Local Community Media and New Media Technologies
BY ZIPPORAH ORBISI, CAPM
DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS
Since the turn of the millennium, technology has steadily been ushering in a new world order. One where distance is of no consequence and seconds are being commodified as soon as we wake up.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has found its way into our everyday lives, shaping our perspectives through monitoring what we view, look up, and read online. It creeps into our homes disguised as a form of mass media that feels very personal and even community-spirited.
The world wide web articles and information shaping our lives through AI could be written and informed by people thousands of miles away, with no real connection to the media being portrayed, or its effects on your household. And sometimes the human connection is several times removed, because it is AI data mining software created by people that is actually feeding data to another other AI software that is doing the writing on a particular subject that comes to the top of your social media feed or search results.
Although the effects of this mass media are physically harmless, its long-term effects could prove quite crippling. (Here’s one example). When a person is being fed an angle of “knowledge” without having all the information or being given all sides of the arguments or truths, it can sway, lead, and separate the masses. The power of such media in the hands (or in the case of AI, algorithms) of distant and often faceless hosts is quite a scary reality.
Conversely, community media—media that is owned and controlled by the community in response to local needs (Langlois & Dubois, 2005, p.7)—helps to create true awareness, togetherness, and communal citizenship on a micro level.
When you listen to your local radio, the voices that call out your 5 o’clock rush hour traffic information feel like those of your distant family. There is a certain level of comfort and trust that comes from the voices of the newscasters that you hear on a daily basis, or the authors that you read daily in your local Sentinel.
Community media is a platform that comes with a responsibility to families, local businesses, and friends. Many of our community media hosts can even be seen in-person weekly visiting the local Farmers Market or shopping for home supplies at a neighborhood home improvement store, without your local paparazzi (which in today's world, even a 10-year-old with a smartphone qualifies as).
Nostalgically speaking, I remember my daily excitement to see chief meteorologist Tom Terry come on and forecast my week with a smile.
Those days have gone for many children due to new media technologies. We have AI home assistants to tell us the weather before we are even fully out of bed now, and phones that usher our way through traffic.
The convenience of new media technologies pulls at the heartstrings and wallets of humanity. What we once thought of as distant, futuristic AI technologies is today actually deeply ingrained into the lives of people living in the Global North, all using the tactic of convenience.
This tactic is giving way to the new world of mass media, one that doesn't even rely on 24-hour coverage from cable media giants like BBC, CNN, or MSNBC.
Community media is suffering at the hands of this new technology, and becoming a dying fashion of sorts.
Although community-based media pales in comparison to new media technologies in terms of reach, because community media caters to a smaller audience, the platform that it offers many marginalized and developing communities has a major impact. Community-based media gives way to grassroots start-ups, shines a light on local social and political heroes, and helps to facilitate youth empowerment and education for sustainable growth.
In the field of Development sustainability is key. We cannot truly progress if the goals are not able to be met and amplified by the community itself. Particularly in marginalized and underserved communities, the use of community-based media is a crucial way to advocate for change and engage those who are affected the most.
Case Study: Calhoun County South Carolina
The Client
In Calhoun County South Carolina, the county library is a positive agent of change for the community. The library enhances the quality of life of residents by engaging, educating, equipping, and empowering its diverse community. The library further seeks to meet the needs of the community with services that fall outside its traditional scope in support of community development.
The Challenge
A needs assessment revealed that both residents and local business owners agreed there was a need for more people to be aware and connected to local happenings
The small rural county is diverse but could often be divided along the lines of age and ethnicity
The Calhoun Connects idea needed to move beyond a great idea to experienced reality
Brand Development -
Reflect the desired simplicity of the initiative with a logo that is to the point, and create a messaging framework
Strategic Plan -
Created a plan of action and process for creating initial awareness of the initiative; obtaining the information needed for the business directory and calendar; keeping people connected, giving them a reason to return
Website Development Consultation -
Determined information needs and link architecture based on needs analysis; created digital content
strategy
A clear and concise Brand messaging framework that ensured consistency in messaging
A simple logo that reflected the simplicity of the community initiative
Keep It In Calhoun County - a buy local campaign that promoted shopping locally
Created social media toolkits to enhance accessibility for residents
An easy to navigate website that could be accessed by all ages groups and disseminates key information and promotes community involvement - second only to the official government website
In The News: Complaints Against Racial Discrimination
There are many people who would like to believe, that in the year 2021, we are living in a post-racial society, but the evidence continues to prove that racial discrimination remains deeply entrenched in different power systems globally.
That doesn’t mean that people are not taking action and fighting back!
Australia
Image by Simon Maisch
The state of Western Australia is re-drafting heritage laws meant to protect sacred Aboriginal sites so that developers may have the right to appeal, while denying appellant rights to Aboriginal Groups.
While the updated draft of the laws emphasize agreement between the indigenous Aboriginal groups and developers, it also maintains that the government retains the final decision in land disputes; and gives developers the opportunity to appeal that decision while withholding that same right from Aboriginal peoples.
A group of five Aboriginal Australians have filed a complaint with the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, stating that this is "a continuation of systemic and racial discrimination.” The Thomson Reuters Foundation reports that “while the UN has no authority over Australian state legislation, the group hopes getting the committee involved could help put pressure on the state government to make changes.”
Already, there has been the destruction of culturally significant, Aboriginal rock shelters by developer Rio Tinto.
The United States
Image from Twitter/@NoahWicks
In the state of Mississippi, six Black farmworkers have filed a lawsuit against Pitts Farms (one of the largest farms in Mississippi) for discriminating against them in favor of White foreign laborers from South Africa. Pitts Farms hired the White South African workers through an allegedly illegal use of the federal government’s H-2A visa program, “which allows U.S. farmers to hire foreign workers only when no U.S. workers are available to do the job.”
“With the unemployment rate in the Delta hovering at around 10 percent, it is unacceptable and unlawful that local farmers are looking to hire foreign labor before people in their own communities,” said Ty Pinkins of the Mississippi Center for Justice, which filed the lawsuit along with Southern Migrant Legal Services.
“Pitts Farms once employed a majority Black workforce drawn from Sunflower County, which is over 70% Black,” however, beginning in 2014, Pitts Farms “began recruiting and hiring only White farmworkers from South Africa, a country that is over 80% Black. In 2020, the lawsuit says, Pitts Farms laid off most of the plaintiffs while it recruited more White H-2A workers than ever, (Mississippi Center for Justice).”
In addition to discriminatory hiring practices, Pitts Farms also violated federal law by paying Black workers less than the White H-2A workers. Black workers received the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour with one dollar an hour more for weekend work, while the White workers from South Africa received $9.87 an hour in 2014, “and that rate increased most years until it reached $11.83 an hour in 2020” (CBS News).
To Conclude
It’s not just unfortunate that situations like the two mentioned here continue to happen, it’s unacceptable! This is what is meant when people say institutionalized or systemic racism, and yes, it is still happening in 2021.
Discriminatory practices are ingrained in much of the fabric that make up different societies, and are embedded in policy making and business operations.
These are not two outlier examples, they are proof of the continued and calculated acts meant to grant certain rights and privileges to one group while intentionally withholding those same rights and privileges from others.
There is power in collective efforts. It’s time for our communities to come together and hold institutions and systems accountable. Community-ownership, especially by impacted and marginalized people, of Development processes is a vital part of that accountability. When people are re-powered and understand that together they can affect positive change, we will begin to see equitable and inclusive social transformations that benefit those who have been traditionally underrepresented.