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Reflection and Evaluation

by Joe Karaganis — last modified 2009-07-07 15:43

The ongoing analysis of projects, institutional practices, movement activities, and strategies is a critical part of any long-term, sustainable agenda for media reform. By most accounts, the field underdelivers this kind of analysis. Activists, advocates, and practitioners typically have neither the time, incentive, nor training to do so. Activism and advocacy is structured by short timeframes, and such work is rarely a direct deliverable. The Collaborative Grants have played an important role in meeting these needs for in-depth analyses and evaluations, and ongoing syntheses of findings and experiences. Some of the funded projects involve the evaluation of specific projects; others seek to synthesize and learn from fragmented experiments; still others target systemic features or weaknesses of the field.

Movement Analysis

Sustainability and Model Building

Project-based Analysis and Evaluation

Voices

The ubiquity of alternative media available through the web gives the impression that the alternative media sector is flourishing. But the quantity of sources yields little in the way of substantive knowledge about the sector, and tells us nothing about geographic reach, range of activities, and funding, among other factors. Remedying this knowledge deficit requires systematic, sustained, collaborative, and reflective research that enhances understanding of the underlying networks, trends, and key developments in this sector.

-- Lisa McLaughlin, Miami University of Ohio


For the Media Justice Fund, I've been talking with grassroots activists about what they see as the important work for 2009 around media policy.  Even I was a bit surprised when three of the six grassroots activists I spoke with emphasized assessment, the need for better information, and mapping as critical to their upcoming work.    I see a strong trend in Media Policy work to get more involved in looking at communications infrastructure.  This requires a much higher degree of knowledge about the social, technical, and economic implications of those infrastructures -- especially for advocates on the ground who are taking a close look at these implementations.     

-- Dharma Dailey, Ethos Wireless


The lessons and tools produced to date by our collaborative project are being integrated into the media and organizing efforts of a number of grassroots community groups throughout Philadelphia. 

In this process, community groups will be able to clarify their own independent media and messaging, their relations with mainstream press, and their media education and advocacy efforts. Based on our national networks, I assume the same will be the case nationally.

-- A Study of the Media Mobilizing Project in Philadelphia