Top 10 items in my download folder that I keep coming back to

Belinda Rawlins — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 22:47:53 +0000

1. Powerful People Make Good Decisions Even When they Consciously Think
Is it the way you think that is affecting your decision-making or your power position?

2. The Future of Public Media FAQ and Public Media 2.0: Dynamic Engaged Publics
Jessica Clark synthesizes all things public media. I think I’ll consider her my personal moog.

3. Process is Powerful: Planning and Evaluation for Media Artists
“The purpose of grounding our work in principled practice, strategic planning and evaluation is so that we can develop the knowledge and methods to respond quickly and effectively to situations without being thrown off course and without being derailed from our long-range goals.” Word.

4. Cry Baby Cry – Van & Titus
Oh, wrong list. But I can’t take it off…it’s too good.

5. Maximum Performance – Different Things to Different People
Part of my honest practice philosophy that I’m cultivating, this article offers a variety of frameworks to assess organizational effectiveness.

6. Net Neutrality’s Impact on Low Income Communities: Equal Access for All
A fabulously wonky mix of stories, stats, and smack down, this doc from Public Knowledge makes the case and rebuts the arguments.

7. The Great Leap of Faith
It might be a couple of years old now, but I frequently find myself thinking back to Ginny Berson’s reflections on the changes facing community radio. And then I wonder what she’d change in those reflections today.

8. Same Old Song: An Analysis of Radio Playlists in a Post-FCC Consent Decree World
Didn’t payola die with Alan Freed? Funny, radio play was easier then than it is now. Uncovering the structures that shut out voices of new artists is the first step to reform.

9. The ACORN 361 Affiliated Organizations list
Are you sure you’re not on it? Did you even know that there was a list?

10. A Field Report: Media Justice Through the Eyes of Local Organizers
Before deciding it’s time to work with non-media focused groups, you’ve got to read this.

Finding the perfect quote

Ben Sheldon — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:02:22 +0000

The Transmission Project has been searching in advance of our website launch for the perfect quote that captures our vision and mission. The final quote we chose came from Lyndon Johnson’s signing remarks for the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act:

I do believe that we have important things to say to one another—and we have the wisdom to match our technical genius.

From those remarks also came:

So I think we must consider new ways to build a great network for knowledge — not just a broadcast system, but one that employs every means of sending and storing information that the individual can use.

Slightly drier, we dug through Fighting Poverty: Utilizing Community Media in a Digital Age from the World Congress on Communication for Development (WCCD) October 2006:

Access to the means of voice and communication is central to a people-centred approach to development both for its intrinsic human importance and its role in shared culture, access to knowledge and education, civic participation in decision making, ensuring good governance through accountability and providing other tools that assist the achievement of development goals.

Development institutions and organisations should provide assistance to build the capacity of community media through training, strengthening of networks and sector associations, technical assistance and investment. Support for community media should be provided on the basis of strategic long term commitment recognising that impact must be measured not only in short term results but in community media’s contribution to long term social change.

Some quotes from Marshall McLuhan:

Today we are beginning to notice that the new media are not just mechanical gimmicks for creating worlds of illusion, but new languages with new and unique powers of expression.

A new medium is never an addition to an old one, nor does it leave the old one in peace. It never ceases to oppress the older media until it finds new shapes and positions for them.

The future masters of technology will have to be light-hearted and intelligent. The machine easily masters the grim and the dumb.

And John Naisbitt:

The most exciting breakthroughs of the 21st century will not occur because of technology but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human

Transmission Project - quotations

Top 10 items in my download folder that I keep coming back to

Finding the perfect quote