MDD 2014: Thank you!
On behalf of the whole Media Democracy Days (MDD) team we want to share our gratitude and happiness for incredible support and help you all have offered to us; thanks to you we are certain this year’s MDD was one of the best!
And while there are so many people to thank that listing each of them might take a while, of course we cannot avoid mentioning our particular appreciation to those who made sure MDD 2014 was such a success: SFU Harbour Centre’s and the Vancouver Public Library’s staff, who worked with us tirelessly and showed incredible support to this project; our wonderful line-up of speakers and moderators, who prepared interesting and engaging presentations and workshops; the many organizations and projects who organized their staff and volunteers to come share a day at our Media Fair and Lounge; the many organizations and individuals whose invaluable contributions made the event happen; the thousands of people who helped amplify our message through their social media, web and person-to-person networks; everyone who chipped in and totally rocked at “Bandwidth”, our pre-MDD fundraising party; the close to 70 volunteers who offered their time and energy as volunteers and helped us run such a massive event; CiTR for broadcasting LIVE from MDD; MArianela Ramos for her amazing graphic design work; the thousands of people who attended; and everyone in-between. In short, every last one of you!
MDD 2014’s theme of “Remaking the media, remaking democracy” was identified during our planning process, in part thanks to people’s feedback during our summer Engagement Process. As such, we sought to offer opportunities to expand on our collective analysis and discussion of long-standing MDD issues of concern: the ever-increasing corporatization of our public media systems and the crushing pressure for journalists to take a subservient role to corporate agendas, but also the creative resistance to these dynamics, as well as the process of building alternatives. It was by tapping into the erupting energy already present in grassroots, academic and not-for-profit projects that we feel MDD 2014 has made a contribution for more and more people to be ready and take a decisive step towards making change happen.
We certainly hope that your participation at MDD 2014 was a good experience, and that has been another step in making our working together a more solid and enduring experience, or a first approach to start developing meaningful working relationships.
But don’t take our word for it! You can always join our list to stay informed about our upcoming activities where we can continue these discussions, and if you have a few minutes to spare, please take a moment to fill out our feedback form (and please help us pass it around!) where you can let us know what you think. We would love to hear from you and those within your networks about how we did.
You can check out some awesome photos of the event here, and the recordings of the sessions will be up very soon!
Again, we are deeply thankful for the incredible support and encouragement we’ve received in organizing MDD 2014, and as we head into a new year, we wish you all have a wonderful and warm winter!
Gil, Mariele and Helena
On behalf of the whole MDD Organizing Committee