Media Democracy Days 2014: An Overview
Now that Media Democracy Days 2014 has come and gone, the MDD team has compiled a full conference report so YOU can see how this event was made possible and how we will commit to creating successful community spaces in the future! Thank you to all of those who supported the event!
This year’s Media Democracy Days (MDD) focused on the theme Remaking the media, remaking democracy. The sessions and guest speakers were invested both in current events related to this theme and to long-standing issues explored by MDD (such as media ownership concentration, media coverage of dissenting and diverse voices, and the emergence of alternative, critical media projects). MDD 2014 also expanded its usual scope by tapping into clearly innovative projects such as Ricochet Media (a crowdfunded, independent project dedicated to investigative journalism and high-profile opinion), by featuring up-and-coming young leaders as our closing keynote speakers and by offering skills-development workshops for attendees.
Existing networks of partners were activated well before MDD planning sessions began by launching a Spring engagement project, in partnership with SFU’s engagement project, which helped maintain relations with many organizations and the public,and also identify possible themes and speakers for 2014. Thanks to this process, we managed to crowd-source themes for some of our workshops, and give initial shape to some of the panels that eventually took place at the conference.
MDD 2014 launched on Friday, Nov. 7 with an opening night Film Screening, which included two short films by partners Richochet Media and the Vancouver Observer, as well as a panel discussion with our feature documentary directors and local researchers and academics. The second day of the conference, Saturday, Nov. 8, consisted of a full day of keynote presentations, panel discussions and hands-on workshops. Issues of censorship and silencing of dissent were explored through engaging activities, such as our Petrocultures and Media Activism and The Big Media Cartel: Journalism’s Decline in a Managed Democracy panels, while our hands-on workshop So you wanna be an indie journalist? and our Media Fair invited guests to use their creativity in sharing their thoughts and experience on the themes of Media Democracy Days 2014.
During the two days of MDD 2014, over 2,500 people attended our panels, workshops, keynote presentations and Media Fair and lounge activities, which featured more than 50 participating organizations, such as the BC Civil Liberties Association, Adbusters Media Foundation, Amnesty International and the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association.
To read our full conference report, please find the full PDF below:
MDD 2014 Final Report