Making Your Media Matter 2008 Rapporteur’s Report

• Making Your Media Matter ‘08 Podcast and Discussion Forum
• Recut, Reframe, Recycle
• Mapping Public Media: Inside and Out
• Fair Use Frequently Asked Questions
• The View from the Top: P.O.V. Leaders on the Struggle to Create Truly Public Media
• More...

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Mapping User-Generated Media Part II: Location, Location, Location

Posted by Jessica Clark on May 10, 2008

Here’s the latest in a series of media maps we’re featuring in the run up to the June 17 conference, Beyond Broadcast: Mapping Public Media: Linking to more than 700 sites, this map from the Knight Citizen News Network demonstrates the boom in user-generated online community news. From mtpolitics.net (“Conservative views on the goings-on in Montana”), to Blog San Diego (“Music, art and politics from California”), to MyMaineToday (a network of 470 town blogs that… more

UGC uses Hollywood archetypes to support Obama

Posted by Alison Hanold on May 5, 2008

This election season has seen a surge of commentary from the User Generated Content community, and Obama supporters have taken to comparing him to Hollywood hero archetypes. Below are some great examples of pieces that rely on the principles of fair use for their commentary in the political sphere. Here is a video titled “The Empire Strikes Baracky.” This video likens Obama to Luke Skywalker and Hans Solo, and positions Hillary Clinton as what is… more

Crowdsourcing censorship

Posted by Jessica Clark on May 3, 2008

Annalee Newitz—tech reporter and editor of a hot new sci-fi blog io9—has an interesting column up on AlterNet titled User-Generated Censorship. She writes: Here’s how it works: let’s say you’re a community activist who has some pretty vehement opinions about your city government. You go to Blogger.com, which is owned by Google, and create a free blog called Why the Municipal Government in Crappy City Sucks. Of course, a bunch of people in Crappy City… more

Recut, Reframe, Recycle

Online videos frequently quote copyrighted material without permission, in ways that could be entirely legal through fair use. But these works are threatened by anti-piracy measures that do not distinguish adequately between legal and illegal uses.

The View from the Top: P.O.V. Leaders on the Struggle to Create Truly Public Media

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the groundbreaking PBS documentary series P.O.V., the Center for Social Media interviewed several of those who have led the project through its last two decades on the goals, challenges, and the vision for one of television’s most productive sites for imagining and innovating the future of public media.

Public Radio’s Social Media Experiments: Risk, Opportunity, Challenge

This report analyzes the results of a survey of public radio stations and highlights the successes and challenges of integrating new social media tools into the mission of public radio.

Field Report—Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes

by Barbara Abrash, Director of Public Programs
Center for Media, Culture and History
New York University

This field report—the first in a series that the Center for Social Media will be producing in 2008—demonstrates how a social issue documentary film campaign that radiates outward from a PBS broadcast can serve as a test bed for innovations that support civic dialog and expand the spaces and practices of public media. Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes is a personal film that examines representations of gender roles in hip-hop and rap music through the eyes of filmmaker Byron Hurt.

The National Black Programming Consortium Technology Now!  Leadership Summit

by Barbara Abrash

Filmmaking and computers have come together. This is an opportunity for black people who have little power in the television industry. In a computer-based environment, everyone has a voice.
-Kevin Brooks, MIT Media Lab

Vlogs, iPods and Beyond: Public Media’s Terrifying Opportunities[PDF]

by Pat Aufderheide

The Graham Spry Annual Lecture on Public Broadcasting honors the founder of Canadian public broadcasting. This year, Center director Pat Aufderheide was chosen to give this prestigious lecture. Calling it ” Vlogs, iPods and Beyond: Public Media’s Terrifying Opportunities,” Aufderheide argued: Public media are blooming and evolving, but not necessarily within public broadcasting. If Graham Spry were around today, he’d be a blogger, and he’d be pushing for municipal wiMAX.

Click here for a PDF of the presentation.

• Centre for the Study of Global Media and Democracy
  The London-based Centre for the study of Global Media and Democracy brings together researchers from Goldsmiths’ departments of Media and Communications, Sociology and Politics. It hosts public lectures and debates, research symposia, and seminar series, building on existing research initiatives at Goldsmiths: the Unit for Global Justice, the Futures of News project (funded by the Leverhulme Foundation), and the Research Unit in Governance and Democracy.
• Public Radio Exchange
  A web-based marketplace for public radio pieces.
• NPR’s Bill Siemering “National Public Radio Purposes”
  In 1970, one of the founders and first program directors of NPR put together this mission statement that went on to define the network’s first daily program, All Things Considered.
• E.B. White from the New Yorker on non-commercial television
  This 1966 letter to the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television illustrates that the discussion on the future of non-commercial broadcasting is on-going.
• Public Television Affinity Group Coalition
  Headed by working Jim Pagliarini, check out this knowledge base on new trends in media usage and how media makers and distributors are meeting the challenge.
• The Kojo Nnamdi Show - PBS ombudsman Michael Getler and NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin
  On February 16th, before convening at the Center, Dvorkin and Getler spoke with NPR’s Kojo Nnamdi on the responsibilties of public media.
• Sundance Documentary Fund
  The Sundance Documentary Fund is dedicated to supporting U.S. and international documentary films and videos focused on current and significant issues and movements in contemporary human rights, freedom of expression, social justice, and civil liberties.
• OneWorld
  OneWorld aims to be the online media gateway that most effectively informs a global audience about human rights and sustainable development.
• National Minority Consortia
  Funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Minority Consortia function as developers, producers, and distributors of radio and television programming that appeals to diverse audiences and harnesses the creative talents of minority communities.
• LinkTV
  Link TV broadcasts programs that engage, educate and activate viewers to become involved in the world. These programs provide a unique perspective on international news, current events, and diverse cultures, presenting issues not often covered in the U.S. media.
• The Public Media Caucus
  A project of the Center for Digital Democracy developing a public process for discussing the future of public media.
• The Bill of Media Rights Campaign
  A grassroots group responding to media consolidation has written a Citizens’ Bill of Media Rights.
• The National Radio Project
  A nonprofit media organization that produces a weekly, syndicated public affairs radio program called, “Making Contact.” Making Contact is played on over 160 NPR, Pacifica, University, and Microbroadcasting stations all over the US and abroad.
• Free Speech Network
  Free Speech TV, which airs 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.
• 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!
• DocuSeek
  DocuSeek is a search site for independent documentary, social issue, and educational videos available in the U.S. and Canada.
• 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 such projects as Democracy NOW!, CounterSpin and a directory of 1,250 progressive groups online.
• Indymedia.org
  Where anti-globalization activists, community organizers and citizen media makers express their perspectives and respond to others.
• Local Voices Local Media
  A new online publication of Sound Partners for Community Health to showcase some of the best examples of what its grantees have accomplished. They also published Funding Media for Social Change.
• Prometheus Radio Project
  Where low-power radio activists mobilize.
• Independent Television Service
  ITVS programming reflects voices and visions of underrepresented communities and addresses the needs of underserved audiences, particularly minorities and children.
• Public Radio International
  Based in Minneapolis, PRI provides over 400 hours of programming each week, content that is broadcast and streamed online by its 734 affiliates nationwide. PRI’s programming is available on XM Public Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio. PRI owns Public Interactive LLC, public broadcasting’s leading Web services company.
• National Public Radio
  NPR is an internationally acclaimed producer and distributor of noncommercial news, talk, and entertainment programming. A privately supported, not-for-profit membership organization, NPR serves a growing audience of more than 25 million Americans each week in partnership with more than 800 independently operated, noncommercial public radio stations.
• Public Broadcasting Service
  PBS, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, is a public non–profit media enterprise owned and operated by the nation’s 348 public television stations. Available to 99 percent of American homes with televisions and to an increasing number of digital multimedia households, PBS serves nearly 90 million people each week.