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5 Great Communication and Media Websites

The web is increasingly rich with information and ideas to help progressive organizations fashion compelling media and communication strategies. These five sites have something for everyone, from the 20-year media professional to the first-time spokesperson:
 

. . . and a Few Great Summer Reads

Before summer fades, check out one of these off-the- beaten-path picks:
   
 
 
 
Politics, Race and Place
Heather Ann Thompson's Whose Detroit? Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City. (Cornell University Press, 2001)

On July 15, 1970, a 35 year-old African American autoworker named James Johnson, Jr. walked into the plant where he worked and shot and killed two foremen and another autoworker. Overnight, Johnson became a hero to radicals in Detroit who viewed Johnson’s act as armed resistance to the systemic violence and oppression facing Blacks in the Motor City.
 


Tracing Johnson’s life - a child witnessing his cousin’s lynching, a young man in the Great Migration, a worker facing humiliation and injustice - Heather Ann Thompson carefully unfolds the larger story of structural inequity in her recent book Whose Detroit? Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City.

With engaging and accessible writing, Thompson takes on three ambitious tasks. First, she’s out to prove that the urban turmoil of places like Detroit reflects “determination - not decline or decay.” Second, she seeks to demonstrate the breadth of political identities within black and white racial categories, challenging readers to consider what this political diversity means for building movement alliances and strategies. Finally, she rejects the idea that internal limits or external capitalist forces prevented unions from taking strategic action against the structures of racism, arguing instead that “union leaders themselves eliminated still-viable prospects for shaping workers’ destinies.” A fascinating glimpse of formations such as the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and the Black Polish Conference, Whose Detroit? takes you where 8 Mile can’t hope to go.


  
 
 
Peter Schrag’s Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Future (The New Press, 1998) and Lydia Chavez’s The Color Bind: California’s Battle to End Affirmative Action (University of California Press, 1998)

As California reels from its uber-budget deficit, a conservative-backed recall of an unpopular governor, and yet another racialized ballot initiative from Ward Connerly, many Californians and non-Californians alike may wonder how we got into this mess.

Journalist Peter Schrag traces California’s fall from the seemingly limitless utopia of the 50s and 60s to the mean-spirited and regressive political culture of the present, always keeping race in the foreground.

Chavez, a Berkeley journalism professor, provides an insider’s account of both sides of the 1996 ballot initiative which ultimately ended public affirmative action programs in California. With a renewed national debate on affirmative action and the approaching Connerly initiative (which seeks to ban the collection of race and ethnicity data by the state), Chavez’s book reminds us how racialized issues can divide the electorate in surprising ways, confounding conservatives as well as liberals.		  
     

 

 

 

 

 

 

This website was designed by hamsterhouse 

 

 
 

 
 


The Frameworks Institute
http://www.frameworksinstitute.org

Bridging the gap between academic research on communications theory and non-profit and community-based media advocacy, the Frameworks Institute uses a “strategic frame analysis” to develop cutting edge media campaigns. This site has an extensive discussion of the ideas behind“strategic frame analysis” and many persuasive examples of its use in local and national media campaigns. Don’t miss the detailed critique and analysis of a Bill Clinton-penned OP-ED; it exemplifies the importance of effective message development.


  
 
 

SPIN Project
http://www.spinproject.org

Many community and labor organizing groups know of the San Francisco-based SPIN Project, which helps progressive groups with media skills including message development, issue framing, and overall media strategy. Their annual SPIN Academy just north of San Francisco is a must for any newly minted organizer, spokesperson, or media representative. The site has hands-on tutorials that cover the nuts and bolts of basic media skills—a subject explored in greater depth in their SPIN Works! handbook, which can be ordered from the site.

 

  
 
 

Benton Foundation’s Strategic Communications In the Digital Age Toolkit
http://www.benton.org/publibrary/toolkits/stratcommtool.html

A well-organized site with loads of step-by-step information to guide non-profits through the sometimes intimidating world of strategic communications, with a special emphasis on digital communications. Topics as diverse as “sending effective email” to “conducting focus groups” are covered, with many specific examples from the non-profit sector.

 

  
 
 

The Praxis Project: Tools for Advocates
http://www.thepraxisproject.org/tools.html

More than a dozen short, accessible media and policy advocacy tools. The sections on ‘Defensive Framing’ and ‘Getting Ready for Media Advocacy’ will be especially helpful for progressive organizing groups and activists. The rest of the Praxis Project site has a wealth of resources on health policy advocacy.

 

  
 
 

FAIR’s Media Activist Kit
http://www.fair.org/activism/activismkit.html

From the well-known Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), a national media watchdog organization, comes a concise menu of basic media tools and resources for media activists. Tools include the more basic “How to Meet with News Management” to the more advanced “How to get a video on Cable Access.” Also includes a national media contact list, a great reading list of media-related books, and an exhaustive index of media-related websites.