ARTICLE FOR THE ALLIANCE FOR COMMUNITY MEDIA NEWSLETTER

OURMEDIA III: Strengthening Citizens’ Communication Barranquilla, Colombia May 19-21, 2003 REPORT BY Clemencia Rodriguez Associate Professor Department of Communication University of Oklahoma 610 Elm Avenue Norman OK 73019 USA 405 325 1570 clemencia@ou.edu An International Event This past May, Barranquilla, a large Caribbean city on the Atlantic coast of Colombia welcomed seventy academics, activists, and foundation officers with a common interest on media justice, media reform, and citizens’ media. The three-day event was OURMedia III: Strengthening Citizens’ Communication, the third annual meeting of OURMedia, a network of citizens’ media, alternative media, and community media academics and activists (www.ourmedianet.org). While OURMedia I (Washington) and OURMedia II (Barcelona) consisted mainly of academics with travel budgets for communication conferences, OURMedia III was a full blown meeting of activists and academics from twenty countries, thanks to a grant from the Media, Arts and Culture Unit and the support of Becky Lentz.1 We came from Korea, Japan, South Africa, Namibia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Denmark, Canada, and the US, among others.2 Some of us traveled for days, missed planes, lost our luggage, but finally arrived to Barranquilla in one piece, and with all the ganas [energy] in the world to engage in three days (and their nights) of intense 1 The complete list of attendees includes: 6 participants from the UK, 1 from Bolivia, 21 from Colombia, 2 from Denmark, 1 from Guatemala, 4 from Ecuador, 15 from the US, 1 from Uruguay, 1 from South Africa, 1 from The Netherlands, 2 from Brazil, 3 from Argentina, 2 from Mexico, 1 from Namibia, 1 from Korea, 1 from Japan, 1 from Peru, 2 from Canada, 1 from Nicaragua, 1 from Spain, and 2 from Chile. List of participants and their emails enclosed in Appendix B. 2 Only one participant, Nazli Abrahams from Bush Radio in South Africa, could not make it due to problems with his passport. 1 dialogue, discussion, networking, and of course, getting to know that other Colombia so well kept in the shadows by the mainstream media. The Visits A thousand a one stories could be told about OURMedia III in Barranquilla. For example the story of our visits to local community projects, and our amazement at what we saw. While the mainstream media had prepared every one of us to encounter a country ravaged by violence and chaos, we found citizens and collectives fully engaged in their own processes of building democracy, peace, and citizenship. One of these projects was the Colegio del Cuerpo [The School of the Body], a dance collective formed by inner city kids (and their teachers); these kids normally would join the guerrilla or the right-wing militias, but instead opt for creating their own little world, where anger and pain become beautiful choreographies, and not bullets on the bodies of others. OURMedia member David Joyce wrote in his report about El Colegio del Cuerpo: ―The students used dance to express all aspects of themselves – from violence, to melancholy, to sexuality. To be in touch with all aspects of one’s being creates a well-balanced person, and the more of these people working for a better tomorrow, the better. For most of these under-privileged students it must be like an awakening or coming of age, similar to the impacts of ceremonial activities among Indigenous cultures, past and modern. I am a product of such Indigenous ceremonial experiences, and can attest to the importance of the physical component of the learning experience these dance students go through. Much like a sweat lodge ceremony, learning dance places you in a physical and spiritual context of routine Photo 1. Colegio del Cuerpo Dancer (more photos at www.ourmedianet.org). and practice, in close proximity to the core of our deepest human nature. I would like to see this particular dance experience replicated in all underdeveloped countries, and places even in Canada where I am from, on the First Nations reserves, where believe it or not, many live in similar conditions.‖ 2 Photo 2. OURMedia members Pablo Boido, Shivaani Selvaraj, Takashi Kawani, Olga Beatriz Gutierrez, Sasha Constanza-Chock, and Susana Kaiser (background left to right) interacting with Colegio del Cuerpo kids (foreground). Another project, the Escuela Distrital de Arte, provides video training and equipment for youth in Barranquilla. Here, we came across the strange experience of viewing a video documentary produced by kids about the street vendor across their school, and 30 minutes later storming out of the viewing room to buy the vendor’s juicy empanadas and her mango juice. One rainy night we were taken to witness the CiudadArteria project, in which young Barranquilleros/as produce documentaries about everyday life in busy intersections of their city and then project them on a large screen on the intersection itself. The night was hot and wet, and as we were invited under the bystanders’ umbrellas, we could share the experience of the neighbors watching themselves and their daily routines on the video screen. In my report about the CiudadArteria experience I wrote: ―The protagonists of the documentary, their families, friends, and neighbors, are then invited to see the screening, for free, and in the heart of a party of drums, music, dance, and performance. Their everyday lives, and the life of the city becomes something to be celebrated. The city looks at itself, as if a huge mirror suddently had become available for all to see. I cannot stop thinking about the scene in Carlos Fuentes’ Old Gringo and how I wrote about it in my own book: In Carlos Fuentes' novel Gringo Viejo, Arroyo, the Mexican revolutionary general, leads his people to attack the hacienda 3 owned by the Mirandas, one of the regions' affluent families. Arroyo's people charge against the hacienda's compound, destroying and burning every building, demolishing the walls that housed their experiences of exploitation and domination. However, the revolutionaries leave one building standing: the hacienda's ballroom with its mirrored walls. Thanks to the revolution, they gain access to the ballroom and once inside, they stand in front of one of the mirrored walls and look at themselves for the first time. Fuentes describes this primordial moment: ―Paralyzed by their own images, by the full-length reflection of their being, by the wholeness of their bodies. They turned slowly, as if to make sure this was not another illusion.‖ Fuentes' words capture the magnitude of a community's experience of seeing itself for the first time. Here, the Mexican revolution allowed this peasant community to gain access to a medium previously denied, the mirrored walls. Thanks to this newly conquered medium, the community accessed an image of itself. The Photo 3. Neighbors watching themselves in CiudadArteria. process of acquiring a new self-image brings with it yet deeper transformations; once these men, women, and children have seen themselves in the mirror, their notion of self, of who they are, of what they can accomplish, and how far they can go, will never be the same. (Fissures in the Mediascape by Clemencia Rodriguez) The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that communities need to be able to see themselves, in order to find out who they are, and where they want to go. Notions of empowerment, participation, taking-control-over-one’s-destiny do not make sense unless the community has a clear sense of who they are, a self-image. And that is exactly what CiudadArteria is providing for the citizens of Barranquilla. 4 The Conference OURMedia III was the result of joint effort undertaken by OURMedia and the Communication Department of the Universidad del Norte (Uninorte). Uninorte’s IV International Communication Conference was held in conjunction with OURMedia III. Also, Uninorte’s communication professors and undergraduate students became our de facto local hosts. The students collected OURMedia participants at the airport, took us around, served as translators, helped us with foreign menus and foreign currencies, took care of lost luggage, plane reservations, made photocopies, and helped serving lunches and snacks during the conference coffee breaks. Those of us coming from universities in the north, where we have grown accustomed to our students’ inertia, were amazed at the sight of 250 communication undergrads volunteering for weeks to facilitate an academic conference. The first day of the conference was kept closed to the public; days two and three were open, with approximately 400 attendees among students and faculty from Colombian universities, local and national media professionals, and Colombian and international NGO representatives. Photo 4. The first day: Alex Halkin, Catherine Borgman-Arboleda, Victor Van Oeyen, David Joyce, John Downing, Umberto Abaunza (left to right). 5 Photo 5. Day two with 400 in attendance. The conference itself consisted of several panels designed to meet needs we have identified in the past few years. A panel on evaluation dealt with the urgency of designing appropriate methodologies to evaluate community media projects; Jo Tacchi (Oxford Institute of Technology, UK) told us about ethnographic methods used in evaluation studies of community media in Sri Lanka; Patricia Tellez (Universidad Javeriana, Colombia), Ole Prehn (Aalborg University, Denmark), Victor Van Oeyen (ERBOL, Bolivia), and Alfonso GumucioDagron (Consortium for Communication and Social Change, Guatemala) presented specific evaluation studies of community radio and television in different parts of the world. A second panel dealt with regulatory frameworks, what has worked, what has not; Lumko Mtinde (ICASA, South Africa) explained how South African media regulators are trying to balance access to frequencies for what they call the three tiers: public media, commercial media, and community media; Petri Dish (Prometheus Radio Project, US)—another Ford grantee—told us about the US initiative to regulate low-power FM radios; Gustavo Gomez (AMARC, Uruguay) asked thorny questions, such as why we keep pushing for strict regulatory guidelines for community media, while commercial media enjoy an environment with less and less regulatory restrictions. A roundtable with foundation representatives offered the opportunity to hear the point of view of some of the philanthropic organizations leading the way in supporting media justice and communication for social change initiatives. Denise Gray-Felder, from the Rockefeller 6 Foundation, Nan Rubin, a consultant for the Ford Foundation, Sara Brombart, from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and German Franco from the Colombian Fundación Social, shared with us their organizations’ agendas, goals, and future directions. One of our main agendas at the moment is the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) convened by the United Nations in December of 2003 in Geneva; thus one of our panels was entirely devoted to this topic. We found agreement in that the Summit is more an excuse than an end in itself; given what we know about other UN summits, and having experienced the exclusionary practices with which the Information Summit is being organized, we do not expect much from the Summit itself; on the other hand, the Summit is being used by media justice and media reform collectives, NGOs, and activists in each country to involve the entire civil society in national, regional, and global social movements around the right to communicate, the need for open-source software, and for low-cost access to information technologies. In other words, we need the environmentalists, the feminists, the minority movements, the gays, lesbians, and transgender, the peace activists, the anti-globalization activists, and the human rights activists to appropriate the demands for media justice as their own. The WSIS panelists were Sasha Constanza-Chock (CRIS Youth Caucus, USA), Tracey Naughton (MISA, Namibia), Olinca Marino (APC, Mexico), Olga Beatriz Gutierrez (Planeta Paz, Colombia), Nick Couldry (LSE, UK), and Myriam Horngren (CRIS, UK). Other panels focused on Independent Media Centers, Social Movements for Media Reform, Citizens’ Media for Peace, and Communication for Social Change. The event’s closing address featured Colombian scholar Jesus Martin Barbero. In his presentation Martin Barbero strongly emphasized several ideas central to OURMedia: a) the need to build strong, international networks to counteract the mounting power of oppressive and exploitative institutions and ideologies; b) the urgent need for academics to work with activists and social movements; c) and the need to root social change initiatives in local cultures and identities. All in all, we heard approximately fifty presentations in three days, all covering different topics related to citizens’ communication, media and information policy, the role of information technologies in democracy and peace building, and communication for social change. (Most of these papers and presentations are available at our website at 7 www.ourmedianet.org in their original languages; soon we will post English and Spanish versions of all texts). I am enclosing the entire program here as an appendix. Parallel to the panels, OURMedia III included a poster session with display presentations about different community media projects such as the Chiapas Media Project, which provides video technologies and training to Indigenous and campesino communities in Southern Mexico, or Radio Chiribiquete, a community radio trying to function as a tool for peace in one of the most violent areas in Colombia. The posters— approximately twenty—were organized by the Uninorte students around the idea of a barrio. An urban street crossed the room from one end to the other, with displays and their authors stationed on each side of the street.3 The Outcomes Some of us who have attended past OURMedia meetings were pleased with the number of activists at OURMedia III, and the real dialogue among academics and activists. In words of Dee Dee Halleck: ―The indymedia folk had a great get-together and it was amazing to see the young Independent Media Centers’ activists from at least five countries listening to the academics who are actually taking their work seriously enough to even have footnotes and appendices on them!‖ Another highlight of the event was the strong presence of very young academics and activists; it was refreshing to have three and four different generations in the same room at all times, holding discussions not as senior mentors and their apprentices, but as equals. Without a doubt, the most important outcome of OURMedia III was the number of connections that emerged among participants. With the help of simultaneous translation and our volunteer student-translators, activists, academics, practitioners, NGO representatives, and students 3 Complete list of posters included: Alternative Media and Indigenous Languages Video (Mexico), The Chiapas Media Project (USA/Mexico), Radio Estrella del Mar (Chile), Break the Media Blackout (USA), RAEL (Ecuador), Radio Chiribiquete (Colombia), Brown Eyed Communications Inc. (Canada), Lebanese Diaspora and Internet (USA/Lebanon), CRIS Campaign (Global), RECORRA (Colombia), ANEE (Colombia), CIUDADARTERIA (Colombia), Casa de Justicia (Colombia), Peace and Internet in Colombia (Colombia), PISOTON (Colombia), Cuando el Rio Suena (Colombia), Pabellón Uninorte (Colombia), Cine Piquetero (Argentina). 8 were able to meet each other, to find out about their common ground, their common interests, and their common needs. The following are just some examples of connections that emerged from OURMedia III: Councilor Lumko Mtinde, from the telecommunication governmental body of South Africa approached Patricia Tellez, a Colombian communication scholar, to find out more about her research on community television regulation in Colombia.4 Angélica Rosas and Soledad Lorca from Radio Estrella del Mar in Chile, are exploring the possibility to send their radio reporters to the training courses at the Fundación del Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, one of the projects we visited in Cartagena. Myriam Horngren, the CRIS campaign coordinator, was able to meet so many of the Latin American activists she has been ―talking‖ to via email, such as Valeria Betancourt (APC), Olinca Marino, Victor Van Oeyen (ERBOL), Fernando Lopez (AMARC), and Gustavo Gomez (AMARC). David Joyce from Brown Eyed Communication, and Olga Beatriz Gutierrez from Colombian NGO Planeta Paz began exploring the possibility to bring wireless internet technology to indigenous communities in Colombia. Planeta Paz, in its role of coordinator of the CRIS campaign in Colombia, contacted Victor Van Oeyen and Myriam Horngren as potential speakers for a series on The Role of Civil Society in the Information Society sponsored by the Colombian Mininstry of Communication. OURMedia has become a valuable network for academics and activists mainly because it enables us to find our own community. Working for media reform and media justice is commonly a very lonely endeavor. Communication academics are more concerned with issues such as media effects, or textual analyses than community media. Activists generally do not see the media as a site of struggle comparable to the environment, poverty, or human rights. Thus, OURMedia members highly value the opportunity to interact with like-minded people thus dispelling common feelings of isolation and discouragement. OURMedia III in Barranquilla was an excellent opportunity to build community. Sasha Constanza-Chock, from the CRIS campaign, says: ―It really was an amazing experience - the group of people you pulled together was quite wonderful, and I count myself quite lucky to have been able to meet so many whose work is so interesting, including those who I've been reading but never met, who I've been working 4 In his report to his home organization, Councilor Mtinde also mentions other connections made in Barranquilla: “Some organizations like Privaterra, working in Canada were interested in the regulatory framework for 2.4 – 3.0 GHZ in South Africa. I have already sent them information and the discussion paper on the Provision of Wireless Internet Access Using ISM Frequencies, under sections 27 of the Telecommunications Act, No 103 of 1996 (“the Act”).” 9 with electronically but didn't know face to face, as well as to see again some old friends and to make new ones.‖ Taking OURMedia III to the global south definitely shaped the event. OURMedia member and professor at the London School of Economics Nick Couldry expresses this: The network has moved to another scale of operation, involving more countries and continents, a wider range of topics and building important links with organizers outside the North. There were many interesting discussions with a good balance across the range of community media, and media and communications policy. The poster section with vivid reports on projects and campaigns from Latin America, North America, the Middle East and Asia was excellent, and a valuable innovation. The event overall was very valuable in consolidating the work of the previous two years and in pointing the way to future, more policy-oriented outcomes. Dorothy Kidd (University of San Francisco) shares his assessment: Locating OURMedia III in the global south also meant that the usual northern dominance/perspective was lessened. Translation costs were also affordable; excellent simultaneous translation was a major improvement over the Barcelona meeting. OURMedia III enabled us to enhance greatly OURMedia’s visibility. Local and national media covered the event, and the organizers were featured in television and radio programs, and regional newspapers. OURMedia III was also announced at the National Conference of Colombian Communication Students held just a few weeks before. Definitely, the most important source of visibility was the Communication Initiative (CI - http://www.comminit.com). Warren Feek from CI and Adelaida Trujillo from CI-Latin America (CILA) went out of their way to advertise and feature OURMedia III in both the English and Spanish communication portals. CI’s electronic newsletter Drum Beat # 194 of April 28 2003 and CILA’s newsletter Son de la Tambora # 47 of April 23 2003 featured both OURMedia—the network, and OURMedia III—the conference. The Drum Beat reaches 23,500 people worldwide and the Son de la Tambora reaches 13,500 Spanish speakers mainly in Latin America, therefore we had great exposure due the interest of the Communication Initiative in our work. Currently CILA is in the process of designing an entire site within their portal with all OURMedia III papers, panelists’ bios, reports from visits to community projects, and posters’ documents. Soon, as we 10 complete translations into English, an identical site will be included in CI. As a result of CI’s exposure, dozens of activists, academics, and NGOs from all over the world have contacted us wanting to be part of OURMedia; one of them, Sergei Stafeev the director of the Centre of Community Networking and Information Policy Studies (CCNS) in Russia, not only has joined OURMedia, but translated our brochures to Russian, in order to make them available to his community. The connection with CI and CILA has been crucial to enter the radar of the Rockefeller Foundation. The newly-formed Consortium for Communication and Social Change (CfSC), a spin-off of the Rockefeller’s communication program has already expressed interest in supporting OURMedia. Denise Gray-Felder, the new president of CfSC, attended the Barranquilla event and frequently expressed her positive impressions. The Network Founded in 2000, OURMedia/NUESTROSMedios is an emerging global network with the goal of facilitating a long-term dialogue between academics, activists, practitioners and policy experts around media justice and citizens' media initiatives. OURMedia is founded on the principles that, first, all communities and collectives need to communicate, to express themselves, to inform and be informed, to dialogue with others, and to network; and second, that every community and collective has the right to the appropriate communication and information technologies and know-how to meet its historical communication and information needs. OURMedia provides a space for collaboration in which needs and alternatives can be identified in the areas of communication and information infrastructure, policy, and research. Ultimately, the goal of OURMedia is to design and develop initiatives that can strengthen citizens' media, community media, and alternative media in national and international policy arenas. One of our main objectives in the middle term is to help establish citizens' media as a strong voice in the floors of the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) and The World Social Forum (WSF), among other international forums. Currently OURMedia includes 200 academics, activists, and students working in more than thirty countries (list of members posted in www.ourmedianet.org). 11 The Budget The following is the budget spent on OURMedia III: Airplane tickets $36,460.00 FedEx 600.00 Hotel* 1,154.00 Phone (estimate) 200.00 Printing 200.00 Translation 2,577.77 Mochilas 888.88 Gifts for Conference 68.51 organizers Closing drum band** 259.00 Closing party 511.00 Film, CDs, etc. 114.46 Transportation*** 555.45 TOTAL $43,589.07 * Some participants paid for their own plane tickets but requested support for their hotel expenses. Other participants, all from poor countries in the south, requested support for their hotel expenses in addition to their air fares. ** Conferences expenses were shared between OURMedia and Uninorte. For example, OURMedia paid for translation, closing party and band, and mochilas; and Uninorte paid for lunches for all participants for the three days of the event, all coffee breaks, and transportation. *** OURMedia paid for all transportation to visits to local communication projects. Uninorte paid for all other transportation (to and from airports, to and from conference site every day, to and from restaurants in the evenings). OURMedia IV The enthusiasm during OURMedia III was strong enough that an ad hoc organizing committee for OURMedia IV emerged before the conference was over. The committee consists of Janice Windborn, Dorothy Kidd, Clemencia Rodriguez, Alfonso Gumucio, John Downing, Chris Atton, and Nick Jankowski. Two venues are being considered for OURMedia IV: 1) the next IAMCR annual conference in Porto Alegre, Brazil; and 2) the 9th International Festival of Local Television in Kosice, Slovakia. (Becky, if you have any input on this decision, please let me know). 12 Appendix A. OURMEDIA III PROGRAM OURMedia III – Strengthening Citizens’ Communication Barranquilla, Colombia May 19-21, 2003 Organized by OURMedia/NUESTROSMedios www.ourmedianet.org Organized by Clemencia Rodríguez Associate Professor Department of Communication University of Oklahoma With the support of: Dee Dee Halleck, University of California Nick Couldry, London School of Economics Chris Atton, Napier University Sergio Rodríguez, Consultant Alfonso Gumucio Dagron, Consultant Rosa Maria Alfaro, Calandria Nick Jankowski, University of Nymegen John Downing, University of Texas Supported by a grant from the Knowledge, Creativity, and Freedom Program of the Ford Foundation. The program officer is Becky Lentz in the Media, Arts and Culture unit. The Event OURMedia III—the annual meeting of OURMedia/NUESTROSMedios—will be held in Barranquilla, Colombia, May 17 and 20, 2003. OURMedia III will continue our tradition of intense dialogue between academics and activists, and include perspectives from different world regions. Translation between English and Spanish will be available during these two days. Contact: Clemencia Rodríguez, University of Oklahoma, clemencia@ou.edu. OURMedia III will be held in conjunction with the IV International Communication Conference organized by the Universidad del Norte (www.uninorte.edu.co) with the support of the Communication InitiativeLatin America (CILA) (www.comminit.com), on May 21, 2003. The focus of this year’s conference is on communication for social change. Previous conferences have focused on citizenship; culture; and public opinion. Created in 1998, the Communication Initiative is a partnership of development organisations seeking to support advances in the effectiveness and scale of communication interventions for positive development. The core strategies include: real-time information; horizontal networking; peer critiquing; community building; 13 and strategic review and advancement. Presently there is a global process in English and a Latin American process in Spanish, La Iniciativa de Comunicación. Other regions and languages are planned. The Venue Barranquilla is a one of Colombia's largest cities located on the Atlantic coast. Barranquilla is a fascinating hybrid of cultures including African, European, Arab, and Indigenous, all mixed together in a good example of Caribbean culture. One hour by car from Barranquilla is Cartagena, a colonial walled city of magnificent beauty. The Universidad del Norte will be the local host of OURMedia III. OURMedia III will be held at the Universidad del Norte campus. The conference hotel is the Hotel Prado in Barranquilla (http://www.cotelco.org/hotelprado/), a traditional Caribbean hotel with a Bogart/Casablanca feeling. The special conference rate is US$45/single and US$53/double, plus tax. Important Information Hotel El Prado Cra 54 No 70 10 Barranquilla Phone (575) 3680111Fax (575) 3532334 Universidad del Norte Kilómetro 5 Via a Puerto Colombia Phone (575) 3509427 or (575) 3509443 Cellular phone for Jair Vega 310 631 3832 Cellular phone for Laura Suarez 310 657 4004 Exchange rate: one US$ = 2,700.00 Colombian pesos Please remember to re-confirm your return flight once in Colombia The Program May 17 - Saturday Fieldtrip in Cartagena Morning: Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Afternoon: Colectivo de Comunicación de Montes de María May 18 – Sunday Fieldtrip in Barranquilla Morning: Proyecto Casa de Justicia del Barrio La Paz May 19 - Monday 8:30 – 8:45 Introduction 14 8:45 – 10:45 PANEL 1. Evaluation of Citizens’ Media. This panel will discuss specific evaluation studies of community radio and/or television in different parts of the world. 1. Jo Tacchi - Britain Oxford Internet Institute 2. Victor Van Oeyen – Bolivia ERBOL - ALER evaluation of community radio in Latin America 3. Patricia Tellez – Colombia Universidad Javeriana - Evaluation study of community television in Colombia 4. Ole Prehn – Denmark Aalborg University - Evaluation study in Denmark 5. Alfonso Gumucio-Dagron – Guatemala Independent consultant - Sustainability of community media 6. Fernando López – Ecuador AMARC – Moderator 10:45-11:00 Coffee Break 11:00 – 1:00 PANEL 2. Comparative regulatory frameworks. This panel will explore different regulatory options to guarantee more democratic media and information technologies. 1. Petri Dish – USA Prometheus Radio Project – Movement pro-regulation of low-power FM radios in the US 2. Gustavo Gómez AMARC-ALC 3. Bunnie Reidell – USA Alliance for Community Media – Broadband, cable, and satellite issues 4. Marco Navas – Ecuador Friedrich Ebert Foundation 5. Lumko Mtimde – South Africa Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) 6. Nick Jankowski - The Netherlands University of Nymegen – Discussant 1:00 – 2:30 Lunch on campus 2:30 – 4:30 PANEL 3. Independent Media Centers. This panel will explore the Independent Media Centers movement. 1. Kate Coyer – Britain Goldsmith College and University of London - Internet Radio: Online Pirates in the Digital Age? A Case Study of KILL Radio, Los Angeles 2. Sheri Herndon – USA Indymedia USA and co-founder of Seattle Independent Media Center 3. Pablo Ortellado – Brazil Brazil Independent Media Center and University of Sao Paulo 4. Pablo Boido – Argentina 15 Indymedia Argentina 5. Luz Ruiz – Mexico IMC Chiapas and San Francisco State University 6. Chris Atton – Scotland Napier University – Discussant 4:30-4:45 p.m. Coffee Break 4:45 – 6:00 Internal meeting: Where should OURMedia go from here? 6:30- 8:00 CIUDADARTERIA: De la imagen en movimiento a la pantalla en movimiento (Paseo Bolívar – Downtown Barranquilla) Dinner OURMedia III and IV International Communication Conference: Communication and Social Change The IV International Communication Conference is sponsored by the Universidad del Norte with the support of the Communication Initiative-Latin America (CILA) May 20-Tuesday 8:30 -8:45 Welcome by the president of the Universidad del Norte 8:45 - 10:45 PANEL 1. WSIS - CRIS. This panel will focus on the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS - Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005) called by the United Nations and the International Telecommunication Union. The discussion will explore the participation of civil society in the summit in different countries: goals, obstacles, strategies, agendas, and alliances. 1. Sasha Costanza-Chock - USA CRIS - WSIS and the neoliberal agenda; emerging plans for Counter/Alternative/Protest/Parallel Summit 2. Tracey Naughton – Southern Africa MISA - WSIS in Southern Africa; inclusion of women’s issues in the WSIS discussion. 3. Olinca Marino – Mexico APC - WSIS in Latin America 4. MJ Kim – Korea MediaACT - WSIS in Asia 5. Olga Beatriz Gutierrez - Colombia Planeta Paz - WSIS in Colombia 6. Nick Couldry – Britain London School of Economics – Discussant 16 7. Myriam Horngren – Britain CRIS - WACC 10:45-11:00 Coffee Break 11:00 – 1:00 PANEL 2. Citizens’ Movements toward the democratization of media and Information Technologies. This panel will explore different ways in which civil society is resisting media conglomerates, de-regulation, liberalization, and privatization, and demanding access to information technologies, regulation to prevent media concentration, protection of non-profit media and ITs, and responsible journalistic practices. 1. Rosa María Alfaro – Peru Calandria - The experience of the ―Veeduría Ciudadana de la Comunicación‖ in Peru [Citizens’ Communication Monitoring project] 2. Lorena Riposati– Argentina Cine Piquetero - The experience of Escraches to media in Argentina [―Escraches‖ is a type of political sit-in 3. Dorothy Kidd – USA/Canada University of San Francisco 4. Dee Dee Halleck – USA University of California at San Diego - Movements toward media democratization in different parts of the world. 5. Susana Kaiser – Argentina/USA University of San Francisco – Discussant 6. Omar Rincon – Colombia Universidad Javeriana - Chair 1:00 – 2:00 Lunch on campus 2:00 – 4:00 PANEL 3. Community media for peace. This panel will explore community media and citizens’ media working toward peace building, conflict resolution, and acceptance of difference. 1. Amparo Cadavid – Colombia Universidad Javeriana - Experience of community radios in the Magdalena Medio, Colombia 2. Janice Windborne – USA Southwest Missouri State University – Media for Kosovo refugees in Albania 3. Gordon Adam – Britain/Afghanistan Media Support – Experience of community radio in the reconstruction of Afhganistan 4. Lina Holguin – Canada/Colombia Oxfam - Experiences of community media as peace builders in Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe 5. Clemencia Rodríguez – USA/Colombia University of Oklahoma – Discussant 6. Catherine Borgman-Arboleda – USA 17 Center for International Media Action – Chair 4:00-4:15 p.m. Coffee Break 4:15 – 6:00 Communication for Social Change Roundtable: discussion of different ideas, perspectives, and goals of international and national foundations with an interest in communication, information, technology, and media. 1. Nan Rubin – A presentation about The Ford Foundation 2. Sara Brombart – Friedrich Ebert Foundation 3. Denise Gray-Felder– Rockefeller Foundation 4. German Franco - Fundacion Social Discussion leader: Warren Feek - The Communication Initiative 6:00 – 8:00 Interactive Posters Display Antoni Castells I Talens – Alternative media and Indigenous Languages, Mexico Alex Halkin – The Chiapas Media Project, Mexico Angélica Rosas and Soledad Lorca– Radio Estrella del Mar, Chile Shivaani Selvaraj - Break the Media, USA Nazli Abrahams – Bush Radio, South Africa Mayra Estevez – REAL, Ecuador Mateo Cruz Chica – Radio Calamar, Colombia David Joyce – Brown Eyed Communication, Canada Kristin Shamas – University of Oklahoma, USA Myriam Horngren – CRIS/WACC, Britain Cesáreo Gálvez – RECORRA, Colombia 7:00 Reception Dinner May 21-Wednesday IV International Communication Conference organized by the Universidad del Norte with the support of the Communication Initiative-Latin America (CILA). National and international experiences in the area of communication for social change will be critically examined. 8:30 – 10:00 Opening Keynote Presentation: Orlando Fals Borda. 10:00-10:15 a.m. Coffee Break 10:15 – 11:45 International experiences in the area of communication for social change 18 1. James Deane Executive Director The Panos Institute London (to be confirmed) 2. Stephen King Executive Director BBC London (to be confirmed) 3. Susana Kaiser – OURMedia, a global initiative University of San Francisco 4. Warren Feek/Adelaida Trujillo-The Communication Initiative 5. Humberto Abaunza – Puntos de Encuentro, Nicaragua 6. Discussant: Rosa María Alfaro, CALANDRIA, Peru 11:45 – 1:15 Local experiences in the area of communication for social change The Eje Cafetero project – Ricardo Corredor – Colombia Experiencia Comunicación Pública - Juan Camilo Jaramillo, Colombia Olga Beatriz Gutierrez - Planeta Paz, Colombia Germán Franco – Comunicación y Desarrollo Local, Fundación Social Colombia 5. Jair Vega – Proyecto Casa de Justicia - Barranquilla, Colombia 6. Discussant: Mario Mosquera, Universidad del Norte, Colombia 1:15 – 2:30 Lunch on campus 2:30 – 3:45 Roundtable: Communication for Social Change: Perspectives in Dialogue. 1. Clemencia Rodríguez – Social movements and communication for social change, The University of Oklahoma 2. Denise Gray-Felder - The Rockefeller perspective (to be confirmed) 3. Rafael Obregón – Perspectives on comunication and health based on the experience of the community AIEPI 4. Moderator: Jair Vega, Universidad del Norte 3:45-4:00 p.m. Coffee Break 4:00 – 5:30 Closing Keynote Presentation: Jesús Martin-Barbero “Communication, Culture, and Social Change: Challenges and the Road Ahead” 5:30 – 5:45 Closure: Paola Alcázar- Director Communication Program - UNINORTE 6:00 Closure of event: Chiva Rumbera (by invitation only) 1. 2. 3. 4. 19 Appendix B. LIST OF OURMEDIA III PARTICIPANTS Name Abaunza, Humberto Abrahams, Nazli Adam, Gordon Alcazar, Paola Alfaro, Rosa Maria Atton, Chris Baron, Luis Fernando Betancourt, Valeria Boido, Pablo Borda, Orlando Fals BorgmanArboleda, Catherine Brombart Sara Cadavid, Amparo Castells, Antoni Castro, Katherine Cohen, Alfredo ContanzaSchock, Sasha Corredor, Ricardo Institution Puntos de Encuentro, Nicaragua Bush Radio, South Africa Media Support, UK Universidad del Norte, Colombia Calandria, Peru Napier University, UK CINEP, Colombia APC, Mexico Indymedia, Argentina Colombia Center for International Media Action, USA Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Ecuador Universidad Javeriana, Colombia University of Florida, USA CIUDADARTERIA, Colombia MI CASA COLOMBIA, Colombia CRIS Youth, USA Fundacion Para el Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, Colombia E-mail address Humberto.abaunza@puntos.org.ni nazli@trainingbroadcasters.co.za gadam@mediasupport.org.uk gmadam@btinternet.com, gordonadam@btinternet.com palcazar@uninorte.edu.co ralfaro@terra.com.pe C.Atton@napier.ac.uk luisferbaron@hotmail.com ValeriaB@APC.org pablos@riseup.net ofalsborda@cable.net.co Cborgman.arboleda@verizon.net promefes@uio.satnet.net acadavidb@col-online.com antoni@ufl.edu katykastro@hotmail.com alf_cohen@hotmail.com schock@asc.upenn.edu rcorredor@fnpi.org 20 Couldry, Nick Coyer, Kate Cruz Chica, Mateo Federico Cuartas, Milena Dish, Petri Downing, John Estevez, Mayra Falavigna, Mauricio Feek, Warren Ferro, Jorge Gereardo Franco, German Gálvez, Cesáreo Garcia, William Gomez, Gustavo Gray-Felder Denise Guerra, Robert Guerrero, Adelaida Gumucio, Alfonso Gutierrez, Olga Beatriz London School of Economics, UK Goldsmith College, UK Radio Chiriquitebe, Colombia JOVEN HABLA JOVEN, Colombia Prometheus Project, USA University of Texas at Austin, USA RAEL, Ecuador n.couldry@lse.ac.uk k.coyer@gold.ac.uk Mateo-amazonas@yahoo.com jovenhablajoven@hotmail.com Petri@prometheusradio.org jdowning@mail.utexas.edu estevezmayra@hotmail.com mayraestevezt@yahoo.com Sampa.org, Brazil The Communication Initiative CIUDADARTERIA, Colombia Comunicacion y Desarrollo Local, Fundacion Social, Colombia RECORRA, Colombia Asociacion Nacional de Radios Escolares, Colombia AMARC, Uruguay The Rockefeller Foundation, USA Privaterra, Canada CUANDO EL RÍO SUENA, Colombia Consultant, Bolivia Planeta Paz, Colombia falavigna@sampa.org feek@comminit.com gerardof_79@yahoo.es Germancio@epm.net.co cesareogalvez@yahoo.com anee01@starmedia.com gusgomez@chasque.apc.org dgray-felder@rockfound.org rguerra@privaterra.org moviola_azul@hotmail.com Gumucio@Guate.net.gt Gumucio@Bigfoot.net olgag@planetapaz.org 21 Halleck, Dee Dee University of California at San Diego, USA Halkin, Alex The Chiapas Media Project, USA Herndon, Indymedia, Seattle, Sheri USA Higgins, John Menlo College and San Francisco Community TV Corporation, USA Holguin, Lina Oxfam, Canada Horngren, CRIS/WACC, Britain Myriam Jankowski, University of Nick Nymegen, The Netherlands Jaramillo, Universidad Alejandro Nacional, Colombia Jaramillo, Juan Camilo Audes Jiménez González dhalleck@weber.ucsd.edu aHalkin@cycle-logical.com Alex@chiapasmediaproject.org sheri@indymedia.org jhiggins@menlo.edu Holguinl@oxfam.qc.ca mh@wacc.org.uk N.Jankowski@waw.kua.nl Jalex12us@yahoo.com Juancaj@hotmail.com audesjimenez@hotmail.com aprodefa01@hotmail.com Joyce, David Kaiser, Susana Kawakami, Takashi Kidd, Dorothy Kim, Myoungjoon Lamas, Ernesto Brown Eyed Communications, Inc, Canada University of San Francisco, USA Hiroshima International University, Japan University of San Francisco, USA Labor News Production, and MediACT, Korea AMARC ALC programas de gestión – Radio La Tribu - Argentina - djoyce@indigenations.com Kaisers@usfca.edu takashi@nn.iij4u.or.jp kiddd@usfca.edu Lnp89.chol.com mjkim@mediact.org elamas@rcc.com.ar 22 Lopez, Fernando Lorca, Soledad Marino, Olinca Martin Barbero, Jesús Medina, Fabio Mendivil, Carmen ROsa Mosquera, Mario Mtimde, Lumko Naughton, Tracey Navas Alvear, Marco Obregon, Rafael Ortellado, Pablo Ósman, Juan Pablo Prehn, Ole Reidell, Bunnie Restrepo, Alvaro Rincon, Omar Riposati Lorena Rodriguez, Clemencia Rodriguez, AMARC, Ecuador Radio Estrella del Mar, Chile APC, Mexico Unversidad Javeriana, Colombia CNEP, Colombia JOVEN HABLA JOVEN, Colombia Universidad del Norte, Colombia ICASA, South Africa NYAKA, South Africa Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Ecuador Pan American Health Organization, USA Indymedia, Brazil CUANDO EL RÍO SUENA, Colombia Aalborg University, Denmark Alliance for Community Media, USA El Colegio del Cuerpo Cartagena de Indias, Colombia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia Cine Insurgente, Argentina University of Oklahoma, USA Directora, CPSR- Lalocha2001@yahoo.com felo67@hotmail.com estrella@telsur.cl olin@laneta.apc.org fabitos@hotmail.com jovenhablajoven@hotmail.com mmosquer@uninorte.edu.co LMtimde@icasa.org.za nyaka@sn.apc.org mnavas@ildis.org.ec obregonr@paho.org paort@uol.com.br naranjasweet@hotmail.com op@aua.auc.dk bosnie@mindspring.com briedel@alliancecm.org elpuente@enred.com orincon@javeriana.edu.co loreripo@yahoo.com.ar clemencia@ou.edu katitza@privaterra.org 23 Katitza Rodriguez, Sergio Romero, Ximena Rosas Angélica Rubin, Nan Ruiz, Luz Russo, Tim Russo de Sánchez, Ana Rita Selvaraj, Shivaani Serje, Álvaro Shamas, Kristin Suarez, Laura Suárez, Mario Tacchi, Jo Tellez, Patricia Trujillo, Adelaida Tufte, Thomas Van Oeyen, Victor Vega, Jair Windborne, Janice Peru y Privaterra proyecto en curso de CPSR, Peru Geomar, Canada srodriguez@geomargroup.com JOVEN HABLA JOVEN, Colombia Radio Estrella del Mar, Chile Independent Consultant, USA Indymedia, Mexico PISOTÓN, Colombia Break the Media Blackout, USA CIUDADARTERIA, Colombia University of Oklahoma, USA Universidad del Norte, Colombia CIUDADARTERIA, Colombia Oxford Internet Institute, UK Universidad Jeveriana, Colombia The Communication Initiative, Colombia University of Copenhagen, Denmark ERBOL-ALER, Bolivia Universidad del Norte, Colombia Southwest Missouri State University, USA jovenhablajoven@hotmail.com estrella@telsur.cl rubinn@thirteen.org Luz@mediosindependientes.org arusso@uninorte.edu.co shivaani@prometheusradio.org alserje@yahoo.com kshamas@ou.edu Laurez2002@yahoo.com jorgemarios79@hotmail.com Jo.tacchi@oii.ox.ac.uk Maria.tellez@javeriana.edu.co atrujillo@comminit.com tufte@hum.ku.dk oeyen@pino.cbb.entelnet.bo jvega@uninorte.edu.co janicewindborne@smsu.edu jkw986f@smsu.edu 24 25