Every Thursday, I host a drop-in discussion session for community media makers and advocates to get together to talk about and share their experience of creating, producing and sharing different forms of community-focussed communication.
Community Media Discussion – sign-up via Patreon:
It’s a chance for people who are interested in developing and supporting people who are interested in using DIY and community media, so they can better engage with their communities and neighbourhoods as we face the challenge of things like climate crisis, social fragmentation, economic change, inequality, social identity challenges and civic representation, and many more challenges that we need to be responding to and planning for in the future – such as AI, blockchain, decentralised media, and so on.
To start the ball rolling, provisional dates for the initial community media club sessions are:
- Weekly Zoom Session: Thursday 6pm – 7.30pm
- Podcast Recording: Online every Two weeks 6pm – 7.30pm – starting Tuesday 11th October 2022.
Invitations for both online and in-person sessions will be sent only to Decentered Media Patreon subscribers, with the subscription fees (starting at £1 per month) used to cover refreshments, room hire, guest speaker travel costs, and hosting fees.
Patreon subscribers will also get access to the Decentered Media Forum, with access to private channels that aren’t available to general users of the forum, so we can share links, updates and information about what’s happening across the spectrum of community media, both here in the UK and internationally.
Subscribers will also get first look access to the shared videos of our events and discussions via private content on YouTube.
It would be great if we can share good examples of community media that demonstrate how creative, inventive, inclusive and diverse our practices and approaches are. Being committed to open discussion in a safe space for responsible and accountable conversations is much needed, especially after the recent lockdowns, and is something we have to nurture if we are to counter the polarisation and antagonism of social media platforms.
The idea, then, is to start with these first set of activities and see how we get along. We can change and adapt what we do based on our conversations and discussions.