There is a nice mention in the Cambridge Chronicle today about my co-workers’ project, NeighborMedia at CCTV. The article, written by Evelyn Ratigan is entitled, “Journalism project takes reporting to the backyard — literally.” Congrats to Julie Adler for the great press and all of her hard work leading this group of dedicated citizen journalists in the community.

“Since September, Cambridge Community Television has been training citizen journalists in digital media and providing a forum to discuss the issues concerning their neighborhoods. The first term of the program wraps up on Monday, June 16, with a presentation of the journalists’ work at 7 p.m. in CCTV’s Big Studio in Central Square at 675 Mass. Ave.

The station offered a series of classes and personal tutorials to a group of six Cambridge residents, teaching them how to film and edit documentaries, post blog entries and host television shows on the community network.

Adler said the program was a station-wide effort to expand the station’s online and television exposure by reaching ‘deeper into the neighborhoods of Cambridge.’”

Read on at Cambridge Chronicle online.

“This project will enable public access TV stations and community technology centers to use common tools to create web sites that enable the transfer of video between the web site and the TV station. Together, public access TV and community technology centers can engage disadvantaged communities in new media platforms. While there are thousands of public access stations and community technology centers country-wide that provide media education and equipment, they don’t share a tool-set enabling them to become part of a collective, user-driven, online media network.”

Read more at newschallenge.org.

Jason Daniels from Medfield Community Cable Access posted notes from the Alliance for Community Media Northeast Region Conference on “Migrating to a CMS.”

“The goal of this session is to get an Access center in the right frame of mind to begin the process of moving their website from a static html site to a dynamic (open source) content management system.

Below are the presentation handouts from ‘Migrating to a CMS’. Feel free to download and share. I would like to thank those that attended the session. If you have any additional questions and want to keep this dialog going email me at jdaniels (AT) medfield.tv.”

Visit Medfield.tv for additional links to content management systems.

My co-workers and I had a meeting today to discuss plans for our new website. Two important things caught my attention in thinking about how to frame the work we’re doing through our visual and semantic design.

First, visual design. The thing that sets us (community media centers) apart in a REALLY important way from social network websites (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc.) is our focus on the physical communities we serve. We need to represent that both in our stories and in our visual images online.

For example, the picture above from the staff page on the DCTV website shows the visitor that there are people involved at DCTV in a physical community. So, if you’re a worker at a community media center with a presence online show pictures of your access center and the people from your community. It not only humanizes the web technology that you’re using, but it also tells the website visitor there is a physical place and people involved that others can come to learn more about, learn from, and participate with.

Second, community media is about empowerment. Therefore, community media on the web is not about getting “users” involved. It’s about empowering people to become producers and owners of their own images, messages and meanings–not the ones told by somebody else.

One way that we can take back the terminology adopted from computer technology is to re-frame “users” as producers of community media on our cable access channels AND online.

For example, if a resident in a community signs up on a community media center’s website to participate in a conversation online (e.g., on a blog), they are producers, not users. If this individual is contributing positively to the public discourse on an access centers’ website, they are producing as a member of a physical community, not just simply using the website for individual needs alone.

By showing pictures of a community media center and the people involved on a participatory website and by re-framing users as producers online, community media centers can not only help to take back the discourse surrounding participatory media online (e.g., “Web 2.0″), we can continue to lead and innovate in an space that may soon become co-opted by a commercial Internet culture.

“Consalvo said the city could use the new Boston Neighborhood News (BNN) studio to film the announcements, which he envisions spanning topics such as education, voting and summer jobs.”

This would be an excellent use of a community media center to provide residents with locally relevant information using web video platforms such as YouTube. The access center could also share the content on its website, while inviting community members to be involved in the production process.

It might also encourage residents to work with the city to create a more democratic communication process through their involvement on such a project. In any case, it’s an interesting model that access centers might consider particularly in working with local non-government and non-commercial organizations.

Read the article online at MetroBostonNews.com

I will be providing an open access version of my thesis later in the week here on this site. It would be really great if Emerson College had an open access policy on Master’s theses. I’m secretly hoping that Emerson’s libraries, professors, and students as well might lobby for open access to student, and faculty, research in the future. The staff at Boston College libraries seems to take a similar position:

“BC’s dissertations are not yet Open Access (OA). However, it is hoped that this lack of Open Access will change and that BC’s dissertations will in the future be available to anyone with internet access.”

In any case, I look forward to sharing my thesis here on this blog and hearing from folks in access and beyond about the ideas presented in it.

3CMedia, the Journal for Community, Citizen’s and Third Sector Media and Communication published an excellent article, entitled “Community Media in a Prosumer Era,” by Community Communication Scholar Ellie Rennie (author of Community Media: A Global Introduction) in their December 2007 issue.

In her article, Rennie discusses the impacts of convergent media on traditional forms of “broadcast-era” media through her research on SYN: Student Youth Network in Australia, “a media organization and community radio licensee based in Melbourne run by and for people under 26″ (25).

She makes important distinctions between “user-generated” content (found on commercial websites, such as MySpace, Facebook and YouTube) and community media, such as public access television, community or “grassroots” radio, and other geographically-focused media.

The author adds, “digital divide aside,” what are characteristics that remain unique to community media as more individuals gain “access” to participatory media on the web? (26)

She explains that geographically-based community media enjoy added characteristics – beyond access – that allow individuals to participate in member-driven processes. These include, “open, participative” (25) functions that allow individuals in physical communities to take ownership within the organization and of developments regarding technology implementation and use (31).

Therefore, Rennie writes “a new research agenda for community media might include:

• The role it plays in supporting public information and engagement – in ways that are both similar and different from commercial and public media. (The Griffith University audience study is a useful starting point. See Meadows 2007).

• The contribution of community media training (and what theat means for the creative industries labour market)

• The changing status and role of third sector organizations” (27)

While the author recognizes a number of technological and structural challenges to implementing and sustaining convergence among broadcast-era community media, she writes, “community media provides a structure and method which can take amateur media to the next level” (31).

“Community media sector organisations are socially-responsive and proactive in that they cater for groups who are not otherwise adequately represented and develop technologies to serve identifiable needs rather than market gaps” (31).

In addition, Rennie finds “Convergence is encouraged within community media organizations which are open to people with different skills and interests, yet brings them into a shared culture and social world” (29).

Access the entire article online, available at the 3CMedia website. Thanks to Rob McCausland and Chuck Sherwood for the pointer.

I recently revisited the audio from the Alliance for Community Media 2006 conference panel, “PEG in a Shifting Media Landscape,” featuring Felicia Sullivan (moderator), Hans Klein (Georgia Tech), Susie Lindsay (Former Berkman Center for Internet and Society Fellow), Michael Eisenmenger (Manhattan Neighborhood Network) and Fred Johnson (Community Media & Technology Program, UMass Boston).

Listen to the audio (MP3)

The discussion is still quite relevant, particularly for access practitioners interested in moving into the online participatory media world but not sure exactly how to get started.

During the session, Susie Lindsay introduced a really interesting idea that I think is worth restating. She talked about how access centers with the resources to build community online around their work might consider moving into the role of online digital media moderators.

For example, a community media center with resources might designate staff time to find good locally relevant stuff online that may be of interest to others in their physical community. This could do two things:

First, it could highlight online content (Creative Commons or other open access licensed blog posts, audio, video, photos, etc.) from people who may not be involved with the access center – as an outreach tool.

Second, it could help transform a community media center into a trusted source (aggregator) online where individuals in a geographic community (or beyond) could go to find digital media of interest to others in their community.

An alternative might be to open source the model.

Meaning, that members within the community could volunteer their time – particularly younger or other web saavy folks – and submit ideas to a point person (staff) at the community media center. This might also create a scenario where individuals could take ownership of finding stuff online, that might even lead to content that could be aired on the cable channel. In many ways this is very similar to Denver Open Media’s model:

“YOU use the equipment, YOU create the shows, YOU provide feedback as viewers, and YOUR votes determine the broadcast schedule . . . “

The other really valuable point that Susie made was looking to youth to serve as digital media trainers at community media centers. Because youth are quite saavy online (See danah boyd’s “Why Youth Heart Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life” PDF and her other work) this would be a great way to create training programs for others in the community, particularly adults, parents and others who may be less experienced in the online world.

There are lots of other great points mentioned by all of the panelists. That is why I definitely recommend that folks take another listen to the audio.

As a side note, it’s really unfortunate that the ACM Boston 2006 conference website is no longer up and running. It was such a wonderful resource. I hope there is a way that the website can find another home somewhere else online.

From Community Television of Santa Cruz:

“a parody of the I’m a Mac/I’m a PC ad depicting the differences between Community Television and corporate media. The actors are Jeff Dinnell and Joe Petersen.”

Given that community in virtual space is also based on the community in physical space, and the two types of community are closely related to each other, we need to review the existing community studies comprehensively in order to understand the “online” community as well as the “offline” community. (4)

In his Networked Community Communication Model, Nah explains that from this approach “linkage among structure, agent, and computer network can create and expand the concept of community from local based community to global community and integrates them into networked communication environment” (24).

Nah’s model is particularly helpful in looking at the community media center as a specific geographic location within which to study community in a way “in which all kinds of communication pattern are integrated and coexisted” (24).