I work on several media projects in addition to Saving The Sierra: Voices of Conservation in Action . What all these projects have in common is the model of partnering among a variety of community stakeholders to use media as part of the solution in addressing self-defined community issues. Over the past 10 years, I've been part of projects sponsored by the Benton Foundation , a national foundation whose mission is to articulate a public interest vision for the digital age and to demonstrate the value of communications for solving social problems. In fact, the design of STS has been influenced quite a bit by previous projects I've helped to pioneer in the public radio realm, and more recently in community media across the US. Benton has recently published a Community Media Scan of best practices that increase citizen participation in media production, governance, and policy.
You can download a PDF version of the report: "What's Going on in Community Media?" in which the Benton Foundation has sought input on key aspects of community media practice, with the goal of understanding how community media can be sustained, strengthened, and expanded. The scan research focused on four key areas of inquiry:
• What are the unique characteristics that distinguish community media?
• What makes media-community collaborations successful?
• What types of community media organizations best leverage new technologies?
• How might community media engage underserved populations in programming tailored to their needs?
As Benton staff write in the report, "Across the country, communities are partnering with public broadcasters, providing community radio and establishing low-power radio stations, organizing on cable access channels, joining community broadband networks, and producing for satellite-delivered public interest channels. In this report, we explore the lessons learned from these important — but often isolated — experiments in community-driven media. We hope this report will help connect present and future innovators with one another and with resources that can get them started and/or sustain them."
I am hoping that STS will become a catalyst for community media projects to sprout around the Sierra. There is plenty of room for citizen media here in this rural part of California. If you are interested in starting such a project, please be in touch with us at Saving The Sierra. We have ideas, resources and contacts for you!
