Session 4: 3:45 - 5:15 p.m.
Schedule may be subject to change
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Art & Activism: the NYC Ghost Bike project - Part Two
Visual Resistance
See Session 3 for description.
Bring Back Local News on Black-Oriented Radio
Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report and Herb Boyd
Commercial Black-oriented radio, an often neglected arena of media reform, reaches a phenomenal proportion of Black households. This workshop explores the damage inflicted on Black political institutions by the near extinction of local Black-oriented radio news, and offers strategies to force owners to lift the blackout on local coverage.
Crossing the Border: Hip Hop Liberation, Revolution and Resistance
Kari Kokka and Karen Suarez, REACHip-Hop and Omowale Adewale, G.A.M.E.
This workshop will demonstrate how corporate media has hijacked traditional hip-hop culture and values. REACHip-Hop will discuss their on-going work in the media justice movement in New York, nationally, and internationally. Facilitators will speak about REACHip-Hop's projects with youth, teachers, and the community. Workshop participants have an opportunity to dialogue and interact with facilitators to learn about upcoming events and how they can get involved.
Bring Back Local News on Black-Oriented Radio
Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report and Herb Boyd
Commercial Black-oriented radio, an often neglected arena of media reform, reaches a phenomenal proportion of Black households. This workshop explores the damage inflicted on Black political institutions by the near extinction of local Black-oriented radio news, and offers strategies to force owners to lift the blackout on local coverage.
Engaging Workers Through Media
Shirley Lin, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund; Biju Mathew, Organizing Committee of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance; and Dania Rajendra, Clarion/Labor Voices
Conference Last year, millions of people took to the streets for immigrants' rights, partially spurred by immigrant media. Unions and community organizations are also working to broaden their messages. Independent and alternative media have a powerful role to play. In this workshop, labor communicators, independent journalists and community leaders will discuss how we make media to engage members in revitalizing and broadening the labor movement, immigrant rights movement, and the intersections of the two. How do you cater your communications tools to your organizing goals? We'll discuss how some winning campaigns mined members' experience and talents to create creative strategies, as well as on-going member media projects including radio, print, blogs and video tools.
Grassroots Media and Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards Development
Lumi Michelle Rolley, No Land Grab Blog; Norman Oder, Atlantic Yards Report Blog; Candace Carponter, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn; and Stuart Schrader, Picketing Henry Ford Blog
This panel will address the grassroots-media response to the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. Though the response was not coordinated and arose organically, it can serve as a model for other communities and struggles facing a well-funded, sophisticated media machine. The project’s developer had access to many mainstream media, the opposition’s responses to it coalesced around websites, blogs, and message boards. This panel reveals the paradox of corporate message hypermanagement: although corporations and governments attempt to control every aspect of their public presentation in all media forms, the proliferation of media allow concerned citizens access to unavailable information, shedding light on the inconsistencies, distortions, and failures, as well as the strategy, of the message control. In the case of the Atlantic Yards project, an overarching message encouraged by the developer was race- and class-based divisiveness, and this panel will show how grassroots media can overcome divisiveness through rigorous analysis of such tactics.
Journalism, Propaganda and Truth: Discussing the Dilemmas
Matt Hirshberg, Columbia Journalism Program
Changing the world through
journalism is not easy—activist-journalists have to successfully negotiate a plethora of dilemmas to be effective. How can I make myself heard by the powers that be when my message is one they don’t want to hear? How can I reach amainstream audience without serving them mainstream commercial fare? How can I draw attention to evil and injustice without appearing to be, or being, unfairly biased myself? How can I keep my ideological beliefs from distorting the way I report the world? How can I work to achieve political goals without sacrificing truth along the way? These are difficult questions with indefinite answers. I propose a guided discussion on these and related dilemmas.
Listen Up! Youth Debate Concerns over Internet Filters, Social Networking, Sex Ed & Free Expression
Claire Karpen, Ben Colmery, Danya Steele, Phara Souffrant and Yannick Lejac, Youth Free Expression Network
Policies affecting youth are routinely enacted without consulting any. Do Internet filters or preventing social networking sites in schools “protect” minors? Should principals censor controversial editorials or articles in student papers? Should graphic novels be removed from school libraries? Should kids be disciplined for wearing political tee-shirts? Does "abstinence only" education really make teens think twice before having sex? Hear our panel of dynamic youth debate societal concerns about youth political expression, internet filters, social networking sites, sex education, and media violence, and learn how media literacy can be a superior alternative to censorship. *Please note speakers subject to change
New York's Wireless Future
Michael Lewis, Wireless Harlem Initiative; Laura Forlano, NYCwireless; Bruce Lail, Committee on Technology in Government; and Joshua Breitbart, People’s Production House
New wireless technology provides an efficient and affordable way to deploy new broadband infrastructure. You can use it to turn your local park into a hotspot or to give affordable access to all of your neighbors. Across the country, local governments are considering whether to build - or to let corporations build - wireless networks that cover an entire city. New York City is just beginning this process. This is the best chance in a generation, if not a century, to come together as a community to decide what we want and need from our communications infrastructure. This panel will bring you up to speed on the discussion.
Our World, Our Mic: Creating Youth Radio Documentaries
Navi Sandhu, Mera Beckford and Hana Georg, Radio Rootz
Participants in this workshop will discuss the skills necessary and learn the steps used by the Radio Rootz Program in creating radio documentaries. This workshop provides concrete steps for youth to create their own media and discuss the relationship of independent media with local and global movements including:
*How youth can create media that represents them and their communities
*How media can be a tool in social justice movements
*And the global scope of media as a tool in reaching an audience beyond the borders of local cities, states, and countries.
Youth Exploring the Root Causes of Migration
Representatives from Global Action Project
G.A.P. youth will screen their documentary “Twisted Truth,” which explores the root causes of migration and facilitate an activity in which audience can participate and share their own family history of migration.
Mind over Media
Derrick Dawkins and Habibah Ahmad, MNN Youth Channel
Mind over Media is an interactive media literacy workshop; participants will have a chance to think critically about the media we consume everyday. Through a series of interactive activities, video clips and photographs participants will explore the issues of advertising; media ownership, content & consolidation; identity and representation; and the central role media plays in democratic societies. Participants will also learn about public-access television and the growing field of Youth Media. This workshop is ideal for peer trainers & educators, as well as youth media producers. Participants will receive a free copy of MNN Youth Channel's media literacy curriculum packet.
US Social Forum 2007 - Exploring Media Opportunities
Josue Guillen, May First/People Link
The first ever US Social Forum will take place in Atlanta, GA from June 27 - July 1, 2007. Because it brings together so many activists from so many diverse movements and highlights different struggles that are worth covering, it will be a unique opportunity for progressive and alternative media people to meet each other, strategize together and cover a major event. This discussion will provide insights on the current plans of the National Planning Committee and challenge participants to help this event have even more impact.