WGXC New Year’s Eve Ball
January 03 2010 | on communication | No Comments »
Archive for the 'on communication' Category
WGXC Online Launch Slideshow
WGXC Online Launch Photo Slideshow
May 10 2009 | on communication | No Comments »
Happy 10th Anniversary FCC Wars
We’re coming up on the 10th anniversary of the FCC reconsidering its position on Low Power Community Radio. Before the 80s, the FCC was cool with LFPM, then in the 80s and 90s it wasn’t cool with LPFM. But in 1999, after years of pressure the FCC relented and created an opportunity for more community radio. Not the big victory we were hoping for, but a few hundred more community radio stations are out in the world today because of a change of heart of then Chief Commissioner Kennard, now Obama Advisor Kennard. Though it isn’t 2009 yet, Pete Tridish told me recently that its time to start celebrating. It was just about this time 10 years ago now that a number of activists marched on the FCC. By his reckoning that’s the start of the Prometheus Radio Project. I headed down to DC to celebrate with Pete and the rest of the Prometheus crew. This time, instead of being outside of the FCC protesting, Pete and Hannah Sassaman accepted the United Church of Christ’s Office of Communications, Inc. Everett C. Parker Ethics in Telecommunications Award at a National Press Club luncheon. Hannah shook the house by asking everyone who would help pass the Local Community Radio Act to stand up. The wooly eyed DC crowd wasn’t quick to stand on their feet. But the award is proof that the walls of DC have become too permeable for us to tear down.
While I’m reminiscing it may be a good time to finally read Jesse Walkers’s Rebels On the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America which chronicles my activism, Pete’s, and about 200 other activists who were pressuring for media reform by any means necessary. Where are we now?
Even then I was more of the bookish sort than the take to the streets type. Not much has changed for me: FCC’s Interference Argument Grounded. But what has changed for micropower?
Here are pix from the Award party at the New America Foundation.
September 24 2008 | on communication | 1 Comment »
CSA Radio Workshop
Here are a few pix from a radio workshop that Galen Joseph-Hunter, Kaya Weidman and I did at the Germantown Community Farm. CSA supporters passed the mic sharing their visions of community radio for our area. This is part of a series of participatory design workshops and tabling sessions that we’ve been doing in Greene and Columbia Counties in preparation for a full power community radio station serving the two counties.
September 21 2008 | on communication | No Comments »
The Tools They Use: Online & Offline Collaboration for Media Activists
An article that I wrote, “The Tools They Use: Online and Offline Collaboration for Media Activists” is available in The Spin Project’s Whose Media? Our Media: Strategic Communications Tools to Reform, Reclaim, and Revolutionize the Media.
Available as a free PDF.
June 16 2008 | on communication | No Comments »
Building Community One Watt at a Time
When people find out that I advocate for low-power community radio the first question they ask is, “How far do those stations go?” I tell them, the beauty of community radio is not how far it reaches but how deep it reaches. A quick example:
June 12 2008 | sound & image and on communication | No Comments »
Terrorism and Compliance at RPI
“What would my brother- a US Ranger currently on duty in Iraq- think of me and my seven year old daughter being a shield for an Iraqi-born anti-war artist?” I asked myself as she and I took a step closer to each other tightly holding hands as we moved through the crowd of angry protesters outside the aptly named Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy on Monday night. Earlier that day I received an email from the Sanctuary informing me that the Iraqi born Waffaa Bilal’s art had been censored by the President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and consequently the exhibit was moved to the Sanctuary where protesters gathered outside. The protest was called publicly by the Troy Commissioner of Public Works, Bob Mirch. Subsequently, the Sanctuary- a beautiful church being lovingly restored- was closed in what appear to be spurious code violations.
March 18 2008 | undoing violence and on communication | No Comments »
the rise and fall and rise? of 2 community nets in chicago
For the seven.1 people in the world- you know who you are- who are super interested in the fascinating but small vanguard we call Community Networks– I bring you an interview with Bill Comisky. Bill is an antenna designer in Chicago who moonlights as a volunteer on two community based networks in Chicago. When I* interviewed him in March, one network was “dark” — that is turned off- and the other network was humming along. He gave me his take why both projects chose open source software, the appeal to volunteer on community technology projects, asset building from the ground up, and the struggle to keep one net going and get another back up. (*A chipmunk named Betty actually conducted the interview.)
October 17 2007 | sound & image and on communication | No Comments »
Feminist Interventions in Geek Culture: ShesFreakinGeekyGetOverItAlready
“I’m hoping a series of feminist interventions will erupt from shesgeeky like a labia majora in all its glory.”
On a nearly daily basis, I feel the disconnect between the very arbitrary and abstract places that my work takes me and the larger questions that tug at my heart. How in the world is municipal broadband infrastructure remotely related to questions of economic empowerment or social justice - never mind Gender Equity! continue reading »
October 16 2007 | feminist interventions in geek culture and on communication | 1 Comment »
Stealin Away the Boy’s Toys
I have to credit my angry teenage daughter for helping me realize that when gender and technology mix, *disempowered* is often interpreted as *disinterested.* She also gets major credit for solving her own problems with a bit of active resistance.
When my daughter Manda was a freshman in high-school she came home excited because her technology class was about to spend several weeks playing with cool programmable robots. But before I explain the ensuing disappointment she suffered, the agony, soul searching and eventual victory– let me take a self-congratulating minute to give myself props for having raised a girl who likes to play with robots. How did I do it? continue reading »
October 14 2007 | feminist interventions in geek culture and on communication | 1 Comment »