Hi everyone,
I'm going to be participating in this event here in Boston this
Wednesday night; all of you are invited to participate in person or
online. -andy
Apocalypse Soon for Public Media?
A Community Discussion
http://tacticalmedia.blogspot.com
Wednesday, May 17th, 2006
6:30-8:30 p.m.
Encuentro 5
33 Harrison Ave., 5th Floor
Boston, MA 02111
http://www.encuentro5.org/
corner of Harrison and Beach St. in Chinatown
three blocks from Boston Common
For more information, contact Jason Pramas at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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The Community Media and Technology Program at the UMass Boston College
of Public and Community Service, The Tactical Media Project, and
Massachusetts Global Action are presenting a communications policy
discussion and community meeting.
Public media and the Internet are in deep trouble. We are currently
seeing the emergence of the communications and media systems we will
live with for the next several decades. And, as we write, there are
proposals in Congress that dramatically threaten the public interest,
and the potential for innovation and media justice in those emerging
systems, in the US and around the world.
At stake are:
* local control of our communications infrastructure,
* the survival of the Internet as an open and affordable communications
network [a.k.a. net neutrality],
* maintaining and expanding public access to cable and other media
production and distribution resources,
* our communications rights to receive and create media,
* the democratic and equitable provision of telecommunications access to
low income communities and communities of color,
* the future of public service media,
* the ability of local government to assure the communications
infrastructure is present to support progressive economic development.
The current debate in Congress is symptomatic of a much larger surge of
social changes arising from global economic and technological shifts in
communications sectors. It is no accident that just when we are seeing
the media landscape tilting in the direction of communications rights,
many-to-many communications, and the hope for media justice glimmering
somewhere on the horizon, powerful commercial and private political
interests are moving to secure the communications future for themselves.
Now we are hearing about the roll back of public access to cable,
slashed funding and political chicanery for public service broadcasting,
privatizing the Internet, fast information lanes for the wealthy, and
slow lanes for the rest of us. Hanging in the balance are crucial issues
of global communications rights, media justice, democratic political and
economic development around the world.
Please join our group of experienced communications and media
commentators, and a live and virtual audience, for a discussion of these
issues, and what can be done about the current proposals in Congress.
For more information, contact Jason Pramas at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Partial List of Commentators:
Andy Carvin: Founding Editor, Digital Divide Network,
Blogger, PBS Learning.Now
(pbs.org/learningnow)
Dan Coughlin: Director, Manhattan Neighborhood Network
http://www.mnn.org/
Alyce Myatt: Strategic communications planner and advocate for
independent media organizations and the philanthropic community.
http://www.democraticmedia.org/ddc/PublicMediaCaucus.php
Fred Johnson: Director, Community Media and Technology Program, College
of Public and Community Service, UMass Boston.
http://www.cpcs.umb.edu/cmt/
http://www.mwg.org
Chuck Sherwood: Principal, Community Media Visioning Partners, a Public
Sector consultancy serving Local Franchising Authorities and PEG Access
Management Organizations.
Other to be announced.
In an effort to make this discussion accessible for those interested but
notable to be here in person Wednesday night, we'll ask in-person
participants to blog their notes, including photos, video, and audio.
To tune into these blogs/podcasts, check out the list of participant's
blogs addresses (a.k.a. a blogroll) that will be available on
http://tacticalmedia.blogspot.com. People are invited to send in
questions ahead of time by commenting to this blog and we'll also be
recording full video/audio of the event over the course of the evening
to be available later.
--
--
Andy Carvin
acarvin (at) edc . org
andycarvin (at) yahoo . com
http://www.andycarvin.com
http://www.digitaldivide.net
http://www.pbs.org/learningnow
--
___
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