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Latest news from a practitioner-based "think tank"

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The BOSTON ACTION TANK: a social justice strategy lab looking at shaping the future of media and communications

project update, July 2008

Members of the Boston Action Tank joined the Grassroots Use of Technology Conference in Lowell, MA on Jule 28th and led a workshop on "Strategies for Shaping our Media/Tech Future."

We partnered with MayFirst/PeopleLink and began with their Internet Rights Workshop where participants collaboratively generated a list of Internet Rights. The top "right" that emerged became the "long-term goal" that we used in our session to introduce and explore some strategy/planning tools: Theory of Change mapping (learned/adapted from ActKnowledge --see also this tool-- and Power Analysis (learned/adapted from SCOPE and the Praxis Project).

The Boston Action Tank's goal is to develop our own long-term strategy thinking and capacity for influencing the media future and to support our communities, allies, networks and movements to develop theirs. We'll be sharing more reflections on our emerging methods soon.

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project overview, May 2008

In February 2008, a dozen social-justice media & technology activists came together to form a new "Boston Action Tank" – a team of experts researching and strategizing about the changing communications systems. Unlike typical "think tanks," this is a collaboration of on-the-ground practitioners, committed to producing tactical projects to strengthen our work, and our movement.

As community media organizers, communications strategists, independent journalists, digital artists, technologists, media educators and producers, we and our allies know that the future media environment will affect all our work for social justice and community empowerment. We know we need to look up from the immediate day-to-day to be able to strategically confront these changes.

We've begun by meeting together and mapping out the trends, threats and opportunities we see before us. We are looking 15, 20 years ahead in order to envision what can move us toward a better future, and what can prevent further inequity, exclusion and exploitation in media. The Boston Action Tank is both an opportunity to produce research and tools to help the movement and also an experimental model that might be useful in other communities. This model has been developed with the guidance of many allies, including the members of the Media Action Grassroots Network.

We held our second meeting in March and identified three core areas we are concerned with:

• increased and improved media education as popular education linked to change
• sufficient, sustainable funding and economics to support social justice media & organizing
• media policy strategies that can build power and make systemic improvements for communities

Five of us facilitated a workshop at the Women, Action and Media (WAM!) conference where participants shared their visions of a "best case scenario" media future and how we might work to make it a reality. We found the evolving ideas of the Action Tank validated as the WAM group raised similar priorities. Several other attendees in the workshop were national organizers who focus on media policy and communications infrastructure and reported that the session helped them vet their strategies as well.

On June 28, members of the Boston Action Tank will present a workshop at the [link::Grassroots Use of Technology Conference::http://organizerscollaborative.org/conference] in Lowell, Mass, partnering with MayFirst/PeopleLink and their collaborative democracy workshop.

The Boston Action Tank members are working in small teams, using email, phone and online networking tools to map out pilot projects that a group like us can pursue to make an impact.

We are considering the strategic possibilities of several projects we might undertake, such as:

• materials to help develop advocacy campaigns on media policy or infrastructure
• tools for strategic decision-making on the use of commercial/corporate technologies & networks
• curricula/workshops for strategic planning around changing media & communications systems
• presentations to funders to shift how they resource media-change work

The Boston Action Tank is:

Marie Celestin, The GIRLS Project
Nettrice Gaskins, Mass College of Art & NAMAC
Tom Louie, Progressive Communicators Network
Yawu Miller, The Boston Banner & The Public Policy Institute
Suren Moodliar, Organizers Collaborative
Denise Moorehead, Third Sector New England
Cara Lisa Powers, Media education organizer
Colin Rhinesmith, Cambridge Community TV
Ada Robinson, Boston Neighborhood Producers Group
Helen Sinzker, Brazilian Immigrants Center
Felicia Sullivan, Organizers Collaborative (coordination/support)
Aliza Dichter, CIMA (coordination/support)

The Boston Action Tank is looking at the emerging future of media and technology with a community-centric, social-, economic-, gender- and racial-justice agenda.

We will be working together for the next 8-12 months, seeking input and collaboration from others. As we focus in on the issues we want to tackle, we are reaching out to our communities, allies and other experts in our networks for the knowledge and perspectives we need. You may be hearing from us soon! The Boston Action Tank will be meeting in person and online, participating in conferences and workshops, conducting interviews, research and writing. We will share our progress at events and online. We are eager for your ideas and input.

For all of us this is deep, reflective work. Our focus is sharpening, and yet it takes time. We know that some of our allies and advisors might be frustrated by the pace. But to get the best thinking of people who are already overtaxed, we need to work in a way that respects everyone's time and realities. To paraphrase a proverb: the work is so urgent that we must proceed slowly.

Background: The Boston Action Tank
In October of 2007, CIMA: Center for International Media Action established a partnership with the Boston-based Organizers' Collaborative (OC) to bring together community-based social justice activists concerned with systemic and structural issues in the media/communications environment.

With the dramatic shifts underway in technology, economics and policy, and major infrastructure decisions under debate, our aim is to strengthen the collective force of groups who can advance a social and economic justice agenda for media and communications systems. We want to work with community- and constituency-based leaders to identify what that agenda should be, and what's needed to build plans that can win. We want to explore a model of pro-active strategy development and movement-building that can be useful and replicable in a local and national context.

Throughout 2005-2006, CIMA worked closely with MAG-Net Media Action Grassroots Network in developing these ideas. We received inspiration and guidance from Fred Johnson of the Media Working Group and the [link::Community Media & Technology Program::http://www.cpcs.umb.edu/cmt/] at U Mass Boston, as well as many other thoughtful advisors. Media activists and educators around the US contributed to an extensive survey and planning meeting, resulting in the report Building a Media Justice and Communication Rights Movement (by Rachel Kulick)

Based on the ideas from this planning, CIMA partnered with the Organizers' Collaborative to pilot a strategy lab in Boston. CIMA and OC spent several months identifying and reaching out to people who would be able to work together over time, and who would be liaisons back to their own communities, allies and peers, bringing other perspectives into the strategy lab and sharing the work as it develops.

We are currently seeking funding to provide the Boston Action Tank members with a budget to support their work, coordination and the publishing, travel or other project components that the group develops.

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CIMA: Center for International Media Action works to strengthen the movement for media & communications systems to serve social justice, economic justice and human rights. CIMA helps build alliances, knowledge and strategies for structural transformation in the media and communications environment. CIMA Website: http://www.mediaactioncenter.org

The Organizers’ Collaborative (OC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that identifies and develops low-cost, replicable technology, software, trainings, and networking events that meet the organizing, outreach, and fundraising needs of small nonprofits and grassroots groups. OC is comprised of community organizers and technologists dedicated to helping nonprofit organizations and community groups integrate technology into their work. OC Website: http://organizerscollaborative.org