Reparative Media: Cultivating Stories and Platforms to Heal Our Culture

Can producing stories and developing platforms to support people who have been harmed by multiple, intersecting systems heal those systems? In Reparative Media, Aymar Jean Escoffery argues that this is exactly how we repair our culture and heal harms from racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and religious discrimination: by reconsidering how we make media, how we connect through technology, and how we generate knowledge.

Based on five years of deep, complex work co-creating an independent alternative to platforms like Netflix and YouTube, the author reveals the process behind co-creating OTV Open Television to stream stories by diverse creators. The book shows that planting seeds for a more community-based media and tech ecosystem can also reform corporate systems better than so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, as the platform helped elevate creators on social media and in Hollywood at companies like HBO, Netflix, and more. Combining theory and practice, local production and global distribution, Chicago and Hollywood, the book paints a portrait of what a healing media ecosystem looks like--and shows how communal ways of knowing can cultivate reparative media, technology, and research that benefit everyone no matter how they identify.