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Research Outcomes

by Joe Karaganis — last modified 2008-11-17 17:58

Change Strategies

Well-developed social change strategies are a key part of every Collaborative Grant. The project has prioritized a comprehensive account of knowledge production that includes social, policy, and institutional impacts and the practical measures required to meet them. The project admitted a wide array of change strategies, from focused policy interventions, to models and toolkits for institutional change, to the strengthening of organizing activities through reflective knowledge. Grants also target change in the academy by encouraging institutional investment in more publicly-engaged research outcomes. With 20 of 44 projects complete (Nov. 08), we can begin to make an account of these
impacts and the broader strategies that
have guided them.


Policy and Organizing Impact: Some Highlights

  • Seven funded projects were used as the basis of comments submitted in the FCC’s recent media ownership proceedings (2006-2007), on issues ranging from children’s programming requirements, to minority media ownership, to the impact of duopolies on local news coverage. This work contributed to an unprecendented wave of evidence-based challenges to plans for further deregulation of ownership, and to broader concern about of the integrity of the FCC's research and data collection practices. With minor exceptions, ownership regulations were left intact when the proceeding closed in fall 2007.
  • Repeated focus on problems with data collection and access to data at the FCC contributes to changes in how the FCC collects programming data (the new form 477; summer 2008) and creates pressure for transparency and reform in the collection of other critical data, including broadband data, ownership data, and data on hate speech.

  • Some 200 community radio stations across the US applied for open frequencies for licensing for the October 2007 licensing window, thanks in large part to an application model developed by Common Frequency. This model will also be used in applications in future Low-Power FM licensing windows. (Jones, Urick, Common Frequency)

  • Research on the deregulation of bandwidth pricing in Mauritius contributes to APC’s campaign to develop regional policy frameworks for expanding broadband access in Africa. The Mauritius case is a touchstone for discussions on how to combine technology and economic development policy. (Jagun, APC)

NK Workshop Breakout Session

Abiodun Jagun and Dharma Dailey at the NKDPS Grantee Workshop, 2008 (photo: SSRC)

  • WMMT's new model for measuring the impact of rural radio stations is being adopted by the National Federation of Community Broadcasters and used in efforts to reform the systemic underweighting of rural stations by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. (Orozco, WMMT-FM)

  • Media Alliance's 'Toolkit for Digital Inclusion Advocacy' developed in the context of San Francisco's municipal WiFi effort has been used by over 500 advocates engaging in municipal WiFi planning in California. (Gangadharan, Media Alliance)

  • IDEPSCA is developing a mobile phone-based storytelling platform in concert with participatory research that will be made available for re-use in diverse community contexts. (This project received a larger grant for development of a digital platform, as well as additional technology and media production.) (Bar, Costanza-Chock, Añorve, Garcés, IDEPSCA)
  • Participatory research at the Manhattan Neighborhood Network informs development of infrastructure and participation strategies for a new youth-dedicated cable TV channel. (Bach, Kulick, Manhattan Neighborhood Network)
  • Media monitoring/accountability efforts have contributed to local news outlets covering media reform and to TV station managers willing to collaborate, with demonstrated interest in the model by local groups, as well as throughout the state. (Nalder, Sacramento Media Group, California Common Cause)


Academic Change

Academic change is part of the long-term change horizon of the Necessary Knowledge project. A sustainable knowledge infrastructure for the field needs to be grounded in the academy, where university subsidies for research and the reproduction of necessary skills can anchor public-interest research collaboration. Collaborative Grants and their associated activities have worked to catalyze this institutional shift by providing recognition and institutional support for researchers engaged in this terrain. The program creates shorter-term multiplier effects by providing legitimacy and cover for other researchers and students interested in collaborative work, and by leveraging university research subsidies in support of public-interest work. Among the key metrics are:

  • Leveraging university research subsidies: Collaborative grants provided little compensation to university-based primary investigators. On average, 80% of grant money went to support advocacy participation in the project (25-50%) or provide support for students, assistants, and other research contributors. In many cases, grants leveraged in-kind contributions of time, labor, and resources that equaled or exceeded the SSRC grant amount. Several of the grants enabled follow-on funding or matched support from the host universities.
  • Create return customers: A culture of collaboration is one in which the parties on both sides of the project repeat their investments in collaboration and applied research. Among the primary investigators for completed projects, some 33% were new to collaborative research. All of these researchers signalled their intentions to continue to work with advocates and activists in the future.
  • Academic outputs: Although it is too early in our grants process to make a general account, roughly 50% of completed projects have produced research that has been submitted to, or published in, peer-reviewed journals. Most of the projects operate explicitly on this dual track, with short term applied outcomes on one side, and longer term peer-reviewed research on the other. This is a critical part of the larger bet on positive outcomes of collaborative research. Because research trajectories often extend beyond the short 1+ year grant terms, we expect that this percentage will increase significantly in the next two years.
Voices

The struggle between corporate lobbies and public interest groups in Washington is in part a struggle over the evidentiary basis of policy, defined through research. The influence of coin-operated think tanks has become far too pervasive in this context. The academy can act as the public’s think tank, bringing real research and objective analysis to the policy decisions that shape the future of the media, and more broadly, our economic and social lives.

-- Ben Scott, Free Press


Our work on the effect of consolidated media ownership on local content was cited by Free Press, CFA, and several other public interest media groups in their FCC's comments.

-- Danilo Yanich, U Delaware


Our report, "Big Media, Little Kids 2", was distributed to the FCC, Congress, and advocates working on media ownership. We were also invited to testify at two FCC hearings to discuss our research findings.

-- Katharine Heintz, Santa Clara U

 

Findings on Internet access in West Africa have been presented at a number of key events including those held by the West Africa Telecommunications Regulators Assembly in 2007, and at ITU Telecom Africa 2008.

-- Abiodun Jagun, U Strathclyde and APC


One of the immediate outcomes of the project was that we educated some 80 workers on their basic civil and immigration rights, in part through a collaboratively produced CD.

-- Sasha Costanza-Chock, Annenberg USC


All our research directly feeds into our advocacy work. We are actively engaged with national ICTD policies and how to shape them into a public goods model that can improve participatory democracy. We share our findings with various local CBOs and NGOs, both at a theoretical level and a practical level.

-- Parminder Jeet Singh, IT for Change, Bangalore, India


The SSRC grant moved us all to be more accountable, do more outreach, and extend our work plans. The grant, while small, was extremely influential in setting up the infrastructure at CSUS to do monitoring and led the way for other small grants to our research partner from the University.

Our research confirmed and quantified what media activist groups have long asserted. We are confident that it will inform the current discussion in Sacramento about how to fulfill local TV stations public interest obligations. Media groups in Los Angeles and San Diego have expressed interest in media monitoring as a result of the project.

-- JoAnn Fuller, California Common Cause


Canadian research funding institutions, such as the SSHRC, are beginning to adopt collaborative, publicly-engaged models of scholarship as primary conditions of research. The Necessary Knowledge program has pioneered in this respect and will have a significant influence on how Canadian scholars and activists learn to work together. The program's support for cross-border collaboration between the US and Canada in media policy research has also been valuable and will likely become more so as governance regimes grow more interconnected.

-- Leslie Regan Shade, Concordia U