Founded in 1981 in New York City by DeeDee Halleck, PTTV is an open, volunteer, video collective committed to raising media literacy and challenging the mainstream monologue. Striving towards ‘information equity’ PTTV strives to increase awareness of the negative influence of mass media and involving people in media-making processes. New videos are posted regularly and the website provides space for involvement, through videos, comments and blogs.
Deep Dish TV is a dynamic, highly active network that has, since 1986, ‘been a laboratory for new, democratic and empowering ways to make and distribute video.’ The network links thousands of artists, independent video-makers, programmers and social activists around the world and has produced and distributed over 300 hours of television shows that ‘challenge the suppression of awareness, the corruption of language, and the perversion of logic that characterizes so much of corporate media’.
A Seattle based organisation involves in grassroots organizing for social change and media democratization, working on three levels: media policy, media literacy education and community media. The website includes a multitude of links, blogs, information, campaigns and online community radio.
In Media Res provides collaborative, multi-modal forms of online scholarship, promoting an online dialogue amongst scholars and the public about contemporary approaches to studying media and a more critical engagement with media. Each weekday a different scholar selects a 30-second to 3-minute video clip/visual image slideshow accompanied by a 300-350-word impressionistic response. The clip/comment combination are intended both to introduce the work to the larger community of scholars (as well as non-academics who frequent the site) and encourage feedback/discussion from that community.
An online portal committed to information sharing and open participation in knowledge, arts and cultural production. Creative Commons provides information, tools and infrastructure on copyright and intellectual property laws to encourage sharing and development of ideas, technology and media.
Associate Professor Pradip Thomas is a leading academic in the area of communication and social change, communication rights and the political economy of communications in India and the co-director of the Centre for Communication and Social Change. As an activist scholar who worked formerly with the international media NGO, WACC, Pradip has travelled widely throughout the world and has been involved in the planning and evaluation of community media projects including community radio in Haiti. He played a key role in the Communication Rights in the Information Society campaign linked to the World Summit on the Information Society. He has been a frequent key note speaker at international media conferences and is at present the Vice President, Participatory Communications Section, IAMCR. Continue reading
Times are changing, so are the communication for social change paradigms. In recent years, the world has witnessed the fastest transfomations brought about by advancements in communications technology. People are increasingly mobile and urban. Geographical, political and social landscapes are changing. All of these have impact on the way we communicate. These changes have posed valid questions to the existing paradigms in communication for social change. Where is the discipline headed? What are the prospects that have accrued from the changing times? What kind of social change can we expect from all this? Are we to experience a more just world anytime soon? The following readings will introduce the reader to the emerging paradigms in communication for social change. Some of them have already gained some followers albeit needing more support in the academic circle. Continue reading
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