Research

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1+1=3

massimedia is

All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.

McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage (1967)

Because of how media endlessly re/shape our daily interactions we are dramatically evolving as a species and as single human beings, in both our physicalities and thinking process. For instance, presbyopia is increasingly affecting young generations and not only mature people, and this is in direct relation to the intense use of mobile phones. To me, McLuhan managed to see the extent to which media would thoroughly redefine the human being: media indeed “work us over completely” again and again.

Interestingly enough, it was a media event that defined my university choice, as I enrolled at the University of Oriental Cultures of Venice (Italy) because of the 1991 Gulf War. Let me clarify what I mean: before Saddam Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait in the August of 1990 the Iraqi leader had been the best friend and a solid ally to both the US and the URSS. The day after the occupation of Kuwait, he had turned into their worst enemy, yet the man had already proven what he was: his representation had changed while the reality had been consistently the same for decades.

I studied Arabic and Persian precisely to build my research skillsets and intellectual competencies to research the space between the real and its representations. I have since extensively researched politics and cultures before and after the digital revolution, from the MA degrees to my PhD and Post-Doc. Alongside, I have worked in a wide variety of roles to learn the various ‘grammars’ of communication. I have been a Radio speaker for the Iranian State TV and Radio, Head of communication policies for an Iraqi NGO, written for newspapers and magazines and published my photographic work in daily news outlets as well as long-term projects.

Research is the backbone of my professional activities: it is the exploration and review of the practices, processes and frameworks through which I R&D media forms of communication to turn them into impactful storytelling. In other words, research empowers me to creatively and strategically experiment with today’s formats of storytelling. For instance, in my Tentmakers of Cairo project at the University of Durham (UK), I crafted a self-contained interactive platform on the Khayamiyya quarter of Cairo (Egypt) and produced more than 20 intertwined stories to look at the same reality from different representations.

By doing so, I engaged storytelling not only as a format of communication, but as a strategy to translate the real in representations: after 30 years, this remains the driving question for all my academic and professional choices.

impact

I love studying. I simply love learning from others how they have already solved personal, social and cultural issues. Research is all about this: relying on how experienced people confronted similar tasks to be inspired on how you could advance the resolution of the same, or a similar, issue. Research is the backbone to everything I have been doing as a professional and I cannot see my profession without using research as an impact factor.

Images are gaining momentum in the communication strategies of individuals, business and governments globally. In a sea of digital information, with images overfilling our abilities to make decisions, being noticed, even for a second, can make or break your message. Strong visuals with carefully considered aesthetics will propel your message to the widest possible audience. In turn, this will provide you with significant powerbroking potential.

I have been defining this approach in my PhD research to establish a solid foundations for the practical role of research as a key impact factor. I called my framework TIAS, which stands for The Image as Storytelling. TIAS recognises the centrality of media, and visual media specifically, in today’s world, and finds ways and opportunities to critically and consciously use images as strategic vectors for impactful communication.

Whatever your culture or community, the ability to successfully create/read ‘the visual’ should be at the forefront of any public institution or private enterprise. Visual storytelling, if handled with cultural sensitivity, allows you to construct a responsive image-based communication to be understood in today’s mobile-first global audiences.

My research teaches how to use and leverage the multifaceted qualities of the visual form as a sensible, practical and creative tool to augment your visual communication strategy inside and across the digital sphere. For instance, understanding the power of aesthetics to change the mood, tone or direction of a message means that you can tailor your output to influence your target audience implicitly, and consequentially change the world.

Education across Europe and the United States has been fostering a dedicated agenda of verbal literacy since the advent of the Industrial Revolution. However, since the early 2000s, the Internet Revolution seems to have altered, at an essential level, the relationship between words and images.

The visual dialectic that contemporary scholars argue for, is one re/rooting cultures back to a visual-driven centrality. Yet, there is a substantial difference between possibilities and opportunities. Indeed, having the possibility of shooting hundreds of pictures a day does offer the opportunity to consciously develop and promote visual abilities? In other words, does today’s mass production actually lead to improved competency or understanding? In turn, how to learn-by-doing better visual skills?

MIA

Images define our cultures and societies, anywhere and everywhere across the world. According to multiple estimates, images now make more than 90% of all digital data. Images serve aims as diverse as to entertain, influence or manipulate us. At times, images merely fill up unused spaces. In other occasions, they define our personal feelings and social activities. We tend to look at images without thinking, particularly so today because of their abundance, and, often, we take them for granted at a face value. I see therefore I believe. Current developments in the form of Deepfakes and AI-produced visuals challenge what images are, and what images want, to thoroughly question our idea of the real. As the visual form is immediate and omni pervasive, visual literacy is now more important than ever.

With MIA – the Meta-Image Application – you will actively develop your visual literacy abilities, and practically engage your skillsets, learning how to use visual literacy to empower your creative thinking, visual communication, and multi-cultural appreciation. MIA is sensible, practical change available for all to learn!

MIA offers interactive exercises for each lesson, to make you enhance your critical understanding and hands-on skillsets. Each interactive exercise will make you explore different approaches and, when activated, receive personalised feedback on your learning.

The interactive exercises can be conducted individually as well as in group, and results can be shared with a course tutor through the App Export feature. With the interactive quiz at the end of each lesson, you can track your progress, and self-assess your results.

Reflecting on your learning process is key to developing lifelong skills in any field. This is why in each lesson you are invited to critically review what you have done and learnt. This section can be shared with the tutor to facilitate a 1-to-1 session as well as a class discussion.

In short, MIA – The Meta-Image App – is a creative toolbox of active learning fully integrated into this hands-on platform, to develop your practical communication skillsets, and enhance your visual literacy abilities.

In parallel, I analyse how contemporary visual imageries are created, disseminated and eventually ‘validated’ by combining my academic teaching with my professional background. My extensive practical media background supports me in developing a hands-on and sensible approach to a truly multi-cultural and critical-led perspective on today’s forms of visual communication. Increasingly, this led me to profoundly question, reflect on and recalibrate what I learned during my stay in Academia.

...then consulting

A recent estimate suggested that, each year, more images are being produced and made public than throughout the whole history of photography prior to the advent of social media. Undoubtedly, the role of images has acquired an undisputed centrality in the communication strategies of individuals, business and institutions, and this is truly globally. In a sea of digital information being noticed, or engaged with, even for a second, can make or break your message.

This is the focus of both my academic research and professional practice. I began taking photographs when we would use film developers. I now continue to work both with film and digital equipments, getting my hands dirty with acids and binary codes. I endlessly combine research with practice to support my clients in using their imageries to the full potential.

Visual Storytelling leverages aesthetics, composition and colours to design eloquent and effective messages. Designing aesthetics as a sensible, practical and creative tool to change the mood, tone or direction of a message means that you influence your target audience, strategically. In so doing, visual storytelling becomes the tool to combine advocacy for your cause with the powerbroking potential of the visual for your digital audience. Hence, visual storytelling is not content in a form… Storytelling is digital form fit for the visual content.

Combining form with content, strategically, is what I call 1+1=3. The 1+1=3 approach acknowledges that combining form with content with a purpose delivers more than the sum of the two. This approach is the foundations of my consulting activities in the field of social justice (2018 – ILO HQ workshop; 2018 – BBC Arabic; 2018 onward – T.wai Institute), and my heart-felt commitment to mainstream gender equality policies, as per my teaching at the ILO (2017 – Gender Academy; 2018 – Media Strategies for Gender Equality) and for the Government of Kosovo (June 2019 to January 2020).

As a creative practitioner, I have been disseminating my photography across a wide range of channels, including art galleries, private collections and magazines. In 2017 I presented a personal retrospective of 20 years as a photojournalist in the Muslim world for the UN in New York.

Make itShow itMaster 1+1=3

massimedia is

research

impact

MIA

...then consulting

Make it Show itMaster 1+1=3!

Make it
Show it
Master
1+1=3

Make it
Show it
Master 1+1=3!