Send us your interns and research requests!

The media and democracy project I coordinate "Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere" is about to launch its online "Media Research Hub."  To get folks ready, we are asking groups that are looking for graduate student interns to email us their needs for this summer.  And we also want media justice groups to get ready to apply for our small research grants that we call "research bounties."  Here’s the complete message I sent out to various lists today:

‘Necessary Knowledge’
Opportunities for Advocacy Groups Working on Media Policy

We are pleased to announce the first "Necessary
Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere” projects. NKDPS is designed to build
connections between advocates and academics working on public interest media
policy issues. The first round of
projects will provide a number of different opportunities for you to connect
with interns and researchers who can help you in your current campaigns and
projects.

We need to know what you need. This email is a request for
specific information about your potential need for student interns — which we
will then publicize to media and communications schools — and to alert you
about our upcoming Research Bounty program, which will enable advocacy groups
to seek researchers and funding for critical research projects.

1) Do You Need
Interns?

If you are interested in hosting and working with graduate
student interns, please email us at MediaHub@ssrc.org with the following
information:

• Name of organization, location, website, contact person
• Duration of available internship: start & end dates,
  hours/week needed, flexibility of hours, etc.
• Brief description of intern duties/projects: what will they
  be doing? what will they be working on?
• Any requirements as far as experience, skills, educational
  level? (specific computer skills? policy/research/advocacy expertise?)

Please specify if you can provide:

• office space (or is this for a virtual/telecommute intern?)
• a computer (or do they need their own?)
• any sort of stipend (i.e. wages/compensation,
  transportation, meals, work-study arrangement, or any other benefits or perks)
• arrangements to receive school/class credit

Please respond to these questions as completely and briefly
as you can. We will publicize all
submitted intern opportunities to a wide network of media/communications
departments, professors, schools and academic associations. In future rounds, this capacity will also be
integrated into the online Media Research Hub launching in early Spring.

(Of course the more interesting/exciting the work is and the
availability of any stipends will increase the likelihood of getting interns!)

Send your Call for Interns to MediaHub@ssrc.org by April
10 to be including in our outreach for
summer interns. 

2) Do You Need
Research?

The Research Bounties program will enable advocacy groups to
post online research requests related to current campaigns and
organizing/activist initiatives. These requests will be vetted by a peer-review
panel of activists and academics who will assign "bounties" or prizes
of up to $8000 for the completion of selected projects. Projects and bounties will be published as
open calls to the research community, producing both new knowledge and new
researcher/advocacy collaborations.

In 2006, the Bounties will focus primarily, but not
exclusively, on research related to the rewrite of the Telecommunications
Act. We are interested in (1) projects
with clear strategic applications to contemporary media and communications
policy debates; (2) participatory research that builds capacity within advocacy
groups and communities; and (3) projects that examine at under-researched issues,
such as the racial and economic disparities associated with media policy
andinfrastructure.

We will notify you in the coming months when the online
application process is open. We will
also provide more detail on the process and criteria. In the meantime, we are
hoping to prime the pump by encouraging you to think about research projects
relevant to your campaigns and projects—specifically those that would benefit
from collaboration with academics and scholars. A clear sense of the time
frame, data/analysis needed, potential costs and organizational contribution to
the research (data, staff/volunteers, resources, etc.) will be important. With this information in hand it should be
relatively easy for you to post a project for the bounty competition, as well
as make your work visible to other possible academic collaborators.

If you have any questions about the Research Bounties, or
any part of this program, please feel free to contact us (see below). We look
forward to supporting your work for media policies that serve the public
interest, community needs and social justice.

3) More About ‘Necessary Knowledge’

 The full range of “Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic
Public Sphere” projects will include:

•  An ‘Internship Network’: to match graduate students with
  advocacy organizations.
• The ‘Research Bounty’ project: which will place cash prizes
  on advocate-defined research needs.
• A ‘Resource Database’: an online, community-editable
  database that will map the media and communications field: people,
  institutions, networks, research materials, and topics.
• The ‘Data Consortium’: which will work to improve access for
  non-profit and educational actors to commercially-produced datasets used in
  media policy.

 All of these projects and resources will be hosted on the
soon-to-be-launched ‘Media Research Hub’ —http://www.mediaresearchhub.org — our
online clearinghouse and community site for media, communications, and
information policy.

We’ll keep you apprised of news and developments, and hope
for your participation and feedback as the process gets underway. Please forward this email to anyone else in
your network who might be interested.

 In the meantime, all best wishes,

The NKDPS team

Joe Karaganis (Social Science Research Council)

Aliza Dichter (CIMA)

Catherine Borgman-Arboleda (CIMA)

Philip Napoli (Fordham University)

"Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public
Sphere," is a project of the not-for-profit Social Science Research
Council in partnership with CIMA: Center for International Media Action and the  Donald McGannon
Communication Research Center at Fordham University.
It has been developed in collaboration with local, national and international
advocates and academics and is supported by the Knowledge, Culture and
Creativity program of the Ford Foundation.