In The Internet Tree: The State of Telecom Policy in Canada 3.0, edited by Marita Moll and Leslie Regan Shade, committed public interest advocates and academics present primers »»]]>

In The Internet Tree: The State of Telecom Policy in Canada 3.0, edited by Marita Moll and Leslie Regan Shade, committed public interest advocates and academics present primers on provocative digital policy issues: broadband access, copyright, net neutrality, privacy, and security, along with a consideration of structures of participation in policy-making and communication rights. Contributors to The Internet Tree argue for a digital economy strategy that casts a winning vote for openness, broadband as an essential service, and community engagement and inclusion.

To order a copy from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives:
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/internet-tree

The Table of Contents and Preface can be found here:
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2011/06/ToC%20and%20Preface%20for%20Web.pdf

COMS 644 - Media Policy

Fall Semester 2010 Wednesday 1:15-4:00

Professor Leslie Regan Shade

lshade@alcor.concordia.ca

Communication and media policy – the principles and procedures of action »»]]>

COMS 644 - Media Policy

Fall Semester 2010
Wednesday 1:15-4:00

Professor Leslie Regan Shade

lshade@alcor.concordia.ca

Communication and media policy – the principles and procedures of action that govern the multifarious uses of communication resources – is an increasingly important site of deliberation and contestation as digital technologies become a necessary ingredient in our everyday lives as we traverse our various and interrelated roles as consumers, students, workers, family members, and citizens.

This course will provide students with a critical look at the evolving debates and issues surrounding media and communication policy, primarily in Canada, but also touching upon international arenas. It will also provide students with examples – academic and activist – in communicating policy to a broader public.

Other objectives for the course include an enquiry into:

–Identifying research methodologies for communication policy;

–Identification of stakeholders and vested interests in the policymaking process (governments, industry, civil society);

–The vexed nature of the public interest in media and communication policy;

–Themes and tensions: jurisdictional quandaries, the difficulties of law and governance within a global media system;

–Integration of gender perspectives and feminist analysis in communications policy;

–Media policy activism and currents around the media reform/media justice movement

Assignments will include informal weekly class presentations on the readings, a critical paper identifying and analyzing an emerging research issue in communication policy, and a collaborative class project on a policy issue that can be used for wider communication policy education.

Course readings will include:

Media Divides: Communication Rights and the Right to Communicate in Canada, Marc Raboy & Jeremy Shtern (with McIver, Murray, O Siochru, and Shade), UBC Press, 2010.
http://www.ubcpress.ca/search/title_book.asp?BookID=299172935

Communications Research in Action: Scholar-Activist Collaborations for a Democratic Public Sphere, edited by Philip M. Napoli & Minna Aslama, Fordham University Press, 2010. http://www.fordhampress.com/detail.html?id=9780823233472

And readings by Paula Chakravarty and Katharine Sarikakis, William Dutton, Patricia Aufderheide, Des Freedman, Sonia Livingstone, James Boyle, Laura Stein/Dorothy Kidd/Clemencia Rodriguez, and potentially many others.

Students are encouraged to email the professor if they have further questions and/or are interested in pursuing a specific facet of communication and media policy, so as to potentially influence the course readings.

I participated in the first International School on Digital Transformation, sponsored by the University of Texas-Austin and the University of Porto. A stimulating, energizing and dynamic environment, »»]]>

I participated in the first International School on Digital Transformation, sponsored by the University of Texas-Austin and the University of Porto. A stimulating, energizing and dynamic environment, I met many new colleagues and renewed other collegial ties. It was held in beautiful Porto at the Reitoria:

This community-oriented research project presents a series of video clips collected from interviews with people who »»]]> A research-creation thesis by Miriam Verburg for Concordia’s MA in Media Studies
http://thesis.mirverburg.net/

This community-oriented research project presents a series of video clips collected from interviews with people who work on youth media projects at three sites in Montreal.

Interviewees discuss their experience working in community youth media, addressing issues such as collaboration, institutionalization of practice, motivation, emergent literacy practices, and the effect of the ‘new economy’ on community learning projects. Of particular concern is how ‘youth’ as a political and social category is conceptualized and mobilized in media projects, in ways that both compliment and challenge existing institutional and educational norms.

The body of evidence presented here is not a complete study. However, these nine interviews offer many insights into youth media production, and the interplay between institutions and grass-roots learning initiatives.

Drs. Brandi Bell & Katrina Peddle, June 2009; Dr. Alison Powell, November 2008. See below for pics.