Daily Inspiration Quote by Ben Edwards

There is a quiet provocation in calling “Community Video” inherently participatory: it’s a pushback against the default idea that video is something made by professionals for passive audiences. Ben Edwards frames the medium less as a product and more as civic infrastructure. The intent isn’t to celebrate video’s creativity in the abstract; it’s to insist that the camera can be redistributed like a microphone at a town hall, turning spectators into stakeholders.

The phrasing “enable communities” carries a double edge. On one hand, it’s optimistic and practical: give people tools, training, and access, and they can document their own realities rather than be filtered through outside institutions. On the other, it hints at a history of being dis-enabled: communities that have been talked about, reported on, or stereotyped without being heard. “Amongst themselves” matters as much as “with others.” It signals that the first audience is internal, about strengthening bonds, building shared memory, and hashing out disagreements before seeking validation from outsiders.

As an entertainer, Edwards is implicitly rewriting what entertainment is for. The subtext is that video isn’t only for performance or polish; it’s for participation, accountability, and presence. The context here is familiar: cheap cameras, phones, and platforms promised democratization, yet attention economics and algorithmic gatekeeping often recentralize power. “Community Video” names a counter-model: smaller-scale, purpose-driven media where representation isn’t a brand strategy, but a local practice of communication, on one’s own terms.