Strategies for Media Reform International Perspectives

Media reform plays an increasingly important role in the struggle for social justice. As battles are fought over the future of investigative journalism, media ownership, spectrum management, speech rights, broadband access, network neutrality, the surveillance apparatus, and digital literacy, what effective strategies can be used in the pursuit of effective media reform?

Prepared by thirty-three scholars and activists from more than twenty-five countries, Strategies for Media Reform focuses on theorizing media democratization and evaluating specific projects for media reform. This edited collection of articles offers readers the opportunity to reflect on the prospects for and challenges facing campaigns for media reform and gathers significant examples of theory, advocacy, and activism from multinational perspectives.

Des Freedman is Professor of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the author of The Contradictions of Media Power (Bloomsbury 2014) and The Politics of Media Policy (Polity 2008) and co-author (with James Curran and Natalie Fenton) of Misunderstanding the Internet (Routledge 2012). He is also the chair of the Media Reform Coalition.

Jonathan Obar is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada. Dr. Obar has published in a variety of academic journals about the impact digital technologies have on civil liberties, civic engagement and the inclusiveness of public culture. He has worked with a number of organizations that fight for media reform including: Free Press, New America Foundation, Openmedia.ca, Open Society Foundations, Prometheus Radio Project and the Wikimedia Foundation.

Cheryl Martens is Senior Lecturer in the Media School at Bournemouth University, UK. Her research and publications concentrate on the sociology and political economy of communication and media policy. She is the co-editor of The International Political Economy of Communication (Palgrave 2014) and is currently working on a documentary on media reform in South America.

Robert W. McChesney is Professor of Communication at the University of Illinois Center for Global Studies. He is the author of many books includign the recently released Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy (New Press, 2013).

Part One: Introduction

Preface
Robert W. McChesney

1. Media Reform: An Overview
Des Freedman and Jonathan A. Obar
2. Media Policy Literacy: A Foundation for Media Reform
Becky Lentz

Part Two: Internet Activism For Media Reform
3. Activating the Fifth Estate: Bill C-30 and the Digitally-Mediated Public Watchdog
Jonathan A. Obar and Leslie Regan Shade
4. WikiLeaks and 'Indirect' Media Reform
Christian Christensen
5. Mobilizing for Net Rights: The Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet
M. I. Franklin

INTERNET ACTIVISM: Commentary From Media Reform Organizations
6. ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION: The Largest Internet Protest in History Isn't the Important Part: Lessons from the SOPA Fight
Rainey Reitman
7. FREE PRESS: Internet Freedom from the Outside-in: Upending Big-Money Politics to Win Better Media Policy Craig Aaron and Timothy Karr
8. NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: A Victory for Digital Justice (Your Tax Dollars at Work)
Joshua Breitbart
9. OPENMEDIA.CA: Working Toward an Open Connected Future
David Christopher

Part Three: The Power of the Media Reform Movement
10. A Perfect Storm for Media Reform: Activist Strategies and Socio-political Circumstances behind Telecommunication Reforms in Mexico
Alejandro Abraham-Hamanoiel
11. Between Philosophy and Action: The Story of the Media Reform Coalition
Benedetta Brevini and Justin Schlosberg
12. Media Reform Movements in Taiwan
Hsin-yi Sandy Tsai and Shih-Hung Lo
13. Organizing for Media Reform in Canada: The Cases of Media Democracy Day, OpenMedia.ca, and Reimagine CBC
Kathleen Cross and David Skinner

THE POWER OF THE MEDIA REFORM MOVEMENT: Commentary from Media Reform Organizations
14. PROMETHEUS RADIO PROJECT: Winning A Big Fight For Little Radio
Stations: The Battle Over Low Power FM in the US
Hannah Sassaman and Pete Tridish
15. PROMETHEUS RADIO PROJECT: 90 per cent Community, 10 per cent Radio: Media Reform, Radio Justice, and the Proliferation of Low Power FM
Sanjay Jolly
16. MEDIA FOUNDATION FOR WEST AFRICA: A Case Study of Media Reform Initiatives in West Africa
Kwame Karikari
Part Four: Media Reform as Democratic Reform
17. Waves of Struggle: The History and Future of American Media Reform
Victor Pickard
18. Policy Hacking: Citizen-Based Policymaking and Media Reform
Arne Hintz
19. Reforming or Conforming? The Contribution of Communication Studies to Media Policy in Switzerland Manuel Puppis and Matthias Kunzler
20. ". . . please grant success to the journey on which I have come': successful and unsuccessful media reform strategies in Israel
Noam Tirosh and Amit Schejter
21. Legislating for a More Participatory Media System: Reform Strategies in South America
Cheryl Martens Oliver Reina and Ernesto Vivares
22. Public Service Broadcasting in Egypt: Strategies for Media Reform
Rasha Abdulla
23. Impunity, Inclusion and Implementation: Media Reform Challenges in Thailand, Burnma/Myanmar and the Philippines
Lisa Brooten

MEDIA REFORM AS DEMOCRATIC REFORM: Commentary from Media Reform
Organizations
24. DOHA CENTRE FOR MEDIA FREEDOM: Media reform through capacity building: Media and Information Literacy and Journalist Training
Peter Townson
25. CULTURAL SURVIVAL (GUATEMALA): Organization and Mission
Mark Camp
26. OPEN SOCIETY FOUNDATIONS: Media Reform in Mexico: Civil Society Making Law
Marius Dragomir