Call for Fellowship Applications: Strategy Workshop on Political tools
for
the Web in Media Reform, Media Justice, and Communications Rights

Dates of Workshop: November 10-14, 2003
Application Deadline: September 2, 2003
Location: de Balie, Amsterdam
Opening date for applications: August 1 , 2003
Deadline for applications: September 2, 2003
Fellowship grant award notice: September 19, 2003
Workshop website: http://www.issuenetwork.org

Who should apply/who's eligible:

U.S.-based activists, public interest advocates, and researchers in
media
reform/media justice/communications rights. The workshop will host a
total
of 15 participants. Five fellowship awards are available for U.S.-based
applicants. Grant awards will cover costs of transportation and
accommodations for the workshop. (Note that this call is intended for
U.S.-based Media Activists and Researchers. Please see issuenetwork.org
for
the international call for participation, and further information on the

workshop.)

Send email application to (see application details below):
[log in to unmask] (Subject line should read: Application for
November Workshop)

Background

Media reform and media justice advocacy in the U.S. is fragmented into
several competing arenas for mainstream media, policy maker, and funding

attention, for example: community technology, community radio, public
access cable television, low power FM radio, and public interest media
production, distribution, and exhibition. One of the tendencies of the
organizations working in these areas is to rely upon measuring the value
of
their activities by tallying the number of times their organizations are

featured in the mainstream news media. For many, presence in the media
has
become a proxy for effectiveness in those arenas where issue advocates
are
attempting to influence decision makers, funders, and public opinion
about
a wide array of important public policy concerns. In the case of media
reform and media justice, however, efforts to get media reform messages
into the mainstream press have been difficult because the very entities
that are the targets for change are the gatekeepers for progressive
information about advocates' desired reforms. The relative isolation of
advocates in media reform/justice advocacy requires that new approaches
to
expanding networks be explored.

About the Workshop

The Govcom.org Foundation, Amsterdam, together with de Balie Center for
Politics and Culture, are organizing a one-week workshop for
researchers,
advocates, and grassroots organizers in media rights, media reform, and
media justice. This is the 1st of 2 workshops to be provided by the
Govcom.org Foundation, Amsterdam. (The other will be held in March
2004.)
The overall goal is to provide workshop participants with new ways of
assessing the value of their work as it relates to other networks with
similar, related, or competing issues.
Over a five-day period, the workshop will provide an immersion
experience
in Govcom.org's work in a media laboratory, where all participants will
be
invited to use state of the art information tools created by govcom.org
and
its collaborators. During the workshop, participants will be invited to
present and share their own tools and knowledge.

The workshop will take up several questions and provide software tools
for
participating groups to use to answer these questions:

--Where should one dedicate networking efforts most effectively?
--Should efforts be concentrated in attracting press coverage, working
behind the scenes in agenda-setting governmental, inter-governmental as
well as donor arenas, and/or spreading messages across networks of
organizations dedicated to similar issues?
--When is attracting press coverage a viable networking strategy?

With an understanding of the networks and the role of press coverage
within
them, participants will examine the extent to which networks, the press,

intergovernmental organizations or donors are driving agenda-setting in
their issues areas.

Grant Application Details

To apply for a workshop fellowship, please send a biographical sketch, a

one-page description of the questions and themes you would like to
address
at the workshop, as well as the answers to the questionnaire below. Send

all 3 items to [log in to unmask] by September 2, 2003. Grants
will be awarded on the basis of a mutual fit between your interests and
expectations, and the capacities of the analysts on hand at the
workshop.

All workshop participants must submit answers to the following
questions.

1. Name your issue/research area(s), e.g., media concentration, spectrum

reform, intellectual property, low power FM, etc.
2. Name the 5-10 most significant organizations in that issue area(s)
along
with their web address (URLs).
3. List the 3-5 most important conferences in that issue area, for the
past
year, the current year and next year, along with the web
location/address
(URLs).
4. List the 3-5 most significant web-accessible documents in the issue
area(s). Provide the exact web addresses for each document.
5. List (no more than 10) the organizations in that issue area(s) that
you
have had the most direct email contact with in the past 6-12 months.
6. List the 3-5 most significant news sources for your work and the web
locations for these sources.

About the Workshop Organizers and Sponsor

De Balie Center for Politics and Culture is a high-profile venue for
public
debate on critical social issues. De Balie also co-hosts the Next Five
Minutes Tactial Media Festival.

The Govcom.org Foundation, Amsterdam, is dedicated to creating and
hosting
political tools for the Web, at http://www.govcom.org. Its director is
Richard Rogers ([log in to unmask]), also of the University of Amsterdam.

The workshop is co-organised by Noortje Marres ([log in to unmask]),
University
of Amsterdam. Govcom.org workshop producer is Catherine Somzé
([log in to unmask]). The designers are Marieke van Dijk and
Auke
Touwslager of anderemedia.nl. Principal affiliates and analysts are
Andrei
Mogoutov (Ecole des Mines/aguidel.com), Andres Zelman (Thinkamalinks),
Greg
Elmer (Florida State) and Astrid Mager (University of Vienna).

The Workshop is part of the Social Life of Issues Series, number 8,
http://www.govcom.org/workshops.html.

For viewing and navigating, the maps from previous workshops may require
an
svg plug-in, available, for example, at http://www.adobe.com/svg.
Govcom.org also has developed the Web Issue Index of Civil Society,
previewed at http://www.infoid.org. It is a downloadable quicklaunch
application and interactive screensaver that shows the rise and fall of
attention to important social issues by select civil society actors.

Workshop fellowships for U.S.-based applicants are funded by the Ford
Foundation's Knowledge, Creativity, and Freedom Program.

Clemencia Rodriguez
OURMedia