In July 2007, the FCC released 10 commissioned studies on media ownership, in support of its current round of inquiry into ownership regulations. 

Part of Philip Napoli's literature review on public interest media and communications activism and advocacy within the U.S. and abroad.

This event will center on strategies for promoting public knowledge about global media policy institutions, forums, and processes. The challenge of making the implications of arcane policy discourses accessible and relevant to affected populations is profound, especially because highly concentrated media companies with vested interests in particular outcomes cannot be expected to serve as impartial outlets for such information. But there is great value in strategizing how such knowledge can be created and effectively disseminated on a sustainable basis. The challenges of doing so will be the focus of the Stockholm pre-conference.

A series of field analysis and needs assessments on research/advocacy collaboration, produced in the course of planning the Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere program

SSRC Collaborative Grants in Media and Communications are awarded through a competitive process by an independent selection committee that brings together researchers, activists, and advocates in the media and communications field.  

The committee has had five members, serving 1-year terms.  This list includes past and current committee members.  For the current committee, see: http://mediaresearchhub.ssrc.org/grants/large-grants

Access to knowledge about the public sphere is crucial for communications research and policymaking.   This includes not just access to aggregated data on services, industry structure, programming, and audiences--the core inputs to FCC policymaking--but also access to audiovisual content, which is often the target of policymaking.

Limitations on access to data and content have begun to receive more attention in the past several years.  This list provides a primer on a range of access to data and access to content concerns.

In 2004, the Digital Cultural Institutions Project supported research on institutions involved in aggregating digital cultural resources and developing models of access to them. It promoted the integration of knowledge on a range of providers and mediators of digital cultural goods and services-from digital libraries and online museums to commercial online vendors of music and books, search engines and portals, open and collaborative knowledge archives, and file-sharing networks, among others.  Seven fellows received grants to pursue projects in this area.  For more information, http://programs.ssrc.org/ccit/dcip/ 

Field mapping and needs assessment studies on media policy and activism, sponsored via the Ford Foundation's Electronic Media Policy portfolio.