Allied Media Conference

Presenters: Felix Cruz, New Immigrant Community Empowerment; Johanna Pajueb, City-As-School Manhattan; Joshua Breitbart, People's Production House; Kristofer Rios, People's Production House; Amy Sharp

Have you always wanted to take on the Internet policy wonks, the geeks, the paid consultants, the corporate lobbyists, and the politicians, but felt like you lacked the know-how? This workshop will decolonize Internet policy, giving you the critical tools to understand why the Internet is the way it is. We will discuss the US-centric and corporate-controlled network architecture, the domain name system as a form of 21st century imperialism, and the racism, sexism, and classism of online social dynamics. At the same time, you'll see how you can use fun games and media-making to organize and educate your community to shape the Internet's future. Discussion will continue into "The Internet, Part II: How We Would Like It To Be."

Presenters: Brownfemipower; Devorah Hill, Laimah Osman, Mona Eldahry, Jamila and Yasmin Madadi of AWAAM (Arab Women Active in Arts and Media); Kameelah Rasheed; and more TBA

You believe it is better to speak, but which medium will best amplify your voice and reach your community? Participants in this session can move between many different stations, getting a hands on training from a woman of color media expert and picking up a new skill at each one, including blogging, zine-making, stenciling, graphic design, sewing, textile stenciling (bring a t-shirt or something), video editing and more. This session is open to all women/trans people of color of all ages and from all levels of previous engagement with media making.

Presenters: Amy Bach, Heavyn-Leigh American and Habibah Ahmad of Manhattan Neighborhood Network

What is youth-centered participatory action research and how can it be used to advance the field of youth media? Come hear about a collaborative research project that the Manhattan Neighborhood Network's Youth Channel (YC) is doing to involve young people in the development of a cable tv channel dedicated to media made by youth for youth. Called "YC All-City", it will be the nation's first channel to work with teams of young people to shape, produce, and promote youth programming. The workshop will offer participants an opportunity to explore some of the challenges, possibilities, and strategies for supporting organizational work that allows the community to take an active role in the process of research.

Presenters: Zane Scheuerlein and Marisol Becerra Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, Open Youth Networks

Google maps enables users to embed pictures and videos. By adding pictures and videos that tell the stories of the issues in communities across the globe, one can network and exchange strategies with other groups. In this interactive and hands-on workshop, we will show "The Cloud Factory," a youth produced video about environmental racism in the Mexican-American neighborhood of Little Village. We will also present our mapzine and teach others to contribute digital content and essentially use Google maps as a tool of social action and community organizing. Workshop participants will create personal stories about the environment through digital media and embed them onto Google maps.

Facilitators: Fabiola Sandoval, Mai'a Williams Carpenter, Victoria Law

Parents, particularly mothers, are rarely supported in their radical organizing communities. Often they are pushed away to feed, entertain and quiet their babies and children so that the "activists" can continue organizing. Radical communities reinforce patriarchy and the nuclear family when they ignore the needs and contributions of the mothers and children in their midst. What is revolutionary parenting? How do we center the needs and contributions of parents and caretakers in a sustainable way? Looking at women in the Spanish Revolution, Zapatistas, and Incite!, we will: share experiences; envision what revolutionary parenting looks like as we strive to create a better world; build strategies on creating a supportive environment for mothers/ caretakers in radical movements; discuss how to build support systems within one's community from non-parents/caretakers.

Presenter: Una Aya Osato

This workshop will begin with a live performance of a multi-media one-woman show Recess. Recess is a play created from the experience of the author, Una Aya Osato, attending and teaching in NYC public schools. It confronts the state of today's public school system where struggles for power, criminalization of the youth and the effects of a suffocating bureaucracy are an every day reality. Through Recess, participants will experience how performance can be used to make abstract ideas real and personal in the classroom. We will discuss other ways of incorporating theater and performance into classrooms and together begin to generate solutions to the larger questions of how education can become humane and liberatory for all.

Presenters:Shira Hassan, Amber Kutka, Ryanna Sandoval, Cindy Ibarra and Isa Villaflor of The Young Women's Empowerment Project

In this interactive session we will make a zine together! Learn YWEP's quick and dirty method of making zines on the fly! Young Women's Empowerment Project is a social justice based harm reduction organization working with girls and transgender girls involved in the sex trade and street economy. We have been making zines since our very first day together. We emphasize self-care and social justice and our zines always have a theme or a message about a topic we care about at the time. Past zines have been: F**K the Police, Real Srug Information, Eyes Wide Open, a series of zines on the sex trade and many more…

Presenters: Sacajawea Hall, Radio Rootz (New York City); Alexis Neider, PS 155 William Paca School (New York City); Tim Dorsey, Youth Media Learning Network (New York City)

This workshop is geared towards an audience of youth media-educators, working in a variety of media types (audio, video, print, web or other) and settings (community-based organizations, afterschool programs, schools, media arts centers, and more). We will look closely at samples of youth-produced media, viewing footage of young people engaged in media-making, then conduct role plays for educators as learners. All will be invited to reflect upon their teaching practices, to approach their work as learners, and to consider how they might support one another and other colleagues moving forward as educators teaching youth media.

Presenters: Laura Hadden, Center for Digital Storytelling; Tracy Gallardo, Adrianna Gallardo, Denise Guadiana & Nicole Tysvaer, Real Media

Digital storytelling provides a vital outlet for marginalized voices to build solidarity and incite change, regardless of the storyteller's technical background. The Center for Digital Storytelling will share powerful examples of this, as well as their workshop model itself, which allows participants to complete digital stories in three days. You will get to plant the seed for your own digital story and explore the importance of personal narrative first hand through two interactive writing exercises. The session will conclude with examples of digital storytelling projects from the Real Media Leadership Literacy Training project, an afterschool program based at a Western International High School in Southwest Detroit. The youth from Real Media will break down their process and share everything you need to know to get this kind of program started at your school, community center or wherever!

Presenters: 2-Cent Entertainment

This workshop uses the model of 2-Cent Entertainment, a grassroots video production project in New Orleans, Louisiana, to teach how to make and promote accessible and entertaining video with a political intent. 2-Cent produces a 28-minute regular television show that is broadcast on local New Orleans stations, in addition to online distribution. They have collaborated with the People's Hurricane Relief Fund, to produce music videos, a short PSA that cleverly targets "disaster tourists" exploiting our community, and much more. In this workshop we will share important lessons about creating and promoting high-quality, accessible work with little to no resources.

A film screening followed by a discussion with members of the Visions To Peace Project, Washington D.C.

In this daring and thoughtful documentary, youth and youth justice workers reveal the many faces of violence against youth. They share personal stories, art and honest dialog with hope of sparking new visions for safety that do not depend on policing and prisons. Vision Is Our Power was created by youth and young adults of the Visions to Peace Project, a youth leadership and movement-building project located in Washington, DC. We are committed to building a broad vision and movement for safety, justice and freedom - the building blocks of peace - through the use of arts, media and community education. Following the screening, members of the Visions to Peace Project will facilitate a discussion and exercises in which participants will work together to create analysis, visions and strategies for ending multiple forms of violence against youth.

Presenters: Josué Guillén, The Praxis Project; Jamie McClelland, Mayfirst/PeopleLink; Joshua Breitbart, People's Production House

Building on "The Internet, Part I: What It Is," we will formulate a shared vision for the Internet we would like to see. We will examine what the Internet means for us and our movements; how it models the society we are struggling for; and how we as progressive activists can work inside the Internet to broaden its positive impact and protect the gains we and it have made. The focus will be to collaboratively write an Internet Justice Bill of Rights, modeled after similar efforts at the US Social Forum and the New York City Grassroots Media Conference.

Presenters: Facilitators from the Palestine Education Project; Students from Bushwick Community High School

Using a mixture of demonstration and discussion, this workshop will share the Palestine /Israek Education Project's (PEP) work using media in teaching about about Israel/Palestine. We will explore ways to raise awareness about the Palestinian struggle while developing ways for youth in the US to articulate and address their own connections to colonialism, racism, and militarism. Educators and students will co-facilitate, using Palestinian hip hop videos and lyrics, digital stories made by Palestinian youth in refugee camps, radio and video pieces created by youth in Brooklyn, and clips from the documentary “Slingshot Hip Hop” to jumpstart conversations around racism, occupation, and resistance. This workshop will provide concrete activity suggestions, hand-outs, and audio-visual materials.

Presenter: Geoff Hing

What is Web 2.0 and what does it mean for social movements? This session will look at blogs, feeds, wikis, mashups, tags and a ton of other tools and services that are the building blocks of "Web 2.0". As we navigate around the buzzwords and acronyms together, we will look at Web 2.0 technologies with a critical eye and think about what they bring to or take from the communication of social movements. Bring a notebook computer and mobile phone if you want to try some of the technologies at the session, but this hardware is definitely not required!

Presenters: Andalusia Knoll, Rustbelt Radio; Selina Musuta, Free Speech Radio News

This workshop is news production/writing for radio 101. How is writing for radio different from writing for print? How is writing for grassroots radio different from writing for corporate radio? Participants will learn the basics of community journalism--from the 5Ws to examining sources, research and events. This is a participatory workshop in which you will practice writing lede's/intros for a radio piece and brainstorm how to expand your story.

Presenters: Puck Lo, Critical Resistance-Oakland, National Radio Project, Free Speech Radio News; Jaggi Singh, No One Is Illegal-Montreal and Solidarity Across Borders; Rachel Herzing, Creative Interventions, "Left Turn," "The Abolitionist"; Alan Grieg, Generation 5

Moderator: Sahee Kil

Business and corporate media inundate us with sensational tales of "crime." These stories consistently side with police and the State, heavily relying upon stereotypes that pathologize poor people and those who work in informal and illegal sectors. In this panel, we'll hear from independent journalists who are telling the "real" story behind crime and the ever-expanding prison, punishment and surveillance industries. But how can media go beyond truth-telling? What role can our media play in building a world without prisons? We'll hear from people who make media to create justice in their communities and share ideas to take home.

Presenters: Aiko Shirakawa, 5th Element; Mary Dee, 5th Element; B-Girl Tara, Anomolies Crew

Dance is one of the oldest forms of communication. And Breaking/Locking crews have communicated the resistance of the hip hop generation since its beginning! What's a movement without movement? Come learn the foundation elements of breaking from two of the flyest in the game, B-girl Aiko, original Pop/Locker from San Jose, CA, and B-girl Tara, instructor from NYC. These two b-girls from Anomolies and 5th Element will teach you the foundation; locking, top roks, and floorwork, where you take it is up to you...

Presenters: Dean Jansen, The Participatory Culture Foundation; Steven Mansour, The Strict Machine Foundation

Commercial platforms like YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook give activist mediamakers potential access to large audiences, but they also exploit your cultural labor, make money off of ads without sharing the revenuewith you, log your IP address and track your social networks, hand over your info to the government, and censor you if they are asked to do so by the government or corporations. Happily, the last couple of years have seen a real advance in free and open source tools to help you set up your own multimedia site. In this part-informational, part-hands-on workshop, we will zero in on some state of the art FOSS tools that you can use for video production and distribution.

Presenters: Andrea Ridges, Jon Blount, Starlet Lee and Jenny Lee of Detroit Summer's Live Arts Media Project; Andrea Ritchie and Remy Kharbanda of Research for Revolution; Isa Gonzalez & Paula Rojas of Sista II Sista

Join us for a continuation of the much-loved People's Statistics workshop at AMC 2007. Collectively, we'll share strategies for developing and using survey-based participatory research in campaigns around education, school safety, and violence against young women. We'll analyze struggles and successes through role-playing and talk about how to make sure we address the intersections of race, gender, gender identity and sexuality based oppressions in our research & organizing. And we'll brainstorm ways of overcoming challenges together!

Presenters: Dulani, Sarah Singh, and Jamila of Global Action Project

We believe it is essential to think strategically when making media. In order to do that, we must understand how and why the dominant media frames our communities and experience in a certain light, and then build our own strategies to create media that reflects our values and reframes our experience on our own terms. This workshop is very interactive, and combines small group work with larger group discussions, hands-on production, and story-telling. We want participants to build and learn from each other's experiences, gain media literacy skills, and develop a visual strategy tool they can use to advance their work.

Presenters: The Beehive Collective

The purpose of this workshop is to build connections between activists that use words, and those that speak in pictures, to help create more accessible, powerful campaigns for the important issues of our time. The Beehive Collective has been creating and distributing anti-copyright, educational artwork for the past 7 years about social and environmental issues from biotechnology to the FTAA. In this workshop, we will use 'mind-mapping' as a tool to collect, organize and share the ideas generated by the whole group.

Presenter: Adrienne Maree Brown

For organizers, skillful facilitation might be the most important media tool we can cultivate. How do we create the spaces where the diverse members of an organization, community, family, etc. can come together and communicate in a way that is respectful and effective and that draws out every person's best ideas? Come spend time with Facilitation Evangelist Adrienne Maree Brown and learn how to make any meeting, gathering or event burst with energetic input and creative outcomes. This workshop will cover: Your Facilitation Personality, Best (and Worst) Practices, Asking the Right Questions, and Ground Rules. This will be a popular education so expect to participate and co-create!

Presenters: Ryan Pinion, Stacy Milbern, Isabel Macdonald

When was the last time you heard or saw people with disabilities represented in the media? Part 1 of this session will break down the most common frames of discussion when it comes to disability in the media: sickness, medicine and charity. We will then present alternative representations of disability not commonly portrayed in the media and share current and historical information about the Disability Rights Movement in this country. During Part 2 of this session, the group FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) will share concrete tools for monitoring the media, documenting unfair and inaccurate coverage, and using this documentation as part of campaigns to achieve more accountable coverage. Participants will have the chance to practice these tools on recent media reports involving harmful representations of disability in the media, and ultimately will walk away with tools that they can apply to any campaign for social justice. You will also receive concrete tools for addressing ableism and inaccessibility issues within your own organization!

Presenter: Hotep, President of HustleUniversity.org

The Unbought and Unbossed presentation provides proven strategies for success for all independent media producers; particularly those struggling with financing and distributing their works. This presentation is highly popular because of its practical, solution-based methodology. The audience will go home with: 1) 10 power principles to improve their professional and personal lives. 2) Practical strategies for how they can apply the principles. 3) A list of FREE websites that they can easily use to get started 4) Powerful (yet inexpensive) Marketing and Promotional strategies 5) Amazing new distribution methods 6) An empowered mind state, which will no longer allow them to wait for opportunity, but help them consistently find ways to create opportunity for themselves.

Presenters: Andrea Ritchie, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence; Moya Bailey, Be Bold Be Brave Be Red; Jesse Muhammad, The Final Call Newspaper; Jordan Flaherty, Left Turn Magazine
Moderator: Brownfemipower

How did the story of the Jena Six spark mobilizations that came to be called "a 21st century civil rights movement" in the media? How did the 7 young black lesbians who were attacked in the West Village of NYC in 2006 come to be called a "wolf pack of lesbians" in the media, resulting the imprisonment of 4 of them? This panel will feature the journalists, bloggers and grassroots activists who helped bring both of these stories to national attention. We will breakdown the process by which progressive media institutions fueled mass mobilizations in support of the Jena Six, and also offer an analysis of how and why such mobilizations did not occur in support of the New Jersey 4. We will look at the strategies developed by Women of Color Bloggers to raise national awareness of the New Jersey 4 without the backing of most progressive media outlets. Finally, we will explore what both of these cases have to teach us about the kind of media movement we need for the future.

Facilitators: Jessamyn Sabbag; Future 5000 and Aliza Dichter; Center for International Media Action

This session will bring the conference around full-circle from the Friday night Keynote. We will look at all the ideas that have been posted on the wall map of the future throughout the weekend, and distill strategies for strengthening and evolving all of our work through the challenges and opportunities of the next ten years.

Presenters: Leah Sapin of Arts Engine, Ivettza Sanchez, Leslie Stewart and Brittany Shoot

What happens after a film or video has been made? In a previous era,cementing mainstream dispensation was a primary concern. But in a world filled with YouTube and MySpace, many people are left wondering how to make sense of the myriad of ways to get your video not just on the web, but WATCHED. From our diverse backgrounds, we will provide real life examples of innovative grassroots strategies and success stories to use as the basis for an audience-led discussion on the issues educators, organizers, and independent media makers face when
trying to build community outside revenue or ad-based models. We look forward to discussing the best strategies for promoting film and video work online, both in terms of maximum exposure but also in regards to quality community-building around a maker and his/her work's base ideas.

Presenters: DeAnne Cuellar, Texas Media Empowerment Project; Brenna Wolf, Riseup Networks; Chuck Robinson, Texas Media Empowerment Project

Where is the internet going and what does it mean for you and your friends? What does digital security mean for social justice movements? This interactive workshop will address how to use computers safely and securely in activism and organizing. Learn how and why to navigate social networking sites without giving up too much of your personal data (or your soul). Facilitators include tech activists from the Texas Media Empowerment Project and Riseup Networks.

Presenters: Gabriel Duncan and Ras K'Dee

In this workshop, the grassroots media group Seventh Native American Generation (SNAG) will discuss the genocide of California Natives beginning with massacres during the Gold Rush of 1849 and continuing with forced removals, boarding schools, reservations and mercury pollution. We will provide accounts shared by SNAG's founder, Ross Cunnningham (a Pomo from Northern California) and through clips from the film "Gold, Greed and Genocide." Afterward SNAG will lead a writing workshop with participants around their experiences with cultural genocide and resistance, modeled after its work with Native youth in schools and on reservations. Some of the writings produced during the workshop will appear in the next issue of SNAG, which is dedicated to the shared struggles of Palestinian and Native youth. You can purchase a copy at the workshop for $5. It comes with a music CD inside of Native artists from across the country.

Presenters: Ricardo Dominguez, The Electronic Disturbance Theater; DeAnne Cuellar, Texas Media Empowerment Project; Ileana Cortez, Centro Obrero de Detroit
Moderator: Elena Herrada, Centro Obrero de Detroit

From San Antonio to Southwest Detroit, people are utilizing media to advance the movement for immigrant rights. They are transforming everyday tools such as cell phones into GPS navigation devices for people crossing the border. They are using community radio stations to broadcast vital information in indigenous languages, so that in times of disaster, immigrants have equal access to life-saving information. Finally they are creating outlets for the stories of immigrants through the Internet-- expanding the national consciousness about the struggle for immigrant rights. This panel will explore the work of several projects that are creating a safety net for some of the most vulnerable populations in the country-- The Transborder Immigrant Project, The Texas Media Empowerment Project, and Centro Obrero de Detroit.

Presenter: Josh Redd Sanchez

Street art (graffiti, stencils, wheatpastes, etc.) is a powerful direct action tool for taking control of our mental and physical environments. This hands-on workshop, led by Josh Redd Sanchez will offer a general how-to on stenciling, with a discussion of other techniques such as paper cutting and wheatpasting.

This year, for the first time, a youth advisory board has designed a day-long youth meet-up and knowledge exchange to kick-off the conference. All of the youth organizations in attendance should prepare a 10 minute mini-workshop that zeros in on one aspect of your work that you think is hot. We'll spend Friday morning sharing our workshops with each other in a swap-meet style exchange of expertise. For more information contact:
Mariana Castañeda (Detroit Summer) marianalocasta@gmail.com
Navi Sandhu (Radio Rootz) nsandhu01@yahoo.com

Grace Lee Boggs has been a part of almost every major movement in the United States in the last 75 years, including: Labor, Civil Rights, Black Power, Women's Rights and Environmental Justice. As she approaches her 93rd year, Grace is a living legend and one of the movement's clearest thinkers and boldest visionaries. The 10th Allied Media Conference will conclude with Grace's remarks.

In the afternoon, we'll get an orientation to all the different stations that will be set up in the media lab (audio, video, photo and transmitter-building). Those of us who want to jump right down to business making media together will do so. Those of us who want to learn more about Detroit, while collecting audio and video footage, will get on the PPH bus and head out to explore the city.

Come see/hear all the work of youth media makers produced throughout the weekend of the AMC!

Facilitators: Paula Rojas (Texas), Josué Guillén (DC) and Julie Rosier (Detroit)

Many people have recognized a parallel yet independent formation of study groups in this recent period throughout the country. Participants of such groups have commented on the exciting nature of this simultaneous phenomenon, as well as a desire to document and articulate the experience in terms of its historical context and current/future potential.

Some ideas surfaced about braiding together study group threads (local clusters) from around the country into a parallel process of study and reflection that is tied to our local social change practice. Some study groups have already brainstormed around collaboration/cross-fertilization and have shared reading lists. There has been some talk of forming a mutual list that would serve as the backbone for simultaneous local study sessions across the country, which could culminate in a concentrated two-day gathering based on a co-created timeline. Detroit (The Boggs Center) has offered to host a future gathering. The upcoming Allied Media Conference in Detroit could provide a forum for participants from national clusters to have an initial face-to-face meeting.

The conversation will take place at the AMC on Saturday, June 21, from 12:20-2:20, during the LUNCH / Caucus break @ Byblos Cafe & Grill (87 W Palmer St Detroit, MI 48202). Josue and Julie committed to facilitating the conversation and developing an agenda (see below). Please let us know if you plan on attending this meeting so we can get a sense how many to expect. (Julie, jrosier06@gmail.com or Josue, josue@thepraxisproject.org)