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Up one levelCommunity Connect: A Forum for Civic Participation
The Center for Community Engagement (CCE) at the University of North Dakota has launched its 'Community Connect' website, an online forum for community members and university faculty, students, and staff to collaborate on local projects. The site is one part in CCE's ongoing efforts to document how participants create community content and to provide a mechanism for enriched civic communication.
MEC Releases New Report: Snapshot of Foundation Support for Feminist Gender Justice Media
The Media Equity Collaborative (MEC), a practitioner-led initiative committed to movement building of the feminist gender justice media (FGJM) community, continues to build on an SSRC grant for initial efforts to map the FGJM funding sector. The newest report highlights the integral role of committed foundations and individual donors in creating sustainable support for FGJM.
SSRC Releases Report on Barriers to Broadband Adoption
2 March 2010, Washington, D.C. -- The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) unveiled the study findings of the SSRC in its report, Broadband Adoption in Low-Income Communities, at an event hosted by the American Library Association (ALA).
A Multimedia Tour of Mobile Voices
Mobile Voices is an academic-community partnership between the USC Annenberg School for Communication and the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA) to design an open-source platform for low-wage immigrants in Los Angeles to publish stories directly from their mobile phones.
Revitalizing a Media Reform Movement in Canada
WACC Global and WACC North America team up with Simon Fraser University professor Robert Hackett and OpenMedia.ca to identify the building blocks for an emergent coalition aiming to democratize public communications in Canada. The collaboration was supported by a grant from the Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere Program of the SSRC.
Digital Inclusion: Working Both Sides of the Equation
Recipients of an SSRC Large Grant for collaborative action research in East Oakland, CA report on the creation of a new multi-media lab and wireless mesh network. Media Alliance and Dorothy Kidd address the ways in which effective collaborations can be formed between policy advocates and grassroots activists.
SSRC Essay Forum: Transformations of the Public Sphere
Accompanied by a mapping project called the Public Sphere Guide, a new essay forum hosted by the SSRC provides a platform for discussions around current and emerging projects on the public sphere, serving as a gateway to ongoing conversations around sub-themes of media reform, academia and public policy, religion, the privatization of risk and the public good.
Beyond Television: The Digital Transition of Public Access
Martha Fuentes-Bautista and channelAustin introduce new metrics for measuring the opportunities and demands faced by community access organizations in the transition to digital scenarios. Taking the case of channelAustin, the study highlights the diverse communities and needs served, providing action items for local decision-makers, strategic planners, and the access community at large.
New Study Confirms Cross-Ownership Leads to Less Local Content
Danilo Yanich, at the University of Delaware, examines a key FCC study on the effects of cross-ownership on local news content in television markets. Yanich finds serious problems with the 2007 study, and with the changes in ownership policies that followed. The project was supported by a grant from the SSRC and conducted in cooperation with the Consumer Federation of America and Free Press.
Future of Music Coalition Releases Study on Independent Music Airplay
April 29, 2009, Washington, D.C. -- Artist education, research and advocacy organization Future of Music Coalition (FMC) announces the release of a new report that analyzes radio playlists to determine whether the policy interventions resulting from 2003-2007 payola investigations have had any effect on the amount of independent music played on terrestrial radio. This project was supported by a Large Collaborative Grant from the SSRC.
NHMC Study of Hate Speech to be Released
January 22, 2009 – The National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC), one of the country’s foremost Latino media advocacy and civil rights organizations, announces an upcoming press conference, January 28th at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to discuss the role of media in hate speech and hate crimes. This research is supported by a Large Collaborative Grant from the Social Science Research Council.
Six Steps Toward a Stronger, More Transparent, More Accountable FCC in the Obama Era
Public policy should be made with robust, publicly-available data. Few would disagree. Yet in the last decade, federal policymaking in the communications arena has repeatedly failed to meet these two basic conditions: quality of data and access to data.
Press Release: Citizen Access to Democracy Hurting in Rural America
As an increasing number of participatory democratic processes assume access to modern, high-speed telecommunications services, are citizens in rural/remote areas politically disenfranchised by lack of adequate, affordable and equal communications infrastructure? With the support of a Collaborative Grant from the SSRC, Dr. Richard Wolff (Montana State University) and Montana Common Cause team up to answer this question of civic engagement.
Grantee Feature: Consumer's Rights and Internet Access in Brazil
With the boom in Internet use, the Brazilian government is re-examining legal and policy frameworks surrounding telecom services, including the debate around network neutrality in the US. With SSRC support, the Instituto Brasileiro de Defesa do Consumidor (IDEC) has tested the broadband Internet access of the three main service providers in São Paulo.
Grantee Feature: A New Model for Measuring Radio Audiences
Graciela Orozco (San Francisco State University) believes in the power of community radio to reach a wide audience. For stations serving rural or marginalized populations, how can we better measure their reach and impact?
Grantee Feature: Common Frequency Public FM
In 2007, a rare window opened for non-profit groups to apply for full-power FM radio licenses. Common Frequency and researcher Andy Jones (UC Davis) applied for an SSRC Grant to provide information about available frequencies to a wide range of non-profits and student groups. Working with Radio for People, their efforts supported some 200 frequency applications.
Grantee Feature: 'Migrant Voices' for Social Change
Sasha Costanza-Chock (USC) and Amanda Garcés (IDEPSCA) share lessons from ‘Migrant Voices', a participatory research project with IDEPSCA and the Garment Worker Center to develop new strategies for broad-based communication among low-wage immigrants in Los Angeles. Their current work, also funded by the SSRC, explores a new platform for mobile-based storytelling.
APCNews Features SSRC Grantee Report
The Association for Progressive Communications highlights the recent work of SSRC Small Grant recipient Abi Jagun, who investigated the unique case of Mauritius as part of APC's large-scale research project on SAT-3/WASC implementation in Africa.
Whose Media? Our Media! SPIN Toolkit Available for Download
Whose Media? Our Media! -- A toolkit to help media activists develop and successfully execute their own communications campaigns from the ground up.
Broadband Access Data Mischief
Highlighting the Benton Foundation's response to the just-released NTIA study declaring success for President Bush's universal broadband initiative. The study's reliance on FCC data that the FCC admits cannot provide an accurate picture of broadband adoption makes it worth flagging in the context our proposals to modernize and reform the FCC's data collection practices.