Hear from Key Voices in Community Media Next Week at the Community Media Convergence

We’re pleased to be supporting the Community Media Convergence, a conference for alternative and
community media, at Carleton University, Ottawa, November 22-24, 2015.

See commediaconverge.ca – for program details, to register, or to access live-streaming of the sessions.

Community media broadcasting is officially recognized in Canada’s Broadcasting Act as one of three pillars of the broadcasting system. It fulfils democratic purposes that are not readily met by the other two sectors: private commercial (usually corporate-owned) broadcasters, and public broadcasters, like CBC. Through the participation of ordinary people and community organizations in production, and their community-owned not-for-profit structure, community media serve the public in several ways:

• offer a counter-balance to concentrated ownership of corporate media, and to the biases of commercial broadcasting towards ratings-driven programming that primarily serves the needs of advertisers.
• offer a democratic platform for free speech, including grassroots and local voices not often heard in “conventional” media.
• can serve smaller populations that would not be attractive to advertising-based media, including rural communities, urban neighbourhoods, and other marginalized groups and voices in urban centres.
• can generate a greater variety of programming, with more openness to experimentation rather than standardized formulas.
• offer opportunities to their volunteers for training and practice in media production.

In all these ways, community media help to democratize both the media system, and the broader society. Yet despite their legal recognition, they are significantly under-resourced and are often facing the challenges of transitioning to a digital environment.

The Community Media Convergence brings together practitioners from community radio, TV, online platforms, and video games with a social or local focus. Together they share the purpose of developing better policy for community media and networking to share skills and build practices for community media in the digital age.

Find out more at commediaconverge.ca