[cma-l] New DEMOS report - community media research network

[Dave Rushton]

Dear Colleagues,

I feel there's a strong case here for 'writing our own history' - or  
at least archiving a record of progress/set-back/achievement area by  
area. As Juergen Linke of Berlin's Open Channel Offener Kanal used to  
say - 'there's no democracy unless we have media democracy'.

 From experience the only significant point at which social records  
were poorly kept is when you are running local/community channels.  
There is a valuable archiving role that may be overlooked, a communal  
file into which we can drop ephemera under minimal librarianship to  
feed academic studies and teaching of the present which become the  
publications and inclusive historical record further on. In the CMA  
there is the immensely valuable showcase.commedia offering a record  
of production - but a now dormant u-tube of our sector.

Having a shared 'location' in which to deposit evidence of community  
media self-organisation could also be a virtual space - perhaps  
housing pdf files, a community expansion of Ofcom's community radio  
pages, possibly by funding an expansion of the CMA's own site?  
Meanwhile Ofcom's site provides good access information to the  
community radio licensees, phone numbers emails and websites (if used).

It may be that we haven't published sufficient signposts or  
directions, because those Ofcom pages are a helpful starting point  
for researchers.

The communication studies academics also communicate via  
MECCSA at JISCMAIL.AC.UK - and by a periodic insertion into the list  
community radio might provide students searching for a topic with a  
useful set of links to undertake primary research on the impact of  
community media on political participation.

I would suggest too that those looking to have research undertaken on  
the social contribution of their stations liaise with the Community  
Media Research Network

s.scifo at londonmet.ac.uk
P.M.Lewis at lse.ac.uk


With regards,



Dave Rushton
Institute of Local Television
Public Interest Fellow, Department of Geography and Sociology,  
University of Strathclyde