What's Going on in Community Media

Fred Johnson

2007, 34 pages. Benton Foundation, 1625 K Street, NW, 11th Floor, Washington, DC 20006, (202) 638-5770, www.benton.org
PDF online: www.benton.org

In the light of recent technological advances that increase media marketing based on ideology, class, ethnicity or race, this report chronicles the ways that community media can bring communities together as citizens. The report gathered feedback from several roundtable discussions in communities that have taken control of new media technologies to deliver public services in Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Portland. The report asks what are the unique characteristics of community media, what makes media-community collaborators successful, what types of community media organizations put new technology to the best use, and how might community media engage underserved populations? He also documents ways in which community organizations have employed media, provides case studies of successful community media organizations, and offers some models for the future.