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The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) announces the first recipient of a $30,000 Emergency Grant for academic-advocacy collaboration in the media and communications field.
The Center for Creative Voices in Media released on October 10 a new report on the state of broadband internet access in the United States. The report details the impacts of the broadband access on economic growth, journalism, public safety, health care and democratic debate.
The children’s advocacy group Children Now worked with researcher Katharine Heintz-Knowles, PhD to examine how ownership patterns of television stations affect the amount of children’s educational programming they broadcast. In contrast to industry claims, the study found that more concentrated ownership of TV stations did not lead to more educational TV. In fact there is evidence that diversely held television markets provide more hours of educational programming. The study concludes that concentration of television station ownership in a market does not improve a station’s public service to the children in that market. Instead, this analysis suggests such concentration of ownership has a clear, negative impact on programming for children.
The Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science invites academics and PhD students to submit papers to the Media@lse Electronic Working Papers series. Papers should address the social, political, economic and cultural context of the media and communications.
The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is pleased to announce six recipients of $30,000 'collaborative grants' in media and communications, on subjects ranging from Payola in the music industry to telecommunications rights in Brazil. The six projects bring together academic researchers with practitioners, advocates, and activists on issues central to creating a richer and more democratic public sphere. The grantees were chosen from a pool of 112 applicants.
The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) has announced a new book, commissioned by the APC and written by David Souter, that examines how developing country delegations and civil society fared at the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
Stanford Ph.D Candidate Seeta Peña Gangadharan and activist group Media Alliance examine San Francisco's efforts to develop a "digital inclusion" strategy in the context of its highly-publicized municipal wi-fi build out planning. This research may be particularly useful for communities and groups involved in discussions with their own municipal governments about how to develop inclusive and effective access to the internet. Groups are especially encouraged to download the “Digital Inclusion Advocacy Toolkit” prepared by Media Alliance as part of this research study.
Recent studies have shown that minorities and women are very underrepresented in the population of radio and television station owners. Researchers Catherine Sandoval and Allen Hammond, IV at Santa Clara University School of Law and David Honig, Director of the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council, have developed and tested two surveys to help understand the experiences and perspectives of minority and female broadcasters, particularly with regard to public policies that affect their entry into the market.
Media Access Project (MAP) is a non-profit, public interest law firm that has been practicing telecommunications law for more than thirty years. MAP generally has openings for 2 full-time legal interns during the summer and 1-2 full/part-time legal interns during the school year.
The group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting has just released a report entitled "The Poor Will Always Be With Us... Just Not on the Nightly News" which examines how news shows on the three main broadcast networks in the Unites States treat issues of poverty.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit legal foundation dedicated to preserving civil liberties online, invites outstanding law students to apply for internship positions at EFF offices in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Interns will work with EFF's legal team to litigate cutting-edge issues surrounding new technologies.
Internships in the programs department offer opportunities to learn about organizing screenings, doing community outreach and using films as a tool for social change. You will gain hands-on experience from working with community, regional and national organizations, institutions and museums on organizing screenings and events as well understand what goes behind putting together film festivals, conferences, panels and workshops. Additionally, you will have the opportunity to learn about building web content and engaging the public to use social justice issue films.
The presentations from the grassroots discussion panels at the 2007 ICA Conference are now available in an e-book entitled "Alternatives on Media Content, Journalism and Regulation." Edited by Seeta Peña Gangadharan, Benjamin De Cleen and Nico Carpentier. You can download the complete book or access the individual chapters on the website.
San Francisco State University researcher Graciela Orozco examined how Latinos in California utilized Radio Bilingue, a local Spanish-language radio station, to inform, encourage, and organize political action on the issue of immigrants' rights as part of the national May 1st mobilization protests that took place last year. Orozco’s work lends evidence to the continuing importance of broadcast radio for community discourse, outreach and organizing.
Interviews with SSRC Grantees
Researcher Francisco Javier Iribarren and others chat with us at the NK09 Workshop
Making Communications Research Matter
A new (and ongoing) essay forum on the relationship between communications research and policymaking
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SSRC Essay Forum: Transformations of the Public Sphere