National Day of Out(R)age BOSTON Press Conference

Click here to listen to the podcast from today's press conference on the Grand Staircase at the Massachusetts State House, Boston, MA (Recorded by Greg Mailloux).

National Day of Out(R)age - BOSTON!
(photo by Andy Carvin)

On May 24, a statewide coalition in Massachusetts joined thousands across the country for a National Day of Out(r)age to protest the telephone companies’ lobbying efforts in Congress to rewrite the nation’s telecommunications laws, in the wake of recent press reports that reveal that these same companies provided information on tens of millions of American citizens to the U.S. government!

Two bills (House Bill 5252 and Senate Bill 2686) are being considered in Congress RIGHT NOW that would:

* Reduce local control of video franchising and our public rights of way!

* Open the doors for the telecommunications giants to discriminate against low-income communities!

* Undermine the ability for PEG access centers to receive adequate funding, channels, and facilities—negatively impacting thousands of access centers across the U.S.!

* Create a two-tiered Internet: (1) A fast lane for those who can afford to ride on it, and (2) a dirt road for everybody else. This action would threaten the openness of the web, bringing the Internet as we know to an end!

Members and Supporters of the Massachusetts Save Access Coalition include:

Joe Dalton (District Director for Congressman Ed Markey's Office), State Representative Gloria Fox, Boston City Councilors Jerry McDermott, Sam Yoon, and Chuck Turner, Mel King, David Isenberg (Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School), Communications Workers of America - District 1, MASSPIRG, Alliance for Community Media, Community Change Inc., Boston Neighborhood Producers Group (BNPG), Project: Think Different, Action Coalition for Media Education, Boston Chapter (ACMEBoston), Public Access Centers in Worcester, Fall River, Beverly, Lowell, Boston, and Cambridge, teachers and students from UMass Boston, Boston College, and Emerson College and local bloggers, podcasters, and videobloggers.

This event is part of a nationwide day of protests coordinated by SaveAccess.org, a national coalition of community media organizations and individuals.

Learn More and Take Action Today!
www.saveaccess.org & www.savetheinternet.com

ACMEBoston
create * educate * mobilize
www.acmeboston.org

ACMEBoston Live on WRBB 104.9 FM in Boston

Hiram Scott of the Boston Neighborhood Producers Group speaks with ACMEBoston President Colin Rhinesmith about bills in Congress threatening access to Community Media and the Internet. The program also discusses ways that people can get involved and take action now to ensure that Congress protects the public interest in communications policy making.

Click here to listen to the ACMEBoston Podcast
May 7, 2006

This interview was aired live on May 7, 2006 on WRBB 104.9 FM at Northeastern University in Boston, MA.

Click here to watch a short video with Hiram Scott (above).

Click here to view more pictures from the interview inside the WRBB studio.


Colin Rhinesmith and Hiram Scott (above) at WRBB 104.9 FM in Boston.

For more information about the issues discussed in the program, and to learn how you can get involved, visit SaveAccess.org and SaveTheInternet.com.

Network Neutrality, Community Access Discrimination, and Bills in Congress

Jason Crow, Access Coordinator at CCTV and Editor of Media Policy Blog, and I visit the Berkman Center for Internet & Society for a discussion with the Berkman Blog Group.

Jason and I talked about threats to the Internet by bills in Congress, the future of access to media, and what groups and individuals in the Boston area are doing to raise awareness about these issues.

Click here to listen to the ACMEBoston Podcast
May 4, 2006

The event was hosted by Thursday Meetings at Berkman Blog.

Visit SaveAccess.org to learn more and Take Action Today!

Links to posts about this Thursday evening discussion at the Berkman Center:

Thursday Meetings at Berkman Blog
Off On A Tangent
Community Media Review Online

The Future of Public Access TV & The Internet

Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America speaks with local independent radio host John Grebe about current bills in Congress affecting the future of Public Access Television and the Internet.

We also hear from Jason Crow, Access Coordinator of Cambridge Community Television and Michael Eisenmenger of Manhattan Neighborhood Network about how pending legislation in Congress takes away local control of media and places more power in the hands of Big Cable and Telephone companies.

Click here to listen to the ACMEBoston Podcast
February 11, 2006.

Also discussed is the issue of Network Neutrality which Free Press, the national media reform organization, describes as "the guiding principle of the Internet that fosters open competition and innovation, while preserving the independence and accessibility of the World Wide Web" - Free Press, Net Freedom Now.

To take a closer look at these issues, we'll hear John Grebe's interview from his program, "Sounds of Dissent" broadcast live on February 11, 2006. "Sounds of Dissent" on WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton, MA, covers current news and voices not often heard in the mainstream media.

This ACMEBoston Podcast, February 11, 2006, is brought to you by the Action Coalition for Media Education, Boston Chapter. Produced by Colin Rhinesmith.

Attribution: The music used in this episode of the ACMEBoston Podcast was sampled and remixed from a track by cdk titled "Little Guitar" (cdk nobel prize instrumental)".

Vincent Mosco on Media Research and Activism

Vincent Mosco is the Canada Chair in Communication and Society at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. ACMEBoston President Colin Rhinesmith caught up with Professor Mosco at The Global Flow of Information Conference at Yale University on April 2, 2005 to speak with him about the field of critical communication and cultural studies and its contribution to media and political activism.

Click here to listen to The ACMEBoston Podcast
January 2, 2006.

Vincent Mosco

Vincent Mosco graduated from Georgetown University (Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa) in 1970 and received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University in 1975. He is a research affiliate with the Harvard University Program on Information Resources Policy.

Professor Mosco is the author of five books and editor or coeditor of eight books on the media, telecommunications, computers and information technology. His most recent books are The Digital Sublime: Myth, Power, and Cyberspace (MIT Press, 2004), Continental Order? Integrating North America for Cybercapitalism (edited with Dan Schiller and published by Rowman and Littlefield, 2001) and The Political Economy of Communication: Rethinking and Renewal (Sage, 1996) translated into Chinese (two editions- Beijing and Taiwan), Spanish, and Korean.

Professor Mosco is a member of the editorial boards of academic journals in the U.S., U.K., Turkey, Portugal, and Slovenia and has served as a contributor and a member of the editorial advisory board of the International Encyclopedia of Communication. He has written about electronic commerce for a new edition of the Dictionary of American History.

Professor Mosco has held research positions in the U.S. government with the White House Office of Telecommunication Policy, the National Research Council and the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment and in Canada with the Federal Department of Communication.

Professor Mosco is currently working on a project funded by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council that addresses labour and trade unions in the communications industries of Canada and the United States.