Re: Fw: [Cit-J] Deadline: National Conf for Media Reform

[Doug Greer]

Hey Tom,

I suggested that they invite David Cohn of http://Spot.Us/.  Here is a video: Interview of David Cohn of Spot.us

I am fascinated by the open-source community model and positive crowd-sourcing.  I think the lessons learned while creating those communities can be used to create community media models. As a professional open-source programmer, I have witnessed the huge growth of open-source programming in almost every industry.  A non-technical summary of this can be seen in the documentary: Revolution OS.  I recommend the podcast: FLOSS Weekly for programmers.

The economics of open-source programming is a lot different from proprietary-source programming.  All successful open-source projects seem to have a strong community aspect to them.  These projects live or die based on how useful they are to the end-user communities.  Almost none of them have any marketing budget and (I think) most survive entirely on donations.  Examples include: Apache, Linux, the base libraries of Mac OS X, PHP, Perl, Python, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and many more.

Open-source programming communities collaborate almost entirely on-line and have built the foundations of almost all the social networking technology.  Local journalism communities can use the strengths of on-line collaboration along with periodic local meetings.  People within the local communities can perform the tasks which are most effectively done face-to-face and work with journalism communities in other parts of the country to edit stories and perform other tasks which don't require face-to-face interaction.

For a solid example, listen to the interview of David Cohn, above.  He noted that a journalist organization in Japan has used the Spot.Us code base to run their own community-funded journalism effort. 

Building communities from the bottom-up should lead to the most solid foundations.

Sincerely,
Doug Greer

On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 1:28 PM, Tom Klammer <tellsome...@yahoo.com> wrote:

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Colin Rhinesmith <crh...@illinois.edu>
To: Josh Stearns <jste...@freepress.net>; Ci...@lists.alliancecm.org
Sent: Tue, September 7, 2010 1:17:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Cit-J] Deadline: National Conf for Media Reform

Thanks for sharing this, Josh.

Is anyone interested in working together to submit a session that
addresses the challenges and opportunities facing community media and
citizen journalism projects?  There are a number of great topics already
listed here: http://bit.ly/cvxJZ3

Here is a short list of some of my favorites:

* How do we frame cit-j as a part of the larger mission of public access?

* How do we address online the challenge of serving multiple languages
and niche, underrepresented communities?

* Can we develop the list of baby steps -- vs. big pushes -- required to
develop a citizen journalism initiative?

* Why is text still king in citizen journalism and what about the value
of video for telling stories?

* How do our media centers become a cornerstone of a community?

Best,
Colin

On 9/7/10 12:03 PM, Josh Stearns wrote:
> I’m writing with a quick National Conference for Media Reform update.
> This Friday, September 10 is the last day to submit session, speaker and
> topic ideas to the open call for program suggestions.
>
> I’ve been inspired by the great ideas and discussions I’ve had with many
> of you so far – and I can’t wait to hear all of the other great ideas
> that are still being brainstormed and finalized.
>
> Just in case you’ve missed it – below is a bit about the event and the
> open call for program suggestions.
>
> Josh
>
> ***********************************************************
>
> Save the Date: April 8-10, 2011, Boston
>
> Call for suggestions website: http://www.freepress.net/call-for-suggestions
>
> Program Priorities: We are looking for session proposals on topics
> related to media reform, media activism and media policy. Sessions
> should fit into one of our themed tracks for the conference:
>
> * Policy and Politics
>
> * Social Justice and Movement Building
>
> * Journalism and Public Media
>
> * Media Makers, Culture and the Arts
>
> * Technology and Innovation
>
> * Workshops and Trainings
>
> Full descriptions of the tracks can be found here
>
> http://www.freepress.net/call-for-suggestions#process
>
> Sessions should be designed to:
>
> * Energize, motivate and inspire participants to reform the media.
>
> * Educate on pressing media reform issues and actions to achieve real
> change.
>
> * Share models for successful media reform campaigns and actions.
>
> * Strengthen the skills of activists working for media reform.
>
> * Examine "who's doing what" in various sectors of media reform, media
> policy and media activism.
>
> * Provide opportunities to network, connect with allies, and meet others
> interested in making media better.
>
> * Discuss strategies for realizing concrete change in our media system.
>
> More information about the session selection process can be found here
>
> http://www.freepress.net/call-for-suggestions#selection-process
>
> Spread the word: Let everyone know about the 2011 National Conference
> for Media Reform by forwarding this e-mail and sharing details on
> Twitter and Facebook.
>
> Sign up for updates: You can sign up for future conference announcements
> and updates
>
> https://secure.freepress.net/site/SPageNavigator/2010_summit_ncmr
>
> Josh Stearns
>
> Associate Program Director
>
> Free Press :: www.freepress.net <http://www.freepress.net>
>
> SaveTheNews :: www.savethenews.org <http://www.savethenews.org>
>
> Twitter: @jcstearns
>
> Phone: 413.585.1533 ext. 204
>
> * *
>
> *reform** **media**. transform** **democracy**.*
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Cit-J mailing list
> Ci...@lists.alliancecm.org
> http://lists.alliancecm.org/listinfo.cgi/cit-j-alliancecm.org


--
Colin Rhinesmith
PhD Student | Information in Society Fellow
Community Informatics Research Lab
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
crh...@illinois.edu
http://colinrhinesmith.com
_______________________________________________
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