Transmission Project

In its tenth year, the Urbana Champaign Independent Media Center (UCIMC) is a grassroots organization committed to using media production and distribution as tools for promoting social and economic justice. The UCIMC fosters the creation and distribution of media, art, and narratives emphasizing underrepresented voices and perspectives, and promotes empowerment and expression through media and arts education. To this end, we own and operate a Community Media and Arts Center located in the historic post office building in downtown Urbana, Illinois. The Center includes a radio station, media production studios, a performance venue, art gallery, artist in residence studios, a library, public access computer labs, bike repair center, and meeting spaces. The UCIMC runs a 24/7 low power radio station, publishes a monthly newspaper, operates a daily website, and hosts numerous community listservs, all freely available to the community.

The UCIMC is strongly supported by and embedded in communities with little access mainstream media. The roots of poverty lay in a lack of access to participation in the decisions that affect one’s life, including the decisions about the allocation of resources and power. The UCIMC works to eradicate poverty through empowering residents to “become the media” - amplifying unheard voices, inspiring and uniting those who work for change, and helping to shift and reframe public discourse. For example, residents pressing for the clean up of a toxic waste site in their neighborhood used UCIMC-facilitated investigative journalism and organizing to get the city and EPA involved in cleaning the site.Over 44,000 free books have been shipped to Illinois prisoners through UCIMC’s Books to Prisoners program. The UCIMC is an official Community Technology Center in Illinois and is a key partner in our community’s NTIA application that was just awarded $22.5 million for broadband infrastructure.