[WSIS CS-Plenary] SSRC Collaborative Grants in Media and Communications: First Round Grants Announced

[mediahub]

[apologies for duplicate posts.]
Collaborative Grants in Media and Communications:
First Round Grants Announced
The Social Science Research Council <http://www.ssrc.org/>  is proud to announce the first round of small grants for academic-advocacy collaboration in the media and communications field. The first round will provide grants of up to $7,500 for research that supports advocacy, organizing, policy and/or campaign uses in the media and communications field in the US. The grants are intended for short-term work, completable and usable by advocacy partners within the next 4-12 months. Six grants have been awarded in this first round. 
Congratulations to Children Now, the Consumers Federation of America, the Latinos and Media Project, Media Alliance, the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council and Radio Bilingüe.
We continue to welcome applications from organizations of all sizes, concerned with the full range of issues relevant to media and communications policy and advocacy. Future submissions will be considered on a rolling basis by the Selection Committee. See the "Call for Proposals <http://www.ssrc.org/programs/media/publications/Collab%20Grants%20CFP.pdf> " for further information. 
Descriptions of First Round Grant Recipients
Project: Updating "Big Media, Little Kids"
Organization: Children Now <http://www.childrennow.org/> 
Principal Researcher: Katharine Heintz-Knowles, Ph.D
Description: Children Now is very concerned about the impact of media ownership on the nation's children. Providing a diverse array of quality programs for children is central to the public interest obligations of broadcasters. In 2003, Children Now successfully advocated for the protection of children's programming using a two-fold strategy of research and advocacy to achieve our goals. Now, as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) prepares to revisit rules related to media ownership, Children Now plans to employ this strategy again to keep the spotlight on the impact of media consolidation on our nation's children. Conducted in 2003 to inform the FCC during the last ownership proceeding, Big Media, Little Kids examined the availability and diversity of children's programming in an increasingly consolidated media marketplace. In order to build on the success of the 2003 study, we plan to conduct a broader follow-up study that analyzes the impact of media consolidation on children's programs in several markets across the country.
Project: Local Market Structure and Local TV News Content
Organization: Consumer Federation of America  <http://www.consumerfed.org/> and the Local Television News Media Project <http://www.localtvnews.org/index.jsp> 
Principal Researcher: Mark Cooper, Ph.D
Description: This proposal seeks to mine a unique database developed by the Local Television News Media Project (LTNMP) at the University of Delaware . The database supports the LTNMP website (www.localtvnews.org) and contains over 10,600 digitized local television news stories from over 600 broadcasts in 20 television markets across the U.S. in 1998. The stories are searchable along content, production and geographic dimensions and viewable in their entirety. The Website is being expanded to include another 7,500 local television news stories from over 500 broadcasts in seventeen television markets in 2002. In this project, we will use the database to examine whether or not the consolidation of local television news ownership improves market performance regarding the quality and quantity of local television news. 
Project: Assessing the Diversity of Latino-Oriented Media in Local Settings
Organization: The Latinos and Media Project <http://www.latinosandmedia.org/> 
Principal Researcher: Federico Subervi, Ph.D.
Description: This project will gather baseline data required for assessments of diversity of media and voices in local communities. While primarily focused on Latino demographics, audiences, and Latino-oriented media in central Texas (Austin and San Antonio), it will also gather similar data related to other populations and media. The project will test the feasibility of the new metrics proposed by the Diversity Metrics Working Group to assess media diversity, in this case in significantly Latino settings. All data and findings will be made available to the groups currently engaged in discussion of democratization of media and communication across the country. 
Project: What's meant by digital inclusion? An interrogation of the digital inclusion framework advocated by municipal government versus community-based media activists in the city of San Francisco
Organization: Media Alliance <http://www.media-alliance.org/> 
Principal Researcher: Seeta Peña Gangadharan
Description: This study seeks to understand contested meanings of the term "digital inclusion" during the public process to develop a municipal wireless system in the city of San Francisco. By comparing official city discourse with that of community-based activists involved with Media Alliance's Internet 4 Everyone campaign, this research offers suggestions on how to redefine "digital inclusion" for municipal wireless broadband initiatives elsewhere in the United States.
Project: Survey on the Relationship between Minority and Female Ownership and Media Consolidation
Organization: Minority Media & Telecommunications Council <http://www.mmtconline.org/> 
Principal Researcher (s): Catherine Sandoval, Allen Hammond IV
Description: The Minority Media & Telecommunications Council (MMTC) seeks to develop a survey instrument that can be used to discern the relationship between minority and female ownership and media consolidation. We seek to survey minority and female owners who have entered or exited the communications industry between 2001 and 2005 to determine the extent to which various factors may have affected the rate of entry and/or exit. MMTC's study will allow policy makers, the FCC, and advocates for a diverse media to better understand and address the structural and non-structural impediments that minority and women media owners face in the current media environment.
Project: Radio Bilingüe's Coverage of the May 1st Immigrant Mobilizations: A Qualitative Study of Immigrant Latino Audiences
Organization: Radio Bilingüe <http://www.radiobilingue.org/> 
Principal Researcher: Graciela León Orozco, EdD
Description: Very little research has been done on Spanish-language public radio and its audiences. This study will document the role of Radio Bilingüe, a Spanish-language public radio network, in the recent pro-immigrant marches and shed light on immigrant radio listeners who called in to its talk show, Línea Abierta, on May 1st. This research will advance knowledge in terms of profiling audiences of Spanish-language public radio, describing participants of the May 1st marches that took place across the nation, identify key concerns of these participants, and explore more in depth the relationship between that community and the media. 
BACKGROUND:
The Collaborative Grants project is part of the Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere <http://www.ssrc.org/programs/media/>  (NKDPS) Program of the Social Science Research Council, working in partnership with CIMA: Center for International Media Action and the McGannon Center
for Communications Research at Fordham University. The program is funded by the Media, Arts and Culture program of the Ford Foundation.
The NKDPS program is launching a series of funding opportunities to help increase the production, use and capacity for research to serve public-interest advocacy and organizing around media and communications. These mini-grants for collaborative advocacy- academic partnerships have been initiated to meet the short-term research needs of advocacy and policy actors.
Several other funding projects will be launched in the next months, including a "Research Bounties" project that place prizes on advocacy-defined research and a larger program to support longer-term advocacy-academic research partnerships and training.
For more information on the program, see http://www.ssrc.org/programs/media.
For all program-related inquiries, please write to mediahub at ssrc.org
Subscribe to MediaResearchHub-News for program updates, research funding opportunities, and conference information:
http://listserve.ssrc.org/mailman/listinfo/mediaresearchhub-news

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