radio
Corps Member Meaghan Lasala Press
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Organization:
WERU-FM Community Radio Corps member Meaghan Lasala has been receiving some great press in her community: Bangor, Maine. Attached are the 2 articles featuring Meaghan and her work.
Digital Expansion Initiative Program Developer
Organization:
People's Production House VISTA Name:
Alexis Walker
Program Start:
6/2007
Project Description:
The Digital Expansion Initiative uses participant-led media production, education, and organizing to expand meaningful access to all New Yorkers. The VISTA will support the project by producing and helping others produce radio and by conducting research.
- Develop a comprehensive understanding of the barrier to technology access in poor communities in New York City by training members of 5 - 10 non-profit organizations to research and report on the state of Internet access in their organizations and among their constituencies
- Produce and distribute community-produced content documenting the state of Internet access in New York City as a way to engage new constituents in the development of broadband infrastructure of programs to bridge the digital divide
- Based on community-produced content, produce and distribute comprehensive report on barrier to Internet access in New York City
- Build a new constituency of engaged and conversant experts on community access technology, based in communities with no or limited access to technology, and the capacity to continue expanding that constituency
Project Outcome:
During her year of service, Alexis served as the program associate for a new program: the Digital Expansion Initiative. In this capacity, she served as support for the program - maintaing contact records and contacting organizations for partnerships, consolidating data, researching articles and resources, updating website content, conducting audio interviews, administering a written survey, writing articles on public policy of telecommunications, and presenting the initiative’s finding and methods in workshops around NYC and the country.
Mountain Area Information Network
Website:
http://main.nc.us/ Location:
Ashville, NC
MAIN is a nonprofit community network using integrated media technologies to expand the local public sphere and to support:
participatory democracy
citizen access to media
independent journalism
local cultural and artistic expression
locally-owned businesses
social and economic justice
and environmental stewardship
Program Development and Outreach
Organization:
Appalshop VISTA Name:
Julia Taylor
Program Start:
7/2008
Program End:
7/2009
Project Description:
Julia works in various capacities at Appalshop/Thousand Kites Project. She manages “StoryLine,” our online story-gathering project, for which she uploads audio to the content management system, and writes the copy for the website. She also responds to communication via our social networking sites and writes emailblasts. She works with community members (locally and nationally) to gather their stories about the criminal justice system and post them to the website. She also is currently creating a plan for a google map to document these stories using new technology. She also co-produces our campaigns. For our most recent campaign, Calls From Home, Julia coordinated the targeted outreach to radio station managers, prison chaplains, and prisoners and their families. She does the background research for the campaigns and organizes content. Including partnerships with other non-profits for viral marketing support. Julia works with community members (stakeholders) to identify community needs to inform future campaigns and communication strategies. Julia also produces our weekly radio show, Holler to the Hood, which broadcast online, as well supporting workshops that train community members and stake-holders in radio/online production.
Project Outcome:
When Julia arrived at Appalshop, she spent the first couple of months working with staff to revamp the project’s website, making it media rich, clean, and efficient. We now have an direct model for people to call in their stories and a way to share them on the web. At the same time, Julia aided in the creation of a Facilition Guide, which helps Thousand Kites be a model for communities to take action. This document makes our work process more efficient because we can now direct people to the guide, instead of having to talk through all the details with each individual community. It is available in print and online and has greatly increased our capacity to train and garner participants. Julia has taken the lead on developing our database, updating contacts, and training staff on a system for long-term use. Overall Julia has worked at all levels of the organization to build our communication, online, and digital capacity.
Julia is able to identify key opportunities, and run with them. While looking through old email to learn more about the project’s correspondence, she found an unanswered email from a poet who was willing to volunteer his time to the project. Julia contacted him about possible connections, and now his network of poets has become a tremendous source of capacity in our project. His online community of writers has generated hundreds of audio samples for our website. Another example of this was when we received an email from a woman in the Virgin Islands who is dealing with the prisoners from her community being shipped up to prisons in our region. Julia saw this as an opportunity to really immerse in a community’s issue and help them find ways they could take action locally. The group has since produced their own radio program and hosted multiple film screenings using the Kites tools.
Impact Quote:
Without our VISTA we would not have gotten several projects off the ground or reached the level of capacity that we have. Julia greatly expanded outreach and participation in our program by local, regional, and national communitiy members through building our communication backbone, developing a model for web-site content production, and building tools to lower the threshold of working with our program. It has simply impacted the entire organization to have someone focused on capacity building and research.
iConnect Project Developer
Organization:
KNON Community Radio VISTA Name:
Mark Woodward
Program Start:
7/2009
Program End:
7/2010
Project Description:
The CTC Vista volunteer will increase our capacity by providing the technical assistance to develop a new media training program, systems for volunteers to use an interactive website, and develop volunteers to become trainers themselves for future participants. The VISTA’s role is to help us through this transition and move KNON into a position where we can provide existing services in newer, more relevant forms. Once the project is completed, the additional volunteers, trainers, training tools, online protocols, online audience, and online tools will augment our community connections by making sure the station is as interactive as possible and acts as a community resource that uses the latest technology to give its listenership a voice in the community and the ability to affect positive change in their own environment.
The CTC Vista will be responsible for:
Work with volunteers to mae presentations to organizations serving lower-income and minority communities in DFW
Work with community members to conduct surveys to determine community media needs
Develop curriculum to train to community organizations and their members to utilize media tools including blogs, audio recording and editing, video recording and editing, and social networking.
Train volunteers to train additional community members to utilize media tools.
Work with volunteers to develop a community media campaign around one identified issue that will be used as a template for future issue campaigns
Develop protocols for volunteers to maintain the equipment and website for volunteer media work
Project Outcome:
Mark developed a list of 100 community organizations and events in coverage area and Developed outreach material describing community media project and volunteer interest forms. Developed on-air announcements and recruited audience members for project Recruited participants from current audience, community advisory committee and existing volunteer p Surveyed existing volunteer usage of social media networks and other online tools Integrated KNON station brand into new station website, facebook and twitter. Established user interface for volunteers and staff to update station’s online presence Activity 3: New Media Training for Community Volunteers Develop ed training series for community members for blogging and video (youtube) origination, editing and uploading onto station webtools. Also developed social networking training. Mark did all of this by reaching out to those at the station and in our audience during meetings and on air. He was assited by KNON volunteers and staff
Fundraising web componants. Developed well and continues to help us in fundraising
KNON Community Radio
Website:
http://www.knon.org/ Location:
Dallas, TX
KNON is a non-profit, listener-supported radio station, deriving its main source of income from on-air pledge drives and from underwriting or sponsorships by local small businesses.
KNON went on air on August 6, 1983 with 10,000 watts of power. In March 1990, KNON raised it’s power to 55,000 watts. The signal covers a radius of approximately 60 miles from Cedar Hill. it extends from Mckinney, Hillsboro, Corsicana and from Ft. Worth to Greenville.
KNON is on the air 24 hours, seven days a week, with the most diverse programming in Texas. The volunteer disc jockeys play their own music or conduct talk shows during specifically targeted programs. The program variety can be seen on our schedule.
Each music format has its own unique demography, but the one thing that the entire KNON audience shares is that they listen to KNON, rather that use it for background noise.
Regulatory Research VISTA
Organization:
Prometheus Radio Project VISTA Name:
Brandy Doyle
Program Start:
9/2009
Program End:
9/2010
Project Description:
Prometheus has always done work to make the workings of the FCC more transparent and to bring a wider array of voices to the table as the FCC considers the media future. A VISTA will allow the organization to reorganize this often harried work into a more systematic operation for Prometheus.
The regulatory research project involves researching legal and technical issues as they relate to communications regulations, for the purpose of informing regulatory rule-makings. This would include topics such as Low Power radio, media ownership, spectrum policy, and the analog to digital transition.
Goal 1: Make FCC regulations and lawsuits relevant to media reform accessible to a broad audience
Goal 2: Prepare outreach plan for future FCC filing windows
Project Outcome:
Goal #1 for our second VISTA was to “Make FCC regulations and lawsuits relevant to media reform accessible to a broad audience.” Brandy Doyle has developed a working knowledge of FCC regulations and telecommunications law that she’s used to educate both the general public and other staff members on the rules that impact community radio. She has written a number of brief, plain-English articles about complex regulatory subjects, including digital radio, radio spectrum policy, and broadcast media ownership. Brandy led the effort to develop a comprehensive plan for the organization’s regulatory work, including a 20+ page document on regulatory work – the most comprehensive the organization has ever produced. This plan proved instrumental gathering input from the entire staff collective in decisions about future regulatory priorities. As part of her goal to make regulatory procedures more accessible, Brandy designed and led a series of public workshops in different settings. In April Brandy held an educational workshop at WMNF Community Radio in Tampa, Florida on media ownership and FCC rulemaking process. In May, Brandy co-presented on “Community Journalism: Its Relevance in Radio and How to Bring it to your Newsroom” with Terri Klemetson, news director at KMUD, and co-presented “The D.C. Report: Community Radio, Politics And Policy” with Pete Tridish at Grassroots Radio Conference. Also in May, she facilitated a discussion with Davis Media Access about the challenges and benefits of community radio/public access television partnerships. Brandy has been aided by her coworkers in the regulatory policy team who have taught her how to research FCC dockets and given her context and information to make sense of them. She has also received support from the rest of the staff.
Because of her own interests, skills, and experience, Brandy has chosen to taken on a number of general writing and editing projects for the organization. Brandy has worked with the communications staff to think through a more comprehensive press strategy, not just a press strategy for outreach, as described in her VISTA assignment, and has played a role in improving our process for media advisories and press releases. Another responsibility Brandy has taken on has been to help coordinate aspects of our new website launch. She’s also taken on responsibility for responding to requests to volunteer at Prometheus, a role that rotates amongst collective members.
Impact Quote:
All of Brandy’s work has been conducted with an eye towards sustainability. The documents she has helped to produce continue to be re-used on our website and in policy briefs for FCC staff and public education. Brandy has provided an invaluable long term contribution to our organization. - Danielle Chynoweth, VISTA Supervisor
Research and Technology VISTA
Organization:
Prometheus Radio Project VISTA Name:
Katie Ingersoll
Program Start:
9/2010
Program End:
9/2011
Project Description:
The VISTA will assist Prometheus Radio Project in researching and evaluating data to better understand the current regulatory landscape in the world of community radio.
First, the VISTA will survey stations and review FCC data to create a “snapshot” of the regulatory landscape for community radio in 2011. Issues addressed may include encroachment from full power stations, interference from digital radio signals, anticipated new eligibility requirements for low power stations, and the impact of rule changes surrounding the relative priority of low power stations and translators. The snapshot will inform out advocacy, helping us to prioritize our efforts and support our statements to the FCC. Documents produced by the VISTA will be made available to other media justice organizations, to better inform their work in field of public media and technology.
Second, the VISTA will launch a new effort to involve stations in their own regulatory advocacy by developing and promoting an “FCC Comment Tool” and related resources, such as a guide to FCC participation and an online forum on regulatory advocacy. Together, these efforts will support an informed and active community radio sector.
Outreach Coordinator
Organization:
WERU-FM Community Radio VISTA Name:
Meaghan Lasala
Program Start:
9/2010
Program End:
9/2011
Project Description:
The Corps member will serve in a vital outreach and engagement role that is necessary to boost community engagement work in our new broadcast service area. The Corps member will also serve as a liaison between the radio station and the community during this critical time of community engagement.
WERU-FM Community Radio
Website:
http://weru.org/ Location:
East Orland, ME
to provide a community-based, noncommercial radio service for the people living in the areas covered by the station’s signal; to broadcast programs designed to serve the needs of those not currently served by other broadcast media; to be a voice of many voices offering a wide variety of people an opportunity to share their experiences, concerns, and perspectives with their neighbors over the WERU airwaves.