Resources

Suggested Reading
[|The World is Flat] - 2nd ed. - by Thomas Friedman

[|MacroWikinomics] - by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams

Socialism Studies []  • Global Literacy Project- []    • Map Tool [| http://www.worldmapper.org/]    • Language Learning Tools- []    • Student Projects- http://lesleyu.wikispaces.com/Students'+Projects Media Organizations

Media Awareness Network- MNet is a Canadian non-profit organization that has been pioneering the development of media literacy and digital literacy programs since its incorporation in 1996. Members of our team have backgrounds in education, journalism, mass communications and cultural policy. Working out of Ottawa, we promote media literacy and digital literacy by producing education and awareness programs and resources, working in partnership with Canadian and international organizations, and speaking to audiences across Canada and around the world. Adbusters Media Foundation Global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. Its aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century. The American Journalism Review has many good articles on media ownership and democracy issues, including this still timely and accurate report on the Congressional lobbying power and influence of the American broadcast industry. amplifyme.us (formerly Project Think Different) is a nonprofit organization that engages people in positive change through the use of media arts. We use pop culture to inspire people to think differently about their power to create change in their lives and the lives of others through civic engagement. Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is a "national coalition of health care professionals, educators, advocacy groups and concerned parents who counter the harmful effects of marketing to children through action, advocacy, education, research, and collaboration." Center for International Media Action was created "as an information-exchange space for groups using advocacy and activism to change the media system. The focus is on organizations and events, building our strategies and learning from each other." While CIMA is based in the U.S., and this is our primary frame of reference for the material on this site, we do work in a global context...." The site is about the work of advocacy, and provides excellent resources for non-profits to learn how to strengthen themselves and their programs, fund-raising, organizing, collaborating, etc. Calendar of events, Organizers' Toolkit and more.

The Center for Media and Democracy works to strengthen democracy by promoting media that are "of, by and for the people." Projects include PR Watch, a quarterly investigative journal; five books by CMD staff; Spin of the Day, which offers daily reporting on spin and propaganda in the news; andSourceWatch, a wiki-based investigative journalism resource to which anyone, including you, can contribute. Center for Media Literacy This is a consulting organization based on the former non-profit of the same name. The company's website still has the excellent CML Reading Room, with excellent articles on issues related to news, politics, democracy and more. Center for SCREEN-TIME Awareness (formerly TV Turn-Off Network) provides information so people can live healthier lives in functional families in vibrant communities by taking control of the electronic media in their lives, not allowing it to control them. The Columbia Journalism Review has information on Who Owns What (as does Free Press, see below) plus timelines on the growth of six mega-media corporations. Commercial Alert. Founded by Ralph Nader and Gary Ruskin, Commercial Alert's mission is "to keep the commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and democracy." This group does a great job shining the spotlight on egregious corporate attempts to market to children and to commercialize our schools and other public institutions. FAIR the national media watch group, has been "offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints." The FAIR website archives the insightful weekly syndicated column on media and politics written by FAIR associate Norman Solomon, deemed by //Utne Reader// "one of the fiercest and most articulate media critics around." Free Press. This very important group, co-founded by author and professor Robert McChesney and writer John Nichols, is a national non-profit media reform organization working to open, democratize and ignite media policy debates. They are doing an excellent job in making media a bona fide issue in America — through innovative grassroots and communications strategies and working with partner organizations. The website, which includes over 100 media reform organizations, daily updated news, action alerts, calendar, list serv, index, and library, is "intended to serve as a resource for your organizing work and a comprehensive entrypoint for activists." HearUsNow.org, a project of Consumers Union (publishers of Consumer Reports magazine) "follows Consumers Union's long tradition of promoting a fair and just marketplace by empowering consumers to fight for better and more affordable telephone, cable and Internet services or equipment. By focusing on major media, technology and communications issues and emphasizing local stories, HearUsNow.org will help explain increasingly complex issues and the connections between these issues, underscore what's at stake, and offer ways to make improvements." Outstanding site with many great resources. Internews® Network supports open media worldwide, fosters independent media in emerging democracies, produces innovative television and radio programming and Internet content, and uses the media to reduce conflict within and between countries. The Knight Foundation funds and publishes many surveys and reports to "transform journalism and communities." A recent survey revealed the very scary finding that many American high school students think the U.S. press has "too many freedoms." Their Research & Publications section has many excellent resources, especially for community media groups. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Lliving Earth Television, which calls itself, "Voices of Our World in All its Diversity," supports television programming that uses the medium as a way to connect the world's peoples to each other and help them learn about other cultures, rather than as a channel for corporate media messages. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Media Access Project is a "non-profit, public interest law firm which promotes the public's First Amendment right to hear and be heard on the electronic media of today and tomorrow." <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Media Channel calls itself a "media issues supersite, featuring criticism, breaking news, and investigative reporting from hundreds of organizations worldwide. As the media watch the world, we watch the media." <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Media Education Foundation Produces and distributes videos/DVDs for older teens, college-age and adults, on topics not usually covered in K-12 materials, including gender roles and sexism in the media, global corporatization of media, commercialism and consumer culture, media portrayals of race and sexual orientation, media violence, and alternative viewpoints. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation's book, //Patriotism, Democracy and Common Sense: Restoring America's Promise at Home and Abroad//, includes "media policies" as one of America's issue areas that must be connected to everything else in order to fix what's not working in the U.S. and to move the country forward in the world community. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Project Censored "Explores and publicize the extent of censorship in our society by locating stories about significant issues of which the public should be aware, but is not, or one reason or another." <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Reporters Without Borders helps restore people's right to be informed in countries where press freedom is threatened, and supports journalists who are persecuted for doing their job. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">United Church of Christ has excellent materials and programs administrated through its Media Justice Advocacy Arm. Its "Why Media Matter" pamphlets cover media issues related to Faith Groups; Immigrant Groups; Labor Activists; Parents, Youth & Families; Independent Artists; Community Organizers; and Environmental Advocates. <span class="emphasis" style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Free download <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> one pamphlet or the whole set. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">WITNESS: See It, Film It, Change It places video cameras in the hands of local human rights defenders and trains them to use the technology, along with computers and editing software, in the fight for human rights. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press is "a research, education, and publishing organization founded to increase communication among women and reach the public with our experience, perspectives, and opinions. Women's contributions to society must be heard and be taken into account if democracy is to function and the world's political decisions are to be viable." <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Voice of the Shuttle is a website project at the University of California, Santa Barbara with hundreds of links to media-related topics, including censorship and telecom issues. (Slow internet connection? Give it time to load.))