Presenters: Joshua Breitbart, People's Production House (moderator); Dr. Larry Gant, University of Michigan Center for Urban Innovation; Amalia Anderson, Main Street Project; Bryan Mercer, Media Mobilizing Project; Ruth Williams, Zero Divide

Did you know the federal government is spending billions on media education and Internet expansion as part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act? The only way we can make sure they do it right is by proposing the solutions we want. In this workshop, we'll work together to formulate our ideas for how to transform the Internet to increase opportunities for work, education, communication and well-being. We will develop organizing strategies to make our ideas a reality. Together, we'll visualize our experiences with and hopes for the Internet, case-study multiple strategies for Recovery Act funding in both rural and urban settings, and break into small groups to incubate new strategies for session participants to use locally. We'll emerge with specific local plans and a more coordinated national strategy. You don't need to be an expert on anything other than your community to take part in this workshop.

Presenter: Autumn Brown, Rockdove Collective

All over the country, communities are organizing themselves around new systems of value and new ways to access services beyond the dollar. From timebanking to alternative currencies, folks are turning to each other and away from the capitalist market. We can support these emerging alternative economies by building living systems that can interface with online technology. This caucus is a space for organizers who are participating in or building new economic systems. We will discuss some of the inherent challenges of building an alternative economy: How do you assign value in an alternative economy? What accountability practices ensure safe exchanges? What is the relationship of national/governmental currency to an alternative economy? We will share strategies for answering those questions, and for building and maintaining local economies that can interface with web-based technology but are not bound by it. Join us in this crucial work.

Presenter: Dave Onion, Prometheus Radio Project

The face of solar energy users often reflects an unmistakeable class of distinctly upper middle class homeowners. Many solar energy applications out there can start in the tens of thousands after hefty rebates, keeping the sun's bountiful energy off limits to most of the rest of us. Fortunately there are a number of practical hands on and relatively cheap or free solutions to harvesting those UV rays.

This workshop will cover the basics of some solar applications that could be suitable for poor folks, renters, homeowners, squatters and media guerrillas. I will cover the basics of necessary equipment and materials for building do it yourself setups for heating air and water and using photovoltaic panels to produce electricity. I won't be getting into rebates, incentives or jobs.

Presenters: Renée Feltz, Abdulai Bah, and Kristofer Ríos, Peoples Production House; Andalusia Knoll and Puck Lo, Free Speech Radio News

In this hands-on, workshop/lab series, the Community News Production Institute (CNPI)- a media justice project of People's Prodcution House- and Free Speech Radio News (FSRN) invite you to learn how to do community driven radio journalism. In two, 45 minute workshops, participants will learn how to document the news and events at the 2009 Allied Media Conference, edit their sound into a mini-documentry or radio segment, and have the opportunity to air their audio projects on a micro radio station that will be broadcast throughout the conference and webstreamed. Participants will also help complete a short sound collage using voices and sounds from the AMC that will be played at the closing plenary and posted on the AMC website.

Presenters: BUMP Records of the Bay Area Video Coalition, Oakland CA; Elementz Hip Hop Youth Center, Cincinnati OH

This session will show artists that they can tell their stories through their music, whether instrumental or lyrical. As technology constantly advances, it becomes easier for the next generation of artists to spread their messages. This session will show you the various tools that will take your work to the next level, from production to recording to distribution and everything in between. We will offer demonstrations of various software that can be used to produce projects that inspire, educate, and give people a voice. Software demonstrations will include Reason, Garageband and other digital production programs. You will walk away with the skills to produce music, interviews, and advertisements and other media.

With Insights From San Antonio's Local 782
Presenters: Lottie Spady, DeAnne Cuellar, San Antonio Local 782

Between the film industry tax incentive program and the growing recognition of Detroit as a music capital, we have the potential to develop a media-based economy in Detroit. This tour will invite Detroiters and non-Detroiters to visit a variety of sites throughout the city where this potential is brewing. We will discuss the challenges and celebrate the achievements of the community media movement in Detroit, made up of music production, literary publishing, citizen produced media, graphic arts, web based applications, TV and film. It will also provide an opportunity to discuss critical questions such as: How do we navigate the slippery slope between media-based economies, “creative-class economies” and gentrification? and What models exist in other cities to ensure that cooperative, community-based economics are integrated into media-based development?

Presenter: Alice Orman, Regeneracion Childcare NYC:

This workshop is for young folks, aged 4 and up, who would like to learn how to make their very own books. The workshop will teach how to transform a single sheet of paper into a book by simply folding and cutting! We will also explore more intricate techniques of hand-sewing.

Presenters: Marla Teyolia, Empowered Mama; Lucy Marrero, To Tell You the Truth; tk (tanya karakashian), We Got Issues!.

As women of color, queers, and mamas, we anchor our work in our lived identities and experiences, honoring the sacred circles within our lives that facilitate intimacy, healing, liberation, and creativity. This workshop has two components: building community/ies and creating media that tells our stories. We’ll explore possibilities for fortifying our families through subversive media practices, and we'll investigate possibilities for using online and 3D media for creating local and national sacred spaces. To this effect, we are inviting you to “set" sacred tables with us. Together, we'll create an art installation project by using tables and collage materials. We invite you to bring materials that embody your transformative and liberatory movement to "set the table" with: pictures, ideas, values, mementos, tea cups, and dreams... anything you can think of! In addition, participants are invited to record their stories/truths as mamas/caregivers. This video project may be shared online.

Presenters: Malik Yakini, The Detroit Black Food Security Network; Wes Taylor, Emergence Media; Submerge Records; King Britt and more, TBA

In a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) system, people buy shares in a local farm and receive produce on a weekly basis throughout the growing season. We need home-grown media as much as we need home-grown food. This session will look at the history of cooperative media economies, present current models being used across the media spectrum, and brainstorm new models based on the visions and needs of the workshop participants, and exchange skills and ideas with local food cooperatives and CSAs.

Presenters: Fallon Wilson, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Moya Bailey, Adele Nieves, Zachari Curtis

The Cyberquilting Experiment examines how social medias can be used as a resource for movement building activities, to create spaces where activism, cognitive engagement, and skill development intersect and equip women of color activists and organizations with the cyber tools needed to bring about radical social change. The Cyberquilting concept draws on the tradition of quilting as a radical media practice of oppressed communities in the United States. Enslaved women in the US used quilts not only as artistic interventions and resources to provide warmth to their families, but also as tactile histories, teaching tools, and vessels for hidden messages about the possibility of freedom. This workshop features interactive discussions and demonstrations on how various internet technologies as well as traditional forms of mobilization/protest can strengthen current and future social justice work. The questions we will explore are: how do you build community on the web; how safe is the internet for women of color and women of color organizers; and is the internet only for younger generations of activist?

Presenters: Silicon Valley De-Bug

Silicon Valley De-Bug uses community media to organize against policies that criminalize and brutalize young people. This session will offer specific models for how media and storytelling can be used in case specific advocacy to win justice in the courtroom for people who have been falsely charged or who have lost loved ones to police violence. We will also show how youth media can be used to combat the corporate media hysteria that criminalizes young people, and ultimately lead to full-blown campaigns to change policies such as anti-gang laws and the use of Tasers by Police Departments.

Presenters: Delayna Johnson, Sandra Husic, Jody Thomas, Veronica Martinez, Dawn Ramsey, Jocelyn Hudson, and Zorytza Rodriquez, The Empowered Fe Fes

This session will begin with poetry from the Empowered Fe Fes' about the topic of disability beauty and the skit "Self Esteem Makeover" written by Kimberly Wilson and re-interpreted by the young women of the Empowered Fe Fes. In the skit, 3 disabled girls attending Liberate Me High School suffer from low self esteem. They have allowed the enormous pressure of the media and their peers to negatively influence their thoughts about beauty and body image. When the school counselor hears this disturbing news, she calls them to her office and gives them a self esteem makeover. Following the skit, 3 Senior Fe Fe's will facilitate an open discussion with the audience about the topic of Disability Beauty. We will also share our process for creating the skit and how we use theater and role-playing as a strategy for empowerment and education.

Presenters: Stacey Milbern and others

Last year, disabled women of color met at the AMC to envision a world where their individual and collective voices were heard. Since then these activists have met together via phone to discuss ways to work together. An online social group is in the works, as well as a zine or magazine. In this caucus we will build on what was done last year and move forward together in sisterhood. This space is open to all disabled people and allies but centers on the experiences of disabled women of color as our voices have been the ones dismissed most in other areas. From here we will organize and create some kind of future project or publication that explodes our experiences with the non-profit industrial complex, the colonization of our bodies, our histories, and other intricate facets of our lives onto paper.

Facilitator: Kameelah Rasheed

At the Documentary Photographer's Caucus, self-taught, school-taught, street-taught photographers and those aspiring to be something of the sort are invited to participate in an open dialogue about how to use our photography to document our community's needs, dreams, stories, and struggles. How can we inspire positive change and transformation by using photography to challenge the perception of ourselves, our families, and our communities? How can we use photography to imagine and dream of new worlds? Whether you have a disposable camera, a camera phone, a point & shot, an old school manual, or a fancy digital SLR, this caucus is an opportunity to meet up with like-minded activists who use or want to use their camera for a greater purpose. This is an opportunity to to develop collaborative projects, brainstorm community-based exhibitions in alternative spaces, identify online platforms for photography, connect to social justice organizations, and share resources.
Location: Cass Cafe, 4620 Cass Ave.

Presenter: Adrienne Maree Brown, The Ruckus Society

The process of getting any group of people to resolve conflict is challenging, but it's not a mystery - and the results are extremely rewarding. Come to this session to learn about holding space for truth and reconciliation processes in a group or community. This session is specifically for facilitators, and the tools can be applied to any size or type of group (family, friends, work, media, fun, etc).

Presenters: Oren Goldenberg

Our School, is a ninety minute documentary, that uses cinema-verite to create a visceral experience as students and staff navigate the halls and streets of Detroit, interleaving the struggles and successes of teenage life within the urban school system. The camera follows students and staff for one day, from the courtroom to a school for young mothers, from a closing school to one newly refurbished. This film presents the connections, differences and contradictions of a single day in Detroit public high schools. It was created to seat the viewer inside the classroom amongst the students and staff experiencing the urban educational crisis.Shot over the past four years during Detroit Public Schoolʼs closure of 96 schools, the film depicts the uncertainty surrounding the future of education, and what it will look like.

Presenter: Andy Bichlbaum, Co-Director

Sneak Preview Screening followed by Q & A. THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD (dir. Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, Kurt Engfehr, 2009) is a screwball true story that follows a couple of gonzo political activists as they infiltrate the world of big business and pull off outrageous pranks that highlight the ways that corporate greed is destroying the planet. Along the way the duo discover the culprits behind the cult of greed, and in a wildly uplifting ending, they find a way for everyone to defeat the cult and save civilization from its own worst excesses.

"Finally the high priests of the free market get a massive dose of the disrespect they deserve. Hilarious, therapeutic, inspiring. The Yes Men are geniuses."
– Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and No Logo

In the summer of 2006, a broad-based, non-violent, popular uprising exploded in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Some compared it to the Paris Commune, while others called it the first Latin American revolution of the 21st century. But it was the people’s use of the media that truly made history in Oaxaca. A 90-minute documentary, A Little Bit of So Much Truth captures the unprecedented media phenomenon that emerged when tens of thousands of school teachers, housewives, indigenous communities, health workers, farmers, and students took 14 radio stations and one TV station into their own hands, using them to organize, mobilize, and ultimately defend their grassroots struggle for social, cultural, and economic justice. Narrated almost entirely with recordings from the occupied media outlets, A Little Bit of So Much Truth delivers a breathtaking, intimate account of the revolution that WAS televised.

Presenters: Kat Aaron, Renee Feltz, Peoples Production House

There's no question that most community media makers have their fingers on the pulse of their communities. But they often don't have stats and numbers to back up the stories they tell about their cities, and their powerful stories get dismissed as anecdotes. This session will show the AMC community what kinds of numbers and data are available, where they can find useful data, and how to use it in their reporting. The session will focus on finding and using data relating to the financial crisis: unemployment numbers, housing prices, campaign contributions from banks. But the tactics can be extrapolated to other kinds areas of research.

Presenters: Palestine Education Project, Huaxtec, SNAG Magazine, 7th Generation Indigenous Visionaries and The Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA)

Part 1 will show how grassroots media and community cultural production is central to the process of building vibrant movements for survival/self-determination. Co-facilitated by PEP and students from Bushwick Community High School, we will use media the students created to connect their experiences of oppression and strategies for resistance with each other and with indigenous youth in Palestine and throughout Turtle Island. This workshop will provide concrete activities, hand-outs, and audio-visual materials to take home and use in your own communities.

Part 2 will be led by partners in the Indigenous Youth Delegation to Palestine taking place this August. Students at Haskell Indian Nations University and youth from SNAG Magazine will tell the history of colonization and indigenous resistance throughout North America. Through an interactive historical mapping activity, we will draw connections between that history and the colonization and resistance of Palestinians. The workshop will conclude with an image theater activity by Huaxtec, exploring the connected experiences of xicana/o immigrant communities in the U.S. and Palestinians living under occupation. Participants will be invited to observe a live video conference the following morning between our partner youth centers in Palestine and the indigenous delegates.

Presenters: Jamilah King, Matt Nelson, Wiretap Magazine

Can activists be real journalists? WireTap magazine staff say, absolutely! But not all reporting by activists is journalism. Not all writing or blogging is journalism. In Part 1 of this workshop we’ll use real examples and attempt to define that line through an interactive discussion. Then we'll go over 5 key elements of high-quality journalism. We'll show you how to write an effective pitch for progressive publications and you'll leave with a handout full of contact information for editors of top national print and online magazines.

Presenters: The Beehive Collective

The Bees will build upon and expand last year’s workshop that engaged participants in collaborating to make a visual ‘mind-map’ defining corporate media. For the first half of the session we will use last year’s map of ‘what we are against’ to collaboratively generate a second, more visionary mind-map of our media and what we want our media to look like. The second half of the workshop will be devoted to designing images out of the concepts we've mapped. People coming to this workshop are encouraged to produce the images in the hands-on printmaking workshop.

Presenter: Lizzy Baskerville, EMEAC

Create explosive seed and soil capsules for hassle-free germination in abandoned lots, road mediums, or any hard-to-reach nooks. Reduce blight, heal the earth and get your hands dirty with this fun and simple way to cultivate wildflowers in your city.

Presenter: Gary Schwartz

Animation with an attitude. Drawn, stop-motion, time-lapse, etc… Take your animation production to the STREETS!!! Utilizing unconventional mobile tactics, this session will help you liberate your animation methodologies from the studio settings to the unpredictable environment of location shooting, frame-by-frame & in camera effects. The WORLD is our stage. Location scouting for your productions includes abandon buildings, rural environments, public venues, etc. We will be problem solving around organizational production issues for low budget (& no budget) environments.

Presenters: The Beehive Collective

As much as we love digital media, there is something irreplaceable about hands-on visual media-making. This session will involve an introduction to various methods of image generation that don't require photo emulsion, like stenciling, applying masking tape directly to silk screens. We will go through a collective process to design a series of large banners to be hung in the central space of the AMC, then we will break up into five teams to execute a particular element of the design.

Presenters: Ron Scott, Detroit Public Access and The Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality (moderator); Lonette McKee, Actress and Producer; Sultan Sharrief, The Student EFEX Program of The University of Michigan; Rola Nashef, Independent Filmmaker; Oya Amakisi, The Detroit International Women of Color Film Festival

Michigan is seeing a flood of film industry-related jobs as a result of our state's generous tax incentive program. Clint Eastwood has called Michigan the "next film capitol of the world." But in order for the film industry to leave a lasting positive impact on our communities, we need to be more than the backdrop for Hollywood films. We need independent film and video production that emerges from the imagination and innovation of Detroiters. This panel will highlight the important work being done in this area by the student EFEX program of the University of Michigan, independent filmmaker Rola Nashef, renown actress and producer Lonette Mckee and director of the Detroit International Women of Color Film Festival, Oya Amakisi. Long-time independent media producer and Detroit activist, Ron Scott will moderate this panel, advancing a discussion about what kind of infrastructure we can build to support the creative media-based economies of our city and region.

Presenter: Lauren Fardig, Banana Kelly High School

Want to make your writing live? Publishing your writing, art, and music online is a great way to begin a conversation, and get your voice heard. Everyone has a story to tell, but the benefit of publishing over journaling is that you have an audience, who can respond to your ideas. As part of our 9th grade English class, we published our own digital zine, and want to teach other youth how to create a publication like this. Our zine is focused on our poetry work throughout the year, but these skills are adaptable to anyone! Participants will get hands-on practice with one of 5 programs we worked with, and will receive a how-to-guide on setting up a digital publication like this – for a school project, for fun, or an extra-curricular venture in making your own media. This session will be presented by The Live Poets Society of Banana Kelly High School, Bronx, NY.

Presenter: Joe Petrous

Have you ever thought about turning your basement or garage into a live sound venue? Or maybe you need to brush up on some audio techniques to get your basement studio up and running. If understanding audio is in your field of dreams, this workshop can help you out. Learn the basics of live sound production. In this session you will have the opportunity to get to know the basics of accoustics, feed back elimination, running a mixing board, and setting up a P.A. system.

Presenters: Weam Namou, Iraqi Artists Association; Steven Stothard, Microcosm Publishing

There is a wealth of opportunities for small and independent publishers interested in filling various needs in the book trade. Self-publishing allows authors of diverse backgrounds to be heard. Participants will gain knowledge about the self-publishing process.Topics include how to generate salable material, start their own company, copyright their work, get an ISBN and Library of Congress number, search for printers, get book reviews, and promote and distribute their book. Beginning with the history of current and failed distribution models for print publications we'll understand why they don't work and don't serve small publishers. Then we'll go step-by-step through the process of setting up a co-op distribution model with your friends by working with similarly-minded publications to get independently published zines, comics and books out into the world. Skills and techniques will apply to smallest scale publications. D-I-Y!

Presenters: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ms. Cherry Galette, Mangos With Chili

Founded in 2006, Mangos With Chili is North America's only annual touring roadshow of queer and trans of color (QTPOC) performance artists. In this inspiring, interactive workshop, co-founders Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ms. Cherry Galette will talk about the nuts and bolts of creating a successful tour that pays QTPOC artists a fair wage, centers disabled bodies, is sustainable and avoids being ripped off! We'll talk about the grassroots fundraising strategies we use to pay QTPOC artists a fair wage, curation, booking, promotion, dealing with divas, and sustaining our bodies and spirits. If you've always been curious about what it would take to create a tour- especially if you're an independent queer or trans artist of color, woman of color artist, working-class or disabled artist – this will be a great place to get hella resources, share experiences and build skills. This workshop centers POC and QTPOC but is open to all!

Presenters: Andrea Quijada, New Mexico Media Literacy Project; Steven Renderos, Minnesota Media Empowerment Project

The Digital Television Transition is impacting historically marginalized communities the most. Political Education, Power Analysis, Leadership Development and Movement Building are usually NOT what come to mind when you think of the Digital Television Transition. Yet across the country several organizations who are part of the Media Action Grassroots Network, successfully used the DTV Transition as a way to expand their base, develop new leaders, reach new allies and mobilize to secure a No Cost Box. This interactive session will walk participants through ways that you can build and deepen your base, increase your political education around the digital divide, and engage new and old members as well as unlikely allies in the fight for Communication Rights.

Presenter: Una Osato

This workshop will look at the ways in which humor has been (and needs to be) used as a tool for consciousness raising in the world. We will look at different forms of media, mainstream and underground, and laugh and examine how artists have used humor in their work for subversive means. From Commedia Dell'Arte to Dave Chappelle to our own homegrown performance artists, we will be looking at and exploring: "What’s so dam Funny about revolution?" I will draw on examples of my own performance art and share how I merge my politics and comedy. In this workshop we will also play improv comedy games (with a political focus) and together work on developing our own bits of subversive funny to disrupt and share with the world.

Moderator: Lisa Davis, Spread Magazine. Presenters: J. Kirby, Andrea Ritchie, Sex Workers Project

The mainstream media's tendency is to gravitate towards sensationalism when covering the sex trade, while simultaneously denying the voices of sex workers themselves. News stories that allow only for victim-criminal portrayals of sex workers help enforce and perpetuate damaging stereotypes. What happens when sex workers become not just the subjects of media gaze, but the authors, reporters, and publishers of sex trade news? This documentary short takes a look at $pread Magazine, one example of sex worker-made media, and discusses its aim to change the way that media itself approaches sex work. (US, 19 min.-2009)

There will be a Q&A with the filmakers and a discussion following the screening, addressing the question: How do we make media that centers the voices and experiences of marginalized/criminalized populations while overcoming barriers to access/time/resources?

Presenter: Jaime Magiera, Sensory Research, Inc.

This session provides an overview of various ways to incorporate technology into the educational experience. It's no secret that cutting edge technologies are revolutionizing the classroom. However, there is a shortage of information on how to successfully incorporate those technologies into the traditional learning environment with the least amount of disruption, while at the same time maximizing their benefit. This session will give participants hands-on experience with some of the more popular tools in both the Open Source and Commercial realms, providing processes and methods for successfully incorporating those tools into the educational experience. There will also be an opportunity for participants to network with each other to create a web of support for the technologically-oriented classroom

Presenters: The Media Mobilizing Project, Philadelphia

The Media Mobilizing Project has been working in the Philadelphia region to build a media and communications infrastructure for movement building. We have been doing this work with organizations and people across sectors of organizing - youth and education, new labor, immigration, development and displacement. In this session we will present and facilitate a discussion on the role, successes, and challenges of communications and network building in organizing toward shared movements. We invite others who are organizing, building local and national networks, along with creating media for movements to join and contribute to this discussion. We hope this conversation will help in creating a vision Detroit's own community media center.

Presenter: Robert Ebright, Columbus Indymedia, Columbus Freepress

Drupal is one of the leading open-source content management systems but it can also be one of the most difficult to become accustomed to. It's versatility and nearly unlimited features comes with a steep learning curve. This session will provide a introduction to the basics of using Drupal with a focus on some of the multi-media modules and how to use them to get your content onto your site and quit being reliant upon corporate service providers.

Presenter: China Martens, The Future Generation

Would you like to change how a fairytale goes to make it end your own way? Make up your own characters or draw a character you saw in a film or television? Do you like to read stories and tell your own, or draw pictures. How about cutting up collages from magazines or cutting and gluing paper. Lets go for a walk and collect things that we could put on paper to remember this day, or share with others. Can we find a zerox machine and make copies? Will we try to sell or trade our own zine at the conference? Lets see! Come and have fun! I will bring supplies and a coloring-book zine I made with my daughter when she was small called “The Tuff Cinderella”. Everyone can make stuff and everyone makes things in different ways. Let’s imagine, explore, share and make zines together!

Facilitators: Amy Rose, Ken Wachsberger, The National Writers Union

At a time when print publications are faltering and the Internet is perpetually hungry for content, writers are more in demand than ever. Yet payment for writing becomes ever harder to come by under the Internet mantra that “information wants to be free.”What’s a professional writer to do? In this caucus, two veteran freelance writers and members of the National Writers Union will lead a discussion about about legislation, court cases, and the practical realities of the marketplace. They will also talk about what the NWU does to help members with the business of writing.
Location: The Cass Cafe, 4620 Cass Ave

Facilitators: The Youth Solidarity Network

As a continuation of the Saturday session, From Palestine to Turtle Island: Making Media for Decolonization, delegates and organizers of the Indigenous Youth Delegation to Palestine, scheduled to embark this August, will participate in a live video conference with youth from our partner organizations in refugee camps throughout the West Bank. We will exchange stories and share music, continuing to strengthen our understanding of our different contexts, the issues we face in our daily lives, and figuring out what useful experiences and strategies we have to share. Other educators, youth organizers, and young people are welcome to come observe this exciting exchange.

Presenters: Ben Dean-Kawamura, Dean Jansen, The Participatory Culture Foundation

Internet video is exploding in popularity with the rise of sites like YouTube and Hulu. How can we take advantage of the Internet to get our work more widely watched, talked about and distributed? How can we find shows online that speak to us when so many Internet videos are frivolous or rehashes of broadcast TV?

This workshop aims to help participants navigate the waters of Internet video. We will discuss the options you have when releasing video on the Internet, how to best promote your work and how to best connect to your viewers. We will introduce Miro, a free software project that we work on, and show how you can use it to find shows you care about, distribute your work to a wider audience and make it easy for users to watch your video.

Presenters: Maegan “la Mamita Mala” Ortiz, Noemi Martinez, VivirLatino, The Sanctuary, SPEAK!

At this mealtime caucus for self identified mothers of color, we will break bread together and discuss the joys and challenges of being a mami of color making media, reading media, being an activist/organizer and or artist while mami'ing. Our experiences as mothers of color, when not ignored , are often appropriated so there will be a special focus on taking care of ourselves as mamis so we can take care of our children and our community, fostering supportive environments for ourselves and other mamis especially in coalition building with people who are not mamis, and redefining what mami'hood and mamahood look like from a justice and love centered perspective. There will be childcare available during mealtimes, so obviously as a mami space, children are more than welcomed, but mothers also have the option of leaving their children at the on site conference child care.

Presenter: Jake

This session will go over the final stages of putting up a LP-FM radio station. We will go over the process of selecting an antenna, tuning an antenna, selecting and aquiring a mast, a cable, and finally the process of putting it all up as high as possibl for the maximum wattage and outreach for your radio station.

Participants: Amalia Deloney, Main Street Project; Hye-Jung Park, The Media Justice Fund of the Funding Exchange; Malkia Cyril, The Center For Media Justice; Jessica Hoffman, Make/Shift Magazine; Helen Brunner, The Media and Democracy Fund; Robert Robinson, Picture the Homeless; Eloise Lee, Media Alliance; Manju Rajendran, Left Turn and FUFA, Diana Nucera, Allied Media Projects

A Fishbowl Discussion

The term "media justice" describes a diversity of tactics, from holding corporate media accountable to lobbying against the digital divide to telling our own stories. As with all movements, at times, funder priorities and organizer priorities have differed. Join us for a fishbowl discussion that will start with stories about what media justice has meant and how it has been funded over the past 10 years. Next, we will highlight current projects that are broadening the definition of media justice. Through this conversation, we will work toward a collective vision of the future of media justice, including new conversations about how the work might be funded.

Presenters: Misia Denéa, The Nzinga Arts Collective; Althea Baird

Negro Spirituals, Field Hollers, Freedom Songs, B-Boying/B-Girling, Stepping, Gumboot Jigging and Storytelling all have common threads, accompanying liberation movements when marginalized groups use art, singing, and dance to break the chains of oppression. Getting on the good foot, laying down our burdens by the riverside. This restorative workshop will teach us as activist, media justice workers and everything in between that we owe it to ourselves to step away from documenting others stories and get back into our own bodies to express our inner truths, dispel our myths and step into our greatness. We will focus on yogic principals of centering the mind, stretching the body, journaling and optional audio recording our expressions, our experiences. Workshop participants can opt to keep these audio recordings as a memento or reminder to take a break from arduous cycle of shooting and editing. Confidentiality will be a priority.

Presenters: The Bay Area Video Coalition, Durban Sings Oral History Project

The Bay Area Video Coaliton (BAVC) will run an demonstration of their ground-breaking new file-sharing tool, DAM, the Digital Asset Management tool. DAM allows media-makers in different geographic locations (within a city or across an ocean) to collaborate on post-production of video projects and share other large media files for collaboration. In this mini-session they will partner with the Durban Sings Oral History Project in Durban, South Africa to edit video footage from their Pan African celebration taking place on July 16th.

Presenter: Sasha Costanza-Chock

Mobile Voices (vozmob) is a platform for immigrant workers in Los Angeles to create stories about their lives and communities directly from cell phones. Vozmob helps people with limited computer access gain greater participation in the digital public sphere. In this workshop, we'll show participants how to post multimedia stories directly to the web from a cell phone, and we'll talk about how this can be used as part of popular communication and as an organizing tool!

Presenters: Real Media, Southwest Detroit

What do you do when your youth media program loses it's main financial lifeline (whether a foundation, a university or a government grant)? Real Media in Southwest Detroit faced this question last year when our organization lost support from the University of Michigan, who had given us unlimited technological resources. Now we are housed within a small community non-profit with much fewer resources. With five digital cameras and one laptop, the students of Real Media used their open minds and creativity on a new level to produce amazing short films. This session will show you how you can use the tools you already have to their fullest poetntial, while having fun and building problem-solving skills in the process! We will also share various resources which are available to the public for free.

Presenters: EastSide Arts Alliance

EastSide Arts Alliance presents Once Upon a Town, an all-youth production illustrating how forced deportations and police brutality break but not destroy the Estrella family in Oakland, California. Through excerpts and exercises, we will explore the various struggles our communities face and engage collective practices toward developing principled art.

Presenters: Sterling Toles, the Detroit Griot Collaborative, Rebel Diaz Arts Collective, EastSide Arts Alliance

In a basement on the East side of Detroit, Sterling Toles runs a recording studio where mentorship is intentionally a part of the recording process. Meanwhile, downtown, the Detroit Griot Collaborative works out of the Harold Berry Media Center to conduct inter-generational oral history projects. In the South Bronx, the Rebel Diaz Arts Collective launched a community space where studio time is given out in exchange for volunteer hours and community events support local organizing. In East Oakland, the EastSide Arts Alliance builds bridges between diverse neighborhoods through public art projects, festivals & free art workshops for youth.

This spectrum of models from individual, to collective, to non profit organizations, will be presented and exchanged in this meet up. We invite anyone working in, or thinking of starting, a community performance/studio space, to join us for a discussion about how to be effective and sustainable while transforming our communities!

Presenters: Melinda Haus-Johnson, M.S.W., Theresa Squires and Kathryn Wyeth, Michigan Disability Rights Coalition

For many of our communities, the media plays a major role in shaping society’s views of us: our culture, our value, etc., as well as in shaping our own views of ourselves as we fight the ease of internalizing these messages. The disability community is no exception. This interactive workshop will begin by reviewing the various ways people with disabilities have been represented in the media, and the importance of making our own media that will shape the way our children and grandchildren view themselves and their communities. We will share examples of how the disability movement in Michigan has been using the process of digital storytelling to move our communities from pity to pride and to take action.

Facilitators: Pancho, Palabra Radio Network; Kris Ríos, Peoples Production House

This caucus will initiate plans for a convergence of primarily Spanish-speaking immigrant media-makers at the 2010 Allied Media Conference. The goal of the Spanish-language track will be to support and advance media-based organizing in Latin@ and Caribbean immigrant communities throughout the U.S. and to exchange resources, support and organizing models between those communities and other media-organizers throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
Location: Cass Cafe, 4620 Cass Ave

Presenters: Global Action Project

In this interactive, hands-on, youth and adult led workshop, participants will be exploring how to engage youth in political education and media production through the use of their popular culture. We will analyze current pop culture such as shows like Heroes and Gossip Girl and re-frame/re-write these stories to reflect our social justice values. Participants will work collaboratively using cameras to script, shoot and act out a short scene that will be screened for the larger group.

Is print dead? Can alternative print media survive? A gathering for any and all makers of print media at AMC.

Presenter: Katie Kuhl, Kids' Track Coordinator/Radio Ecology Facilitator

What ideas or music would you put on the radio? What ideas and music do you hear on the radio now? In this session, participants will consider these questions by taking an FM radio "hike," and sharing their own audio interests. Following this discussions, participants will design and perform their own radio show.

Facilitators: Helen Brunner, The Media and Democracy Fund; Jeanette Lee, Allied Media Projects
Join us for a strategy session to discuss ways to share and raise resources to sustain and strengthen the media justice movement. This session will be a follow-up to the session Media Justice, What's Next?

Presenter: freetobea

In Barack Obama's presidential campaign, his image was constructed as hero before saving anyone or anything that our communities and movements are invested in. Now, the media has taken on a new light, portraying a calm, efficient, responsible and enlightened black man who is capable of re-claiming the role of commander-in-chief. Through this caucus we will explore how the mainstream media's creation of a post-racial society produces incomplete images of blackness and also work to create/conjure our own images that reflect our real and imagined selves. We'll use a digital camera, rough sketches and short story-generation techniques to begin a media production that affirms our racial and cultural struggle and survival.
Location: Cass Cafe, 4620 Cass Ave.

Presenters: Ryanna Sandoval, Naima Paz, Daphne Williams, Skitlz Masters and Dominique McKinney of The Young Women's Empowerment Project

Young Women's Empowerment Project started doing our own research on the resilience and resistance to violence among girls in the sex trade as basis for developing our social justice campaign. After 18 months of talking to hundreds of girls involved in the sex trade and street economy, we started forming our campaign. This interactive session will explain our process of doing youth lead participatory research. We will also talk about how we developed our tool kit, how we published our findings and the evolving story of our first social justice campaign.

Presenters: BUMP Records, Sterling Toles, Innacity Community Hip Hop Collective (via Skype)

Hip hop has been traveling the globe for decades, connecting the stories, struggles and visions of our communities, evolving new sounds and structures along the way. This workshop will bring hip hop artists from around the U.S., who are gathered in Detroit for the AMC "face-to-face" Innacity Community, a hip hop collective in Johannesburg South Africa, through a video conference call. We will host a dialogue about the role hip hop can play in transforming our communities, exchange beats produced earlier in the day, then hold a rhyming workshop to produce pieces to be performed at the end of the session This session is open to everyone, whether you rap or not! Participants in the earlier sessions, Beatmaking & Recording and Soundtrack for Movement-building are especially encouraged to attend.

This caucus is for any self-identified women of color (cis+trans) + genderqueer/trans people of color who has experience working in the sex trade/adult industry. Let's come together to map out how we use independent media for sex work and self expression, the advantages and disadvantages of working on the internet, and envision increased access and the building of our own online spaces. This is a place for us to talk about business, legal issues, healing, and anything else. Confidentiality will be respected.
Location: Traffic Jam & Snug, 511 W. Canfield

Presenters: Young Women's Empowerment Project, Females United For Action, Joyce Angela Jellison, La Chica Boom, and much more!

Join your favorite radical women of color for in-depth arts/media skills trainings with some of the most awesome and often overlooked tools for organizing! We will use four seasons of Activism to frame our skills instruction by having participants answer the questions: How could you use this skill to sustain your community, create a better day? How could you use this skill to connect people? How could you use this skill to end violence against women of color? How could you use this skill to bring about media justice? Facilitators at the multiple stations will guide small groups of participants through a 40 minute hands-on training. We'll sit with you and each skill (from jewelry making and quilting to self-publishing and social media technology) and help you figure out how best it can be deployed to build the work you want to do in the world! Did you know that hating can end violence against women of color? or that urban foraging creates a bright new day? That a quilt can bring about media justice? We can show you all that and more if you stop through the skillshare workshop!

Presenters: Texas Media Empowerment Project, Hip Hop Media Lab, Hip Hop Sustains and Generation Alliance

Social media is transforming the way people tell stories, create culture, form relationships and leverage power -- the building blocks of organizing! As social media applications such as twitter, facebook, imeem, youtube, etc. become increasingly central to organizing, it's essential that our communities 1) have access to them 2) know how to use them for organizing and 3) can critique existing social media tools and have the skills to create new ones. This session will start with a brief discussion around the questions: what is social media? how have these tools been used to win campaigns? and how do we ensure that marginalized communities are not further marginalized by the use of social media for political organizing? The rest of the session will be a hands-on bonanza of skill-sharing, where participants will learn the ins and outs of social media applications including: twitter, facebook, imeem, youtube and skype.

Presenters: Candace Carter, Dan Jones, The Philadelphia Student Union

This session will be led by young people and is aimed at young people. The Philadelphia Student Union is in the process of creating a soundtrack of pieces based on the issues we are organizing around in Philadelphia public schools. This session will demonstrate how music (specifically spoken word, hip hop, song) can be used to clarify issues, educate, and mobilize people. Using a variety of interactive exercises, participants will explore: the difference between creating political music and creating music as a part of organizing, the creative process, the nuts and bolts of coming up with hooks and translating issues into music, and framing and messaging. Participants will be invited to take what they learn from this session and make their own music down in the Media Lab, with mentorship from some of the AMC's finest artists throughout the weekend.

Presenters: bex*, Stephanie Loveless, Molik Harvey, Naima Lowe

In the past few years there has been an emergence of mainstream media attention to the experiences of trans people. With increased attention, it is important for trans individuals and their allies to speak for themselves to the broader community with an emphasis on overcoming myths, negative stereotypes, and misconceptions. Trans-identified independent filmmakers face challenges head-on as they navigate the under-resourced field of independent media and with limited opportunities and skewed perceptions about their identity. Panelists will share insights on the fundraising, distribution, and creative sides of making independent media and their vision for the future of storytelling, outreach, and global opportunities. This dialogue will include diverse perspectives from experienced and emerging artists and explore the cultural impact of media made by trans artists themselves, as well as discuss avenues for implementing more positive images in the media. This showcase and artist discussion is presented by the Leeway Foundation.

Presenters: Regeneración Childcare NYC and Friends

Social movements that allow people of all ages to participate in their own liberation--from the very young to the very old--display remarkable resilience over time, and develop a profound collective memory. Yet it’s often a challenge to make our political work accessible to families, relevant to parents and comprehensible to kids.

This workshop will share strategies to facilitate the participation of families and people of all ages in social movement, with a particular focus on children and childcare. We will pool our experiences of effective intergenerational organizing, get into the nitty-gritty of childcare work, and dream up new kinds of political action and intervention that can incorporate people of all ages. Participants will leave with resources for nurturing intergenerational movement in their own work!

Facilitators: Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Speak Women of Color Media Collective; Zachari Curtis, Cyberquilting

This is a strategy session open to all women of color (cis+trans) and genderqueer/trans people of color, community organizersn, artists and media makers and hosted by INCITE! Women of color against violence, speak women of color media collective, and cyberquilting: women of color stitching together a new media movement. Last years strategy session resulted in a collective definition of radical woman of color media-what it is (txt msgs to hairstyles to fliers to blogs) and what its for (healing, sharing survival strategis, revealing truth in the depths of crisis) -- from this definition we'll strategize in small groups on how independent media and technology can support community organizing and sustain national and international organizing, increase accessibility and accountability, and how we can work together to strengthen the common threads in our work.

Facilitators: Ariel Dougherty, Women's Working Group of the USSF; Jacqui Patterson, Women of Color United; Sonali Kolhatkar, Uprising Radio; Jennifer Pozner, Women in Media and News; Catherine Kelly, The Michigan Citizen

This caucus, organized by the Women’s Working Group of US Social Forum, is a planning session about how women’s media can lead on reporting community women issues up to, during, and after the Second US Social Forum being held in Detroit, June 22-26, 2010. While each presenter will describe how she uses media within her organizing or how the media is the organizing tool, the purpose is to engage all participants in a discussion, and to devise a plan, on how to strengthen women’s media in the context of women's movement building. The heightened and broadened engagement as a result of the US Social Forum is a point of unity and a vehicle for increased national development from which both women’s media makers and activists within the women’s movement can celebrate and grow.
Location: La Pita, 5056 Cass Ave

Facilitators: Geoff Hing, Diana Nucera, Allied Media Projects

This workshop explores creative ways to recycle computer waste and build sustainable Linux systems. Super Computer building participants will get their hands dirty salvaging and and rebuilding PC computers, installing free and open source software on them and learning how to use and train others on the Linux operating system. The computers built in this workshop will go towards building an Open Source Linux computer lab in the Detroit Community Media Center, to open in the Fall of 2009. This session will be ongoing throughout the entire weekend of the conference!

Presenters: Amalia Deloney, Main Street Project, MAGNET; Edyael Casaperalta, Center for Rural Strategies

Everyone has a powerful story to tell. We all see, hear and perceive the world in different ways. The power of storytelling in organizing is its ability to create empathy and build relationships between different people and communities by connecting both the storyteller and the listener within a common narrative. When a story is shared, a powerful connection is built—and from this connection personal stories have the ability to move both the storyteller and the listener to create a shared political view of the world, and then towards collective action. "Testimonios" is a genre of Latin American Literature that includes first person narratives and was/is strategically used to testify, name, and strengthen the struggles and resiliencies of (im)migrants. As transnational and diasporic communities we know that our survival depends on maintaining the identities, languages, and traditions that hold a community together--across multiple borders. Media, in our own hands, can be a valuable storytelling tool that supports our self-determination, preserves our collective identity and strengthens our struggles in our translocal spaces. Join us for an interactive panel focusing on the voices of women who work, live, and organize in transnational worlds.

Presenters: Mindy Faber, Xavi Macias, Zane Scheuerlein, Open Youth Networks

In this workshop you will learn various tools, apps and methods for creating video remixes that critically examine mass media messages. Using bit torrent, audio hijack, and video download, conversion and compression tools - you will grab several video files off the web for remix in iMovie or Final Cut. You will learn about on-line video editing platforms, such as Kaltura used by Remix America as well as online video archives and public domain sources. You will see examples of video remixes that critique the media made by youth and learn how and when fair use provisions of copyright law apply to the work of educators and student remixers.

Presenters: Hannah Sassaman, SEUI Healthcare PA, AMP Board; Joel Kelsey, Consumers Union

Our city councilors, state legislators, governors, and people in Congress OFTEN stand in the way of our communities gaining power. As we work to develop leaders and tell our stories, we must learn how to make it happen from City Hall to Capitol Hill. In this workshop you will learn if direct lobbying is something you want to do, who to target, and how to build lobbying into your campaigns and your movement. We will choose a relevant organizing issue where legislative leaders play an important role in decision-making. Through roleplaying we will enact our hypothetical organizing campaign AS PARTICIPANTS PLAY the roles of those leaders, THE community members working to lobby them, and THE strategic decision-makers who often play a role in public advocacy campaigns, such as editorial boards at newspapers. We will all leave feeling prepared to go home and book meetings with elected officials in our own communities.

**There is limited space available for this workshop! Please email jenny@alliedmediaconference.org with the subject line "RSVP" and the name of this session in the body of the email to reserve a space in this session.

Kristyn Leach, Stonewall Youth; Mark Gonzales, Alternative Intervention Models (AIM)

Part 1: This is an interactive introduction to some of the key principles of liberatory education practices. It uses sleight of hand (aka magic tricks) to illustrate some of the points. It's highly participatory and light hearted, but addresses some of the main ideas that Freire theorized about and then moves into a broader discussion about the role that education has played in movement building.

Part 2: We will shift our focus to consider navigate the challenges of practicing popular education in mainstream educational settings. We will explore how to make content relevant and liberatory, while still meeting state standards. We will also share and develop strategies for creating community in contexts that are designed to be hierarchical and oppressive, and how the work of transforming mainstream institutions can connect to the work of building counter-institutions.

Presenters: Mary Alice Crim and Misty Perez, Free Press; Kristofer Ríos, Peoples Production House; Sydette Harry/Blackamazon, SPEAK! Women of Color Collective and Salt & Rice productions; Denise Wellons-Glover, The Family Place

We as individuals and organizations committed to public interest can change politics as usual in Washington. To do so, we need to sit down together to share in a dialogue about the future of communications policy in the U.S. This interactive workshop will help you contribute to an ongoing conversation about developing a National Broadband Strategy. For far too long, the public has been left out of the debate over communications policy in Washington, D.C. This workshop will bring together conference attendees with public interest advocates to help shape new policies for our changing the Internet. Through interactive discussions, short videos, and wireless keypad polling technology we will highlight the importance of universal, open and affordable Internet access, diverse ownership, and a vibrant public media.

The Media That Matters Film Festival is the premiere showcase for short films on the most important topics of the day. Local and global, online and in communities around the world, Media That Matters engages diverse audiences and inspires them to take action.

From gay rights to global warming, the jury-selected collection represents the work of a diverse group of independent filmmakers, many of whom are under 21. The films are equally diverse in style and content, with documentaries, music videos, animations, experimental work and everything else in between. What all the films have in common is that they spark debate and action in 12 minutes or less.

This year's festival includes Locusts, a film directed by Detroit's own Al Iqaa The Olivetone and Invincible.

Presenters: Movement for Justice in El Barrio

In this workshop, we will share the ways Movement for Justice in El Barrio has used video and media to overcome obstacles to international organizing by engaging in international dialogue across borders with fellow members of the Zapatista-initiated Other Campaign, a national Mexican movement to make change from below and to the left. In addition, through this workshop we seek to seize this rare opportunity of a gathering of independent journalists and grassroots media to facilitate a live cross border press conference with members of The Peoples Front in Defense of the Land in San Salvador Atenco.

**We request that people who attend this session make a commitment to covering the story of what is happening in Atenco through various independent journalism channels, viral media and social networking sites.**

Please email "jenny@alliedmediaconference.org" with the subject line "RSVP" and include your name and the name of this session in the body of the email, before Friday June 19th.

Tour guides: Piper Carter, 5E Gallery; Riku, local artist

Murals and Grafiti art are not traditionally thought of as "media" but they clearly are a powerful form of communication. In Southwest Detroit, they have also been a part of community-building. This tour will be led by local artist-organizers Riku and Piper Carter. We will visit 5E Gallery, the current epicenter of Detroit's independent hip hop community. We will also visit with the youth leadership organization Expressions, which uses grafitti art and low-rider-building to develop the creativity and leadership of youth in Southwest Detroit. Along the way, you participants will experience a driving tour of the best murals and graffiti art of Southwest. There will also be a hands-on grafitti workshop as a part of this tour! Young women are especially encouraged to attend.

Tour guides: Rich Feldman, The Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership and Detroit City of Hope, more TBA

This East Side Tour of Detroit, will begin at the General Motors Poletown Plant discussing the relationship between politicians, corporations, and unions, as the struggle between jobs and communities intensified in the 1980s. We will then take a step back in history and travel to the Packard Automotive Plant, which as been abandoned since the 1950s. From there we will travel into the present and future: first to the Earth Works Urban Farm which symbolizes the movement towards food security and community based agriculture, then to the Hope District where Mike Wimberly and his family have begun the journey to plant hundreds of fruit trees, create “Peace Zones for Life,” and community gathering spaces. As Mike Wimberly says: “We are reclaiming our communities and re-inventing our city" We will end at the Heidelberg Project - street committed to transformation and hope through public art, connecting the dots of the world.

Presenters: Mindy Faber, Open Youth Networks; Marisol Becerra, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization; Mariana Castañeda, Allied Media Projects

Participants in this hands-on workshop will learn how Google MyMaps can be used to harness collective voice, catalyze action and network across geographical borders. During this session, we will collectively build a google-map of the network of youth organizations at the AMC. In order for media from your organization to be used during the workshop, we ask that you upload it to the internet prior to the conference (a video on youtube, some photos on flickr, a song on imeem...). We will continue building the map throughout the weekend with media that we create at the AMC. Several other examples of collectively authored maps will be shown including OurMap of Environmental Justice and Chicago Youth Voices Against Violence. We will also discuss geo-tagging, third party apps and ways to embed maps in blogs, Facebook and access on mobile web browsers

Presenters: Emily Harris, Free Battered Women; Chiara Galimberti, Midwest Pages to Prisoners; Victoria Law; Puck Lo, Free Speech Radio News; Nick Szuberla, Appalshap/Thousand Kites

What are the concrete barriers to the flow of information across prison walls? How can they be overcome? This panel will address the physical, technological and intellectual barriers of media access to and from prisons. Victoria Law will address the increasing challenges of getting independent media coverage inside prisons. Emily Harris will discuss Free Battered Women's media use to raise awareness & advocate for the release of women incarcerated for defending themselves. Chiara Galimberti will challenge the audience to consider how their content, particularly around gender violence, assumes certain levels of literacy, theoretical knowledge, etc., making it inaccessible to many behind bars. Puck Lo will speak on the challenges and opportunities for making and using mass media to re-write narratives on "crime." Artists from Appalachia-based arts project, Thousand Kites, will share their strategies of using radio, film, web, and public performance to connect prisoners with those on the outside.

Presenters: Isaac Ontivero, Saba Waheed, Rachel Herzing, Creative Interventions

This workshop will be a space for those working on media projects related to community-based interventions to violence to share strategies, learn lessons from each other, and seek out new ways we can support and sustain alternative approaches to ending violence. We will share Creative Interventions' StoryTelling and Organizing Project (STOP). Through STOP we are collecting and using stories from everyday people who have stopped or prevented interpersonal violence in their families, among their friends, or in other social networks without relying on cops or traditional social services. Using these stories, we hope to develop an expanded toolbox for collectively intervening in situations of violence everyday, to organize with and from this toolbox, and to, ultimately, shift the balance of power and build self-determined communities.

Facilitators: Nada Elia, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence and more TBA

Launched in 1959 by a handful of South African students, the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement played a major role in ending official apartheid in South Africa in 1994. In 2004, inspired by this historic success, Palestinian civilian society issued a call for a similar international concerted action to end apartheid in Palestine-Israel today. This session addresses questions such as “why should people living in the US care about this? How do boycotts work anyway? How can we best use viral media to disseminate calls for action and info that is “not fit to print”? We will also address specifics of the US campaign for academic and cultural boycott of Israel, launched in January 2009, and the role of viral media in creating your own cultural products (songs, videos, etc) to educate people about the BDS movement, and/or to hold cultural workers accountable for their political choices.

Facilitators: Dani McClain, Color of Change and Allied Media Projects; Puck Lo, Free Speech Radio News. With contributions from: The Community News Production Institute of Peoples Production House; Nick Szuberla, Appalshop; Jordan Flaherty, Left Turn and more, TBA

Journalism is essential for an open and healthy society, but it hasn't always been open or healthy. The AMC network does a lot to change this. We expand journalism by sharing skills, building infrastructure, and breaking down barriers. Yet many audiences, including those who are sympathetic to our politics, dismiss our work as "advocacy" or "amateur." Now the entire institution of journalism is in crisis, especially as the print-based, advertising-supported model declines. This is an opportunity to promote our participatory models, but to do that we need to shift the public frame of journalism to encompass a broader range of journalists. This discussion will draw on the knowledge of all participants to figure out how to make that shift and gain widespread acceptance for our work.

Presenters: Visions to Peace, Detroit Summer Live Arts Media Project, Ora Wise, Palestine Education Project; Una Osato, NYC Theater of the Oppressed

This session will bring together two organizations who have made participatory videos around the themes of violence, criminalization and safety -- the Detroit Summer Live Arts Media Project and the Visions to Peace Project (D.C.). Collectively, the videos, Alternatives to Criminalization and Vision Is Our Power, address young people's experiences with violence and criminalization, how youth have challenged different forms of violence, and visions for a world where we wouldn't need police, security guards or violence in order to feel safe.

The goal of this session is to use these two media projects as the foundation for a youth-led curriculum on transformative justice -- the vision and practice of creating safety and justice through personal and community transformation, rather than criminalization and incarceration. Facilitated by our friends at the Palestine Education Project and New York City Theater of the Oppressed, we will design role-playing activities, essential questions and other popular education elements of the curriculum. This session will be open to anyone interested in observing our process of participatory curriculum development and contributing questions, suggestions and ideas. We especially encourage other youth organizations, educators, and organizers to attend.

Tim Groves

45 min. This workshop will cover the skills and techniques that investigative journalists, and private-eyes use to do deep digging research on the Internet. It will cover mastering the art of crafting a good search, getting valuable information to come to you, and accessing the wealth of information on the net that search engines like google can't find.
Jammed packed from edge to edge, this session will be a chance to pick up skills you can use everyday.

Naomi Ortiz, Kids As Self Advocates (moderator); Micah Fialka-Feldman; Professor Andrea Smith; members of the Detroit Summer Live Arts Media Project

Two struggles over the past two years have worked to change the purpose of higher education. Micah Fialka-Feldman has fought to live in the dorms at Oakland University as an enrolled student with a cognitive disability. Second, women of color activists at the University of Michigan organized in support of tenure for activist/scholar Andy Smith. These two struggles back up a study in Detroit of high-school students which said; to stop kids from dropping out of school, the purpose of education has to be changed. Through a brief panel discussion, this session will use these examples to look at three questions. How is learning in higher education defined? Who do schools exist to serve? What are ways to teach ourselves? After the panel we will break into three groups to discuss and plan around three topics. 1) Organizing to make schools more inclusive, 2) starting our own schools and, 3) starting our own non-school spaces to learn about issues and ideas schools don’t normally teach.

Presenters: Eloise S. Lee, Media Alliance; Renee Yang-Geesler, First Voice Media Action Program; Shanina Shumate, Women of Color Resource Center; Laura Hadden, Center for Digital Storytelling

In this workshop, we will share popular education strategies that broaden the ways in which we talk about communication policy, and inspire people to organize around media justice issues locally and nationally. We will also discuss processes involved in the creation of culturally relevant learning tools and the importance of community partnerships in organizing around media justice issues. Examples from Media Alliance’s Raising Our Voices Media Training Program, First Voice Media Action Project at KPFA-Pacifica, Women of Color Resource Center’s Technology Empowerment & Media Project of Oakland and the Center for Digital Storytelling will be used to illustrate the critical role of grassroots media and first-voice content creation in reshaping communications policy from the ground up.

Presenters: Project South

This workshop will have two parts:

Part One: Youth Speak Truth, an Atlanta-based youth-centered radio collective, will demonstrate how youth of color use Community Radio to increase youth involvement and action. We will share popular education tools and lessons on how to cultivate youth leadership through radio, grounded in Southern youth-led movement-building history.

Part Two: Sharing and building off lessons learned from the Youth
Convergence at the first United States Social Forum, we will begin planning
for youth-led radio during the next USSF: June 2010 in Detroit.