June 1, 2007Newsletter

As summer begins the Center has a full schedule. Check out the Events section below for details on the 2007 SILVERDOCS Conference, where the Center is involved in several activities. At Silverdocs, we're releasing our newest report, The New Deal 1.5, charting the latest media trends for filmmakers. This month we're also proud to showcase three new films, tools for media literacy for a participatory era. We also have reports from the International Communication Association conference in San Francisco, the Internet and Society conference at Berkman Center, and the American Marketing Association conference. Have a wonderful summer - we'll be back in August with a full line- up of events for your fall calendar!

The Future of Real - Engaging New Audiences
June 14, 3:45-5:00 pm
Discovery World Headquarters, Silver Spring, MD

This panel at the Future of Real 2.0 conference at SILVERDOCS 2007 examines solutions to issues of digital access and divide.
For more information, visit our website.

Filmanthropy - Creative Financing & Maverick Marketing for Documentaries
June 15, 11:30 AM-1:00 PM
Discovery World Headquarters, Silver Spring, MD
The Center partners with OneWorld in this panel discussion, where representatives of several of the Center's partners in the Ford Foundation's Future of Public Media project will also speak on other panels, as well as Larry Kirkman, Dean of the School of Communication at American University. Look for POV's Cynthia Lopez, Gillian Caldwell of WITNESS and others at the events! For more information, visit our website

DocAgora - The Future of Documentary
June 15, 2:30-5:30 pm
Discovery World Headquarters, Silver Spring, MD

DocAgora continues at the 2007 SILVERDOCS Conference. This interactive, high-profile round-table discussion brings together public media stakeholders to "open a conversation on new forms, new platforms and new ways of financing creative, authored and socially-engaging documentary content. Visit our website for more information.

User Rights at Risk in Video and Film: Issues for Librarians Interested in Copyright Law and Fair Use
June 22
At the American Library Association's annual conference, the Center for Social Media and the Washington College of Law are cosponsoring a workshop: "User Rights at Risk in Video and Film: Issues for Librarians Interested in Copyright Law and Fair Use." The ALA's Video Roundtable organized the event, which draws together experts on copyright law and librarians grappling with copyright realities in the field.

June 22
2pm-6pm
American University, Washington College of Law, Washington DC.
4801 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Room 603
View the press release for more information.

Fair Use and Media Literacy
June 24
Look for the Center's focus on media literacy and fair use at the Alliance for a Media Literate America's 2007 National Media Education Conference, June 23 - 26. On June 24, Washington College of Law's Peter Jaszi and the Center's Pat Aufderheide, along with Renee Hobbs of Temple University, will be discussing how copyright law impacts the creation of both media and concepts to teach media literacy for a participatory media era.

Read more »

New Tools for Independents and Public Broadcasters!
On June 12, the Center for Social Media will release its most recent tool for independent producers and public broadcasters struggling to master the realm of online distribution! The New Deal Version 1.5: Monetizing and Mission is the Center's annual report on the nuts and bolts of digital distribution deal- making. Curious about who's making these deals? Average percentages for independent filmmakers? Average license periods? All of this and more in this highly-anticipated new publication. The New Deal Version 1.5: Monetizing and Mission debuts at SILVERDOCS next week - but check back here on June 18 for a free printable version! Read more!

New Media Literacy Videos Now Online!
Over this last school year, six American University School of Communication students and the Center for Social Media teamed up with MIT's New Media Literacy project to create three video exemplars. At the Center, the project was co-lead by SOC's Maggie Burnette Stogner and SIS's Celine-Marie Pascale. These videos are intended to help educators explore the skills needed to create new media with their students, and to be used as models to help students create their own exemplars. To find out more about MIT's project, visit their website here.

The three videos were shown at MiT5, MIT's bi-annual conference on technology and culture, and you can watch them all on the Center's site here. The exemplar topics varied widely, and are extremely interesting! Yi Chen and Gbenga Idowu teamed up to produce a "making- of" documentary on a film produced for Maryland Public Television by American University's Environmental and Wildlife Production class; it's called Anacostia River Project. Adam Enatsky and Paul Kim produced an informative and funny video called "How Not to Make a Documentary." Their video profiles documentary filmmaker and cultural worker Louis Massiah, while at the same time chronicles pitfalls novice doc filmmakers should avoid. Michael Miller and Maura Ugarte from the CSM co-produced a documentary on Appalshop's innovative community media project, Holler to the Hood. We hope you enjoy them, and please let us know what you think!

American Marketing Association conference - Marketing and Public Policy
The Center for Social Media and OneWorld came together at this year's AMA Conference to lead three panel discussions addressing issues in public media. The series, Changing Concepts of "the Public" in Public Policy examined the work that is being done in developing a framework for monitoring and measuring the implications and impact of marketing of a changing public sphere, in light of new digital technologies. The series consisted of two discussions:

• Mapping Publics Emerging Around Public Media Projects: Developing a Theoretical Framework
  Center Fellow Katja Wittke presented current work of the Future of Public Media project, in which CSM researchers are experimenting with ways to assess public media projects and, more generally, track the development of publics around these projects.
• Connecting Nonprofits with their Publics: New Approaches to Engagement
  Stephanie de Chassy of OneWorld presented case studies illustrating how NGOs can bring individuals together to network, collaborate and learn from each other. OneWorld has used technology to expand the view of the public for nonprofits and to help them engage with new audiences in a more compelling and effective manner.

Check out our News from the Future of Public Media blog for more about the conference.

Reports from the International Communications Association
At the International Communications Association annual conference --thousands of communications scholars from all over the world! -- the Center got to showcase recent research. Katja Wittke reports on our interim results in the first work of our new Mapping Public Media research project. (Mapping Public Media, to be led by CSM research fellow Jessica Clark, will explore ways to describe, conceptualize, track and evaluate new platforms for media for public knowledge and action.) And Pat Aufderheide describes a panel on fair use and media literacy.

Media That Matters!
ArtsEngine recently hosted its Seventh Annual Media That Matters Film Festival in New York City. Sixteen inspiring new short films were selected for this year's event. The Center for Social Media was thrilled to present this year's Fair Use award to The Apollos by young filmmakers Nick Parker and Jazmin Jones.Read more>>

How Documentary Filmmakers Overcame their Fear of Quoting and Learned to Employ Fair Use
A Tale of Scholarship in Action, this article appeared in the International Journal of Communication, Vol 1 (2007). The article examines the Untold Stories research project, which expanded freedom of expression in the field and has broad implications for scholars working on popular culture. Fair use, the project revealed, becomes far more useable when creative and scholarly communities collectively assert and publicize their expectations for fair use. To read the full article, click here.

Universities in the Digital Age - Copyright at the Berkman Conference
The Berkman biannual Internet & Society conference this year was a chance to brainstorm about the university in a digital age. While industry representatives wanted universities to put their emphasis on stopping peer-to-peer music and video activities by students (they nibble away at media companies' profit models), university librarians, administrators, scholars and teachers by and large thought the emphasis should be elsewhere. They wanted it to be on how academic freedom can best be expressed in a digital era. One sore spot: copyright confusion about the quoting of copyrighted material. Read more>>

Read the Transcript of the Ask The Experts Online Q&A on Fair Use!
Ask the Experts!

Ever wonder if you can use a photo you took at the march or a clip mentioning CNN on YouTube? Whether you are a blogger, a photographer or a filmmaker, it is not always clear where your freedom to use content publicly might be legally questioned. When it comes to using copyrighted material, you have more rights than you think.

OneWorld joined with the Center for Social Media at American University to co-host an online dialogue with Patricia Aufderheide, Director of the Center for Social Media, and Maura Ugarte, Graduate Associate at the Center.

Go to OneWorld.net for the transcript of the Q&A..

Read more about the online forums on our Copyright and Fair Use blog!

Unauthorized: The Copyright Conundrum in Participatory Video
Suppose you're running an online video platform, and people start uploading video that uses other people's work. How should unauthorized use of other people's work be treated in this new environment?

Last month, the Center for Social Media and American University's law school brought together executives from online video platforms in both commercial and noncommercial media with lawyers and scholars, to discuss how to manage unauthorized use. The group found alarming recent moves to create automated "bot" services to hunt down and eliminate copyrighted material; after all, many unauthorized uses are entirely legal and fair. Stamping out all uses of copyrighted material is also stamping out new creativity. The group endorsed more education of users around fair use and their ability to challenge takedowns, and recommended developing best-practices standards for online services that act as gatekeepers for the Youtube generation of media makers.

The group's conclusions are now available here.

Your Fair Use Questions Answered - Demystifying Fair Use
The Center is participating in an online discussion about fair use and documentary film with D-Word, the online documentary forum. Visit D-Word to submit your questions by June 8 and to join the discussion.

Read more »

Beyond Broadcast: WIFV Weds., June 6
So - you can't get into Discovery or National Geographic. BET and CSPAN aren't hiring you. And you're not a TV journalist. Then what else is out there? PLENTY!! Find out the many varities of production being made right here in DC at WIFV's June Wednesday One - Beyond Broadcast.

Our panel will share their creative niches, how they've managed to stay in this business for over 20 years, how they work on tight budgets, and what's next-plus much more.

Featuring prominent members from WIFV's Advisory Board and corporate sponsors: Michal Carr, Robin Smith, Susan Branch Smith, Rosemary Reed, and Tim Lorenz will show their work and talk about what worklife is like - beyond broadcasting. Pauline Steinhorn will moderate.

Date(s): Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: Interface Media Group 1233 20th Street, NW First Floor Washington, DC
Free for WIFV members; $15 all others

Dupont Circle SOUTH Metro
Email: membership@w ifv.org
RSVPs appreciated

Freedom of Expression: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property is a provocative and amusing documentary that explores the battles being waged in courts, classrooms, museums, film studios, and the Internet over control of our cultural commons. Based on Kembrew McLeod's ALA award-winning book of the same title, this documentary charts the many successful attempts to push back against the assault by overzealous copyright holders. Freedom of Expression is an essential tool for educators, activists, filmmakers, students, artists, librarians, and more.

Featured interviews include: Lawrence Lessig (Stanford Law professor and founder, Stanford Center for Internet and Society), Wendy Seltzer (Berkman Center Fellow, Harvard Law), James Boyle (Duke Law professor), Carrie McLaren (journalist, activist, and curator of the Illegal Art Exhibition), Siva Vaidyanathan (NYU Communication professor), Mark Hosler (co-founder of the sound collage group Negativland), Marjorie Heins (founder, Free Expression Policy Project), Nelson Pavlosky (student, co-founder of the national student activist organization, Free Culture), Pat Aufderheide (Communication professor, American University and co-director, the Center for Social Media), and Sut Jhally (Executive Director of the Media Education Foundation).

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc (IRE) - Joining Investigative Reporters and Editors!
IRE is a grassroots, non-profit organization and a top promoter of journalism education. IRE strives to promote new techniques and tools for students and professional journalists to become better reporters through seminars, workshops, boot camps, and newsroom training. IRE teaches the skills that employers are looking for, and IRE has a network of journalists who can help you get that job.

For more information, please visit IRE's Web site at www.IRE.org/ membership. Take advantage of this opportunity and get a head start on your future!

The ACLU Stand Up For Freedom Contest!
Submit your podcast or PSA!
For more information, visit the website. Deadline: July 4, 2007!