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
Policy Issues
Publications
Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics[PDF]
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.
Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use[PDF]
Documentary filmmakers have created, through their professional associations, a clear, easy to understand statement of fair and reasonable approaches to fair use. Download this useful handbook, written by veteran filmmakers to help other filmmakers understand some instances where using copyrighted material without clearance is considered fair use. Click here for the full report & here for a list of authors and endorsers of the Statement.
Digital Futures: A Need-to-Know Policy Guide for Independent Filmmakers[PDF]
Digital technology is transforming filmmaking. And policymakers are scrambling to catch up with the changes. What policies are good for independent filmmakers? What are the hot issues, and what are the positions that best support the creativity and diversity that independent filmmakers represent? Digital Futures: A Need-to-Know Policy Guide for Independent Filmmakers answers those questions with to-the-point answers.
Articles
Ephemeral for no good reason: the waste of documentary and independent films[PDF]
By Rick Prelinger
The wide availability of inexpensive and user-friendlier production tools has finally brought us closer to the long-deferred dream of mass moving image authorship. But while many (though not all) obstacles to production have crumbled, distribution problems are escalating.
Intellectual Property Issues for the Social-Issue Documentary Filmmaker[PDF]
By Shari Kizirian
Cultural arts journalist Shari Kizirian provides an overview of intellectual rights issues—copyright, trademark, digital rights management—as they affect the creative work of filmmakers.
Keepers of the Public Domain in Electronic Media: Keep It Up!
Keynote address by Pat Aufderheide
Keynote address at the annual convention of Alliance for Community Media, the member organization of cable access stations nationwide on July 10, 1999, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Related Links
- Human Rights Tools E-Library
This website offers a library of resources on human rights issues, from monitoring and fact-finding tools, advocacy tools and other essential resources for human rights work, to the top online databases for resources on human rights law, refugee law and humanitarian law. The page offers career resources and the latest headlines on human rights issues. - The Drum Beat
A helpful overview of kinds of evaluations by Jane Bertrand, with a frank assessment of their limitations, of strategic communications campaigns. The public health focus is a model for others. - Is Social Change Media a Delusion? California Newsreel at 30 and 2000
A contrarian view on the question of the social impact of media by Lawrence Daressa, one of the leading distributors of documentaries on race, working class issues and Africa. - Making Connections Media Outreach Initiative
Supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, many of the film outreach projects that you find articles and case studies about above are part of national campaigns organized as part of the Making Connections project. On the left are a list of the national campaigns. - Outreach Extensions
Founded by Judith and Ken Ravitz, Outreach Extensions specializes in national outreach campaigns. - Roundtable Media
A production company that specializes in Public Engagement Media. Check out the Public Engagement Media Center for more tips and resources. - Working Films
Working Films is a national organization that links independent documentary filmmaking with community education, organizing and direct action to support social, economic and civil justice. - National Video Resources
National Video Resources designs and implements projects that enable individuals and organizations such as public libraries, colleges and universities, and other non-profits to acquire and use independent film and video. - National Center for Outreach
An organization that supports public broadcasting stations with outreach for programming, including funding for outreach initiatives. - Active Voice
Active Voice is a team of strategic communication specialists who put powerful film to work for personal and institutional change in communities, workplaces, and campuses across America. Through practical guides, hands-on workshops, inspiring events and key partnerships nationwide, Active Voice moves people from thought to action. - Docurama
A distribution company for documentaries on DVD. Many of your favorite titles are available here.