Publications
Newsletter
Subscribe to our free mailing list for event announcements, CSM news and our latest reports.
Feeds
Subscribe to News RSS feed
Subscribe to iCalendar
Social Media Distribution
Publications
Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics
Public broadcasting, newspapers, magazines, and network newscasts have all played a
central role in our democracy, informing citizens and guiding public conversation. But
the top-down dissemination technologies that supported them are being supplanted by
an open, many-to-many networked media environment. What platforms, standards,
and practices will replace or transform legacy public media?
This white paper lays out an expanded vision for “public media 2.0” that places engaged
publics at its core, showcasing innovative experiments from its “first two minutes,”
and revealing related trends, stakeholders, and policies. Public media 2.0 may look and
function differently, but it will share the same goals as the projects that preceded it:
educating, informing, and mobilizing its users.
Multiplatform, participatory, and digital, public media 2.0 will be an essential feature
of truly democratic public life from here on in. And it’ll be media both for and by the
public. The grassroots mobilization around the 2008 electoral campaign is just one
signal of how digital tools for making and sharing media open up new opportunities
for civic engagement.
But public media 2.0 won’t happen by accident, or for free. The same bottom-line logic
that runs media today will run tomorrow’s media as well. If we’re going to have media
for vibrant democratic culture, we have to plan for it, try it out, show people that it
matters, and build new constituencies to invest in it.
The first and crucial step is to embrace the participatory—the feature that has also been
most disruptive of current media models. We also need standards and metrics to define
truly meaningful participation in media for public life. And we need policies, initiatives,
and sustainable financial models that can turn today’s assets and experiments into
tomorrow’s tried-and-true public media.
Public media stakeholders, especially such trusted institutions as public broadcasting,
need to take leadership in creating a true public investment in public media 2.0.
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
Making Your Documentary Matter 2006: Report
In the Battle for Reality: Social Documentaries in the U.S.
What difference can a documentary make? This fact-filled report by Center co-director Pat Aufderheide, with many case studies of successful strategic use of social documentaries, answers that question. Funded by the Ford Foundation.
Articles
Socially Engaged Public Access TV Productions[PDF]
By Paula Manley
This paper defines the field of socially engaged media in public access television and provides a framework for how social media is being used in public access TV.
The Current State of the International Marketplace for Documentary Films[PDF]
By Diana Holtzberg and Jan Rofekamp
“This report focuses on the international marketplace for documentaries from the perspective of who buys and who sells them.”
Docurama[PDF]
Docurama, a leading distributor of documentaries on DVD, provides a market analysis of documentary distribution in 2004-2005, with trend analysis.
Related Links
- Impact of Uprising of ‘34: A Coalition Model of Production and Distribution
As much an article as a case study, David Whiteman examines George Stoney and Judith Helfand’s film as an example of a project that raised awareness about lost history. - Maximizing Distribution
A good overview by Peter Broderick of the types of deals and considerations that independent filmmakers should be familiar with regarding film distribution. - Docurama
A distribution company for documentaries on DVD. Many of your favorite titles are available here. - MediaRights
A community website that helps mediamakers, educators, nonprofits and activists use documentaries for action and dialogue. Enter a keyword and find a film to use and share! - Webactive
Part of the RealImpact division of RealNetworks, Inc., and provides web and streaming media services (design, development, hosting) for nonprofit and educational institutions worldwide. Its directory lists more than 2,000 organizations creatively using media for social change. - One World TV
A project of the Oneworld.net, which aggregates information from thousands of nongovernmental organizations worldwide. - Freespeech.org
Free Speech TV, delivered on the Dish satellite TV network and on some public access cable TV channels, airs primarily social, political, cultural, and environmental documentaries acquired from independent producers, and is beginning to produce and commission original content. - Independent Feature Project
Serves as a resources for indie makers on a variety of levels, including a film market. - New Day Films
New Day Films is a distribution cooperative for social-issue media, that invites membership applications from independent film and video makers with titles for non-theatrical distribution. They encourage diversity within the membership and within the content of the distributed media. - Without A Box
If you are ready to enter the festival circuit, Withoutabox.com just made the process easier. Information on a project is stored and electronically submitted, with deadline and call for entry tracking as well as press kit submission tools. Rebates on festival submission fees are sometimes available, and signing up for an account is free.