[Peace] Use Media to Transform your Community: Grassroots Radio Conference July 26-29, 2012 in Urbana, Illinois

[Austin McCann]

*Grassroots Radio Conference Coming to Urbana:
Hundreds from across the country will converge July 26-29 to chart the
future of community radio.*

*Contact: Austin McCann
2012grc at gmail.com
217-344-8820 *

Urbana, IL—From July 26-29, the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center
will be hosting the Grassroots Radio Conference, an annual conference
celebrating the vibrant and democratic medium of local, community-driven
radio. Highlights include a Friday night keynote by New York Times
best-selling author Joe Torres, a bus tour of UC2B, Urbana-Champaign’s new
public broadband system, and a celebration of WRFU’s new radio tower, which
will enable the station to reach the entire Champaign-Urbana community.
Registration is $125 ($75 low-income) and can be done at
www.grassrootsradioconference.org.

“We're calling it 'The Future of Community Radio' because we're at a
crucial juncture for radio,” says GRC co-organizer Austin McCann. “Congress
passed the Local Community Radio Act in 2010, which means that more than
1,000 new community stations might be going on air in the next few years.
Meanwhile, digital technologies have opened up a new frontier for radio
stations. What do we want this new media landscape to look like? How can we
best use this incredible opportunity to grow our democracy? We want to use
this conference as a fun & challenging space to have these conversations
while we learn indispensable tools about how to start and run our own
stations.”

With the rise of digital technology, community radio stations have an
opportunity to engage global audiences, deploy mobile studios, share
community wireless internet, and become multimedia community centers.
Participants in the GRC will chart a vision for community radio as a
dynamic community-building tool for decades to come.

The keynote address will be delivered by Joseph Torres, co-author of the
New York Times bestseller News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race &
the American Media. Friday, July 27, at 8:00pm. This event is open to the
public, and free for GRC registrants. Single tickets are $25 ($10
low-income and are available at
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/256811 or at the IMC on the day of
the event.

The conference will also feature ‘SPEAK Café featuring Hakim Bellamy’:
acclaimed poet-activist Hakim Bellamy & the poets of Speak Café will
perform at Grassroots Radio Conference 2012 in Urbana on Saturday, July 28
at 8:00pm. This event is open to the public, and free for GRC registrants.
Single tickets are $15 ($7.50 low-income) and are available at
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/257782 or at the IMC on the day of
the event.

Founded in 2001, the UC-IMC is a grassroots organization that fosters the
creation & distribution of media emphasizing underrepresented voices and
promoting empowerment & expression through media & arts education. Located
in the historic downtown Urbana post
office, the UC-IMC includes a low-power radio station (Radio Free Urbana
104.5 LP-FM) among its many projects.

The Grassroots Radio Coalition held its first conference in 1996. Each
year, the conference provides skill-building workshops, conversation
spaces, and panel presentations on a variety of relevant topics.
Volunteer-based community radio stations are cultural institutions in their
communities, reflecting the unique concerns and passions of the people who
live there. With a system of governance based on openness and
collaboration, and diverse programming produced by volunteers and funded by
listeners, these stations are cornerstones of participatory democracy,
offering ordinary citizens the chance to exercise First Amendment rights in
a mass medium and audiences the opportunity to directly support the
programming that is of importance to them.

This year's conference partners include Free Press, Prometheus Radio
Project, Media Action Grassroots Network, the New America Foundation's Open
Technology Initiative, WRFU 104.5 - Radio Free Urbana, WEFT 90.1 FM,
Illinois Public Media, Urbana Public Television, Volo Broadband, Makerspace
Urbana, and Chambana.net. Grassroots Radio Conference 2012 will take place
in Urbana, IL, with workshops & events from July 26-29. To register for the
conference, go to www.grassrootsradioconference.org.

#####

*The Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center is a grassroots organization
committed to using media production and distribution as tools for promoting
social and economic justice in the Champaign County area. We foster the
creation and distribution of media, art, and narratives emphasizing
underrepresented voices and perspectives and promote empowerment and
expression through media and arts education.*


-- 
Austin McCann
2012 Grassroots Radio Conference <http://grassrootsradioconference.org/>
Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center
2012grc[at]gmail
217-344-8820
*
Sign up for updates!<http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/grc-announce>
Register to attend! <http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/244905>
Volunteer!<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFFYVGZPdXhNQXcybERwb2owXzZhUkE6MQ#gid=0>
*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace/attachments/20120711/1258eb35/attachment.html>