Understanding Community Media

A text that reveals the value and significance of community media in an era of global communication

With contributions from an international team of well-known experts, media activists, and promising young scholars, this comprehensive volume examines community-based media from theoretical, empirical, and practitioner perspectives. More than 30 original essays provide an incisive and timely analysis of the relationships between media and society, technology and culture, and communication and community.

KEY FEATURES

• Provides vivid examples of community and alternative media initiatives from around the world

• Explores a wide range of media institutions, forms, and practices—community radio, participatory video, street newspapers, Independent Media Centers, and community informatics

• Takes a multidimensional approach to community media studies by highlighting the social, economic, cultural, and political significance of alternative, indepedent, and community-oriented media organizations

• Enters the ongoing debates regarding the theory and practice of community media in a comprehensive and engaging fashion

"The number and range of case studies offered in this book will be invaluable to my students. It can be difficult to move students beyond their own experiences, and this book provides a great sampling of the operation of community media worldwide. It also situates these examples firmly in media and communication theory, and that is one of the most attractive features of this book for me as a teacher." —Rosemary Day University of Limerick

"This book makes a major contribution, giving both scholars and students a comprehensive perspective on the community media landscape—and why community media is relevant to the field of Media Studies and significant for a broader public." —William Hoynes Vassar College