Felicia M. Sullivan, Ph.D.

I keep misplacing this brief overview of roles that I sent to the ACM list over a year ago. Thought I should post it here to I won’t loose it again.

CURRENT RESOURCES
I completely agree with you about your assessment on the need for studio space that is easier to use as well as a valuable asset that should not be given up. Also agree that LIVE programming becomes one of the things we have to offer that will continue to draw producers out of their homes. I also see the trend in staff produced initiatives that Chuck highlights. We should always be the folks who provide access to skills, equipment and systems outside the means / abilities of the average citizen (at this time it includes leveraging the skills of computer programmers, much like the early days of video engineering). We should also be prepared for the coming age of distributed distribution (via P2P and IP-enable systems) and the delivery of content by telcos and other infrastructure providers. Nothing that folks on this list aren’t already well aware of.In my mind, I see the field filling the following roles in the future:

EDUCATORS / KNOWLEDGE BROKERS
clearly this is a strong part of our tradition and as long as we stay ahead of the curve and continue to offer up knowledge at affordable or low-cost levels, we will have an important role to play. From my own experience, deepening and professionalizing our education programs needs to happen in many places.

COMMUNITY CONTENT GUIDES / AUDIENCE BROKER
As we enter a world of increasing overabundance of content dished up via the Internet, how will anyone know where to find relevant content and information? We can be come the local guides / editors and recommendors of what’s out there. Building off strong local trust and reputation is key to fulfilling this role.

CONVENORS / CATALYSTS / ADVOCATES
Like other great public institutions (i.e. government, schools,
libraries), community communication centers have the ability to bring together folks who normally wouldn’t come together. Our broad constituencies tied to a tradition of protecting free speech, and our understanding of technology developments and policies position us well to play an important role that few can fill. Challenge is how to we grow and strengthen this ability.

CULTURAL FACILITATORS / PRESERVATIONISTS
As more and more of our history and experiences get caught on media, electrified and digitized, we can play a leadership role in securing that this history is saved. We can also ensure that stories and knowledge that might disappear, get captured.

COMMUNITY COMMUNICATION (not just community media)
With new forms and methods for sharing content and communicating with others, we should also be developing and promoting new “social” uses of communication technologies. These include everything from blogs, to discussion forums, to websites, to interactive community spaces (check out http://www.civicspacelabs.org and http://www.goskokie.org).This is a bit of the future I see. I’m glad you started this thread. Looking forward to more contributions from the list.

Andy post a lengthy and thoughtful response to the Morph blog post by Andrew Nachison.

morph: Media, Technology & Repression – Any Questions?: “At The Media Center we try to focus on enabling a better-informed society, and to seek trends, insights and opportunities hidden within the remarkable chaos we’re witnessing at the intersection of media, technology and society. Technology is enabling a level of individual empowerment that’s unprecedented in human history – a capacity not only to access the world’s information but to create, share and apply it, what we call We Media.

The power to connect cuts across all sectors of society, not just media companies or institutions in the traditional sense. My language, my reference points, maybe even the name of my organization, probably do an injustice to the sweeping changes empowering individuals, businesses, non-profits and governments to communicate directly with each other, to be media rather than use it.

Technorati Tags: wemedia

I am an irrational optimist, my hope springs eternal – I believe our collective futures will depend on our ability to share information and ideas like never before – certainly faster and in greater volume, and far exceeding the capabilities or impact of traditional journalism, traditional marketing, traditional anything based on control of information. The communications technologies and ideas we see emerging will enable an unprecedented scale of sharing.

But to what end? Where is all this sharing and collaboration leading us?” [more]

Rhizome.org: Info–About Us: “Rhizome.org is an online platform for the global new media art community. Our programs support the creation, presentation, discussion and preservation of contemporary art that uses new technologies in significant ways. We foster innovation and inclusiveness in everything we do.”

Mobilcast from Melodeo is being touted as the first solution marrying podcasting to cell phones. Apparently the company never heard of SmartFeed or Skookum (the artist formerly known as iPodderSP). Regardless, this is the ghost of podcasting yet to come. As soon as the price comes down on phones like the Nokia N91 with multi-GB hard drives, the distinction between cell phone and iPod will become blurred. Posted by Jake

Katrina Information Map
convergence of natural disaster with google maps API with volunteer coders with info to be shared.

These are the early days of video blogging. Most of the postings on the Web are rough and tedious — little more than home movies. But the success of Rocketboom and a few sites like it underscore the potential of video blogs. Cheaper video recorders mean just about anyone can make videos, while the spread of speedy Net service means almost anybody can watch clips posted online. The result? The Internet is coming alive with a mix of video, from the polished parody of Rocketboom to the raw interviews of reporters. As these videos flow into the living room, they will reshape what we think of as television. “TV will be transformed,” says Mitchell Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development Corp. (IBM ) and now an investor in Participatory Culture, an online video startup. “People will look at it as historically quaint that you had to watch something that others chose for you.”

Community Media – Cambridge University Press: “Combining original research with comparative and theoretical analysis, Kevin Howley examines a number of different community media such as radio, television, and print media, and looks at the way they impact on the lives of those who produce and consume them. He also addresses broader theoretical and philosophical issues such as the part community media can play in promoting participatory democracy and giving the socially and economically disadvantaged access to the public sphere.”

Andy Carvin’s Waste of Bandwidth: Using iTunes to Get My Podcasts and Videos

Subscribing for Mac users | Subcribing for PC users

If you publish your own video blog or podcast, you can add a link like this to your site as well. Here’s how to do it.

Step 1: Go to Mefeedia.com and add your RSS feed.

Step 2: Mefeedia will then bring you to a page with several links on it. One of them will invite you to get an iTunes 1-click subscribe button on your blog. Click the link.

Step 3: Mefeedia will show you some HTML code. Add it to your website, tweaking it if you like.

And that’s that.

a demonstration of Andy Carvin’s use of MeFeedia video archiving tools.