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.