The Center for Social Media showcases and analyzes strategies to use media as creative tools for public knowledge and action. It focuses on social documentaries for civil society and democracy, and on the public media environment that supports them. The Center is part of the School of Communication at American University. Visit our site!
Latest News:
Enter Your Film in Our Fair Use Contest! $500 Prize!
UFVA is hosting a contest for the best short documentaries employing fair use. Fair use is the right, in some circumstances, to quote copyrighted material without asking permission or paying for it. It is a crucial feature of copyright law and what keeps copyright from being censorship.
Entrants must employ fair use in quoting material in their short (5 min. or less) documentaries, using the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use as a guide to their decision-making.
Download Submission Form here.
Download a Flyer here.
Beyond Broadcast Registration Now Open!
The Beyond Broadcast conference is an annual destination for makers, scholars and policy experts exploring public media for a digital, participatory era. The theme of this year is Mapping Public Media: How do mapping and visualization tools reveal shifts in the public media landscape? How are they offering new interfaces for public communication? Join us for panels, demos, and conversations. June 17th, 2008 - Washington, DC
Reliving MYMM08: rapporteur’s report, pics and more!
The rapporteur’s report for this year’s Making Your Media Matter conference is now online. Click here to read the report, written by Kate Schuler, a graduate student in AU’s School of Communication.
If you haven’t had a chance to visit the Center’s Flickr site, go now ! And if you’re looking to continue a conversation you started at MYMM, you can do just that on our Wiki . You’ll need to register if you haven’t already (it’s the same one we used for the birds of a feather lunch), then click “discussions†to reply to a message or post your own. We’ll see you there!
New Video Examining The Limits of Fair Use
There is a ton of new creativity in the user generated space, and much of it builds on unauthorized uses of copyrighted material. In this new era of participatory media, where should we draw the line between infringement and fair use? Take a look at our new video, highlighting some of the ways that existing content is being repurposed. This video is designed to provoke discussion, so please share your thoughts with us on our blog .
Making Your Documentary Matter - Podcasts & Video Now Available!
Thanks to everyone who made the Center's third annual Making Your Documentary Matter conference such a great success! The speakers were awesome, but not more so than the amazing list of attendees. We're thrilled that people are blogging about it, and we're alerting people at our own Future of Public Media blog , and audio downloads of the panels are now available. Also, we welcome your comments and thoughts about the conference in our discussion forum . Please let us know what you think about new trends in media that matters!
Digital Public Archive Exemplifies the Future of Public Media
The latest piece of the Center for Social Media's article series, 'News from the Future of Public Media,' this article examines the Densho Archive, a vast, free online multimedia collection of materials related to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Where other online digital media projects fail or are forced to charge prohibitive fees to end-users, the Densho Archive has created a successful, truly public, digital resource.
Click to read the full article.
VIDEO: Fair Use and Free Speech
Fair Use and Free Speech explains the Documentary Filmmakers' Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use . It shows when and how it is legal to use copyrighted material within a documentary film. It’s a powerful tool for media criticism and freedom of expression. Please click here to watch the video!For more information visit centerforsocialmedia.org