based in Melbourne, Victoria.[1] It focuses on creating social change through the distribution of human rights and environmental video, media and technology capacity building, research, network development and digital rights advocacy.[2]
EngageMedia maintains offices in Melbourne, Australia, and Yogyakarta, Indonesia, with other staff based regionally and globally.
EngageMedia was co-founded by Anna Helme[3] and Andrew Lowenthal in March 2005.[4]
EngageMedia launched a video-sharing site in October 2006 based on a Free and Open Source Software platform it develops and maintains, called Plumi,[5] originally developed by Dave Fregon, Andrew Nicholson, Anna Helme and Andrew Lowenthal.
In June 2006 EngageMedia collaborated with CandidaTV in Rome to put on Transmission[6] at the Forte Prenestino social centre. Transmission was a global gathering of free software developers and video activists developing online video distribution tools for social justice and media democracy. The event in Rome was followed up by London, Re:Transmission, in October 2006, and Vx:Mission Amsterdam in January 2007.
In May 2008 a Transmission Asia-Pacific (TXAP) event was coordinated by EngageMedia and the Jakarta-based Ruangrupa near Sukabumi in West Java. The five-day event brought together 55 video activists and developers from 15 countries throughout the Asia-Pacific.
In May 2010 EngageMedia launched a new version of the Plumi video-sharing app, developed by Dimitris Moraitis, Markos Gogoulos, Christos Psaltis and Mike Muzurakis of Unweb.me, and project-managed by Anna Helme, in collaboration with EngageMedia.
In June 2012 EngageMedia and WITNESS co-founded the Video4Change Network,[7] an alliance of video activism organisations from across the globe.
In 2013 EngageMedia collaborated with the MIT Center for Civic Media and Open Documentary Lab to investigate the impact of Video for Change practices.
In October 2018, EngageMedia launched a new version of the Video4Change network website.[7]
In February 2019, EngageMedia launched the Video4Change Impact Toolkit, a guide to creating impact video "designed for documentary or journalist video-makers, established Video for Change organisations, and nonprofit organisations that are using or thinking about using video to engage their communities".[8] The toolkit uses illustrations by Lachlan Conn[9] and was developed along with the new Video4Change site by Anna Helme.[10]
In November 2021, Lowenthal announced he would be transitioning out of his role as Executive Director into a position on the organization's board of directors.[11] Phet Sayo was announced as his successor on June 7, 2022.[12] The transition was completed in early September 2022, with Lowenthal joining the board and becoming a specialist advisor for the organization.[13] He is no longer listed on the organization's website as of August 2023.[14]