February 1, 2007Newsletter

Thanks to everyone who made the Center's third annual Making Your Documentary Matter conference such a great success! The speakers were awesome, but not more so than the amazing list of attendees. We're thrilled that people are blogging about it (and we're alerting people at our own Future of Public Media blog, and audio downloads of the panels are on the way. We're also gearing up for a busy spring - The Center is delighted to welcome two Visiting Filmmakers--veteran documentarian Doe Mayer, an expert on international entertainment education, and renowned cinematographer Haskell Wexler as our Spring 2007 visiting filmmakers. Also, we've just issued two new reports on the latest techniques that are helping to make documentary a powerful communications tool for social change. Look for them at Silverdocs in June, and before that preview them online (information below!). We also are grateful to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for its support of a new fair-use project.

Film Screening: La Sierra
February 8, 2007
Wechsler Theater, MGC 3rd Fl., American University
Part of the Best of INPUT event series.

Every year, public service broadcasters and independent producers from around the world gather to view and discuss the best work of the year at the INPUT conference. In conjunction with several Washington, D.C. arts organizations, the Center is co- hosting the "Best of INPUT" series. "La Sierra," shown at last year's INPUT, is an award-winning, Sundance- selected documentary.

Colombia/US, 53 min., documentary
Directors: Scott Dalton and Margarita Martinez
More than 30,000 people have been killed over the last ten years in Colombia's bloody civil conflict, in which left-wing guerillas fight against the government and illegal right-wing paramilitary groups. The documentary La Sierra explores life over the course of a year in one such barrio (La Sierra, in Medellin), through the prism of three young lives. Please visit our website for more information.

Visiting Filmmaker Haskell Wexler: Screening and Discussion of Who Needs Sleep?
March 7, 2006
5:30 - 8:00 pm
Wechsler Theater, 3rd Fl., MGC, American University
Academy Award-winning cinematographer, film producer and director Haskell Wexler will join the Center for a public screening and discussion of his film Who Needs Sleep?.
Please visit our our website for more information.

Entertainment-Education :Telling Stories to Change the World
A public lecture with veteran documentarian and author Doe Mayer, USC School of Cinema-Television
March 28, 2007
5:30 - 8:00 pm
Wechsler Theater, 3rd Fl., MGC
Please visit our website for more information.

Center Releases New Case Studies on Nonprofits and Media
The Center for Social Media has produced two new reports on the latest techniques that are helping to make documentary a powerful communications tool for social change. Preview them online today!
-Big Dreams, Small Screens: Online Video for Public Knowledge and Action
Learn from CSM research fellow Jessica Clark how popular commercial online digital video platforms, such as YouTube, GoogleVideo and MySpace, are being used to create, exchange, and comment upon information for public knowledge and action—and what their limitations are!
-Documentaries on a Mission: How Nonprofits Are Making Movies for Public Engagement
Read about how the Sierra Club, The American Civil Liberties Union and local environmental groups use documentaries for high- impact and action. This report by veteran journalist Karen Hirsch also includes an introduction by AU School of Communication Prof. Matthew Nisbet, an expert on new media.

Blogging and Making Your Documentary Matter
What a two-day extravaganza, thanks to the Ford Foundation and Surdna Foundation! We were heartbroken to turn people away, but are delighted that we've got ways to share the experience virtually. Look for the launch of audio podcasts, and video excerpts with a rapporteur's report from the conference by next Monday, February 12! Making Your Documentary Matter conference is also making waves in the blogsphere. What are your thoughts on the conference? Continue the discussion on the News from the Future of Public Media blog!

Docs and Social Networking at Sundance 2007
In her Future for Public Media blog entry, Center Director Pat Aufderheide discusses this year's Sundance Film Festival. Read about how this forum helps to move media forward! The entry includes updates from filmmakers and media organizations like Arts Engine.

Kat's Blog - Participatory Media in Action!
Those of us who got to go to the Center’s Making Your Documentary Matter conference met Katerina Cizek, the National Film Board of Canada filmmaker who’s creating videos in collaboration with the staff of a major public hospital in Toronto. Now her website has launched, at http://www.nfb.ca/filmmakerinresidence, so we can track the evolution of the NFB’s latest experiment in participatory media. Read more!

Public Broadcasters and Web 2.0
Last September, mega-station WGBH in Boston held a conference for public broadcasters about how to cope with the astonishing new world opening up in the land of Web 2.0. Now, reports and podcasts from that conference are available at http: //opencontent.wgbh.org/index.html. Read more!

Making Public Media, as Digital Destiny - a new book by Jeff Chester
Do experiments in new kinds of public media matter? Yes, according to Jeff Chester, the indefatigable dynamo who heads the Center for Digital Democracy. He has just issued a book-length manifesto for media reform, Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy (The New Press). Read more...

DocAgora (it’s spreading!)
DocAgora, which launched at the International Documentary Festival at Amsterdam (IDFA) in November, is becoming a feature at documentary festivals. The one-day event that features innovative and participatory strategies in documentary has just been accepted as one of the offerings at HotDocs in late April. The Center for Social Media has joined as one of the cosponsors and organizers, along with an exciting team that includes Canadians Peter Wintonick and Amit Breuer. You can catch a glimpse of the inaugural event at NFB’s Gerry Flahive’s blog, at http://www.hotdocs.ca/.

Yahoo and Copyright in Belgium
Read about the the latest challenges that Belgian newspapers and Yahoo face regarding cached articles. Share your thoughts on the issues affecting media worldwide.

Center Collaborates on Initiative to Expand Fair Use for Media Literacy
The Center for Social Media is collaborating with American University's Washington College of Law and Temple University's School of Communication and Theater to shape a best-practices guide to fair use for media literacy teaching. Pat Aufderheide, Peter Jaszi and Renee Hobbs are co-principal investigators. Many teachers and media makers, including many students, find themselves frustrated by expectations that they must license copyrighted work in order to show it--even when critiquing or analyzing it. Indeed, the practice of media literacy is often squarely within "fair use"--the right to use copyrighted material without permissions or payment. But too few people now know how the law applies to their own practices.

Documentary filmmakers had the same problem, and addressed it by researching their own problems and then devising a statement of best practices in fair use, with the help ofthe Center and the Washington College of Law and with funds from the Rockefeller Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

This project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation, follows the model established do filmmakers. Like documentary filmmakers, media literacy teachers will document their problems in quoting popular culture in their work. They will then devise a code of best practices modelled on that of doc filmmakers, reflecting their practices and concerns. Slated to culminate in 2009, the project will concern media literacy in the classroom, in curriculum materials and in media produced with the intent of producing critical thinkers about media and communication.

Do you have a story you would like to share about your frustrations when teaching about popular culture? Please write socialmedia @american.edu. Thank you!

Check out the Center's latest Fair Use Tools - Learning from Refrigerator Mothers
Understanding fair use made easy - learn from decisions made by Kartemquin Films when making Refrigerator Mothers. The Center’s latest videos feature clips used in the film under Fair Use and purchased clips.

Center for Native American Public Radio has repositioned itself as Native Public Media
Please visit their new website at www.nativepublic media.org.

BLAUFARB AWARD TO SUPPORT DOCUMENTARIES RELATING TO LABOR AND THE LEFT
The Jacob and Besye Blaufarb Video Library of the American Labor Movement has established a fund to provide assistance to filmmakers working on projects relating to the history of Labor, progressive politics, and American social history. It awards an annual prize of $5,000 to support post-production work. Areas of interest include: labor history, the struggle for immigrant rights, race and class, the civil rights movement, and the women's movement. For more information, contact: michael.nash@n yu.edu.

The application deadline is March 31, 2007. Awards will be announced before July 30.

MIT's Comparative Media Studies Program, Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Yale Law School's Information Society Project are co-sponsoring the day- long "Beyond Broadcast 2007" gathering at MIT on Sat., Feb. 24. For the second year, the event is trying to explain the way media is turn from broadcast to participatory. For background go to: http:// www.beyondbroadcast.net/blog

Expressing Your Issue in the Digital Age: How Technology and Internet is Changing the Media Landscape
A Dynamic Event for Socially-Conscious Present and Future Filmmakers, Writers, Activists and Leaders
Featuring Winning films from Film Your Issue 2007, representatives from FYI, Yahoo!, Jumpcut, USA TODAY, and Starz, (pending availability), followed by a screening of “Children of Men,” starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine, courtesy of Universal Pictures.
When: 7:00 - 10:00 pm, Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Where: Harold and Sylvia Greenberg Theater, American University, 4200 Wisconsin Avenue, NW, Washington, DC
What: How has technology and the internet changed the picket sign? What is the most effective way for you to add your voice to the public dialogue? Please join The School of Communications, Film Your Issue, and leaders from the film and new media industry for a dynamic panel and discussion on youth social activism in a new media landscape.
- Moderator: HeathCliff Rothman, Founder, Film Your Issue
- Larry Kirkman, Dean, School of Communications, American University
- Patricia Finneran, Festival Director, Silverdocs
- and leaders from Yahoo!/Jumpcut, USA Today, and Starz Entertainment
The panel will be followed by a screening of the film "Children of Men" with Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, and Michael Caine.