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Localism

by Joe Karaganis — last modified 2009-07-06 12:14

Localism is a critical feature of American public life. It describes a web of relationships between communities and their diverse local media, whether as content producers or as citizens and consumers holding media accountable to community needs.

This ecology is in turmoil. The often-discussed crisis of 'big media' is mirrored by crises of local media, related to changes in technologies, the economics of ownership and production, regulatory environments, and growth of the (still largely delocalized) Internet. In this context, localism needs to be both understood and, increasingly, reinvented as a sustainable set of practices and institutions. The Collaborative Grants project is strongly committed to this process, funding work on: models of sustainability for local media organizations, the impact of concentration on local news production, community efforts to analyze and hold accountable local media, and research-driven innovation in local media production.

 

Community Media: Regulation and Sustainability

 


Reinventing Community and Local Media

 

Local News

 

Community Engagement and Accountability

 
Voices

We've been working to re-introduce 'localism' as a measurable, viable policy criteria that the FCC can use to make decisions. Right now, low power FM stations can be knocked aside by full power stations based on the premise that bigger stations serve more people and thus do more public service -- even if all the full power station does is play the same 50 corporate rock songs every day, while the low power station genuinely engages its community with local news, public affairs, and volunteer neighborhood  programmers.

With SSRC support, Prometheus is collaborating with Penn State to evaluate the local programming content of low power stations, which can help to set the terms of the regulatory debate.

-- Pete Tridish, Prometheus Radio Project


There is little work that documents the voices of immigrants. The organization that I partnered with on the Small Grant has also used my study to inform their work in a number of ways: (1) as background information about their audiences in public presentations and proposal writing, and (2) as evaluation data that shows how they promote civic engagement. 

-- Graciela Orozco, San Francisco State University


For California Common Cause, the response from members and the public has also been affirmative. Now there are members in Los Angeles and San Diego who are eager to identify research partners and monitor the news in their communities.

-- JoAnn Fuller, California Common Cause