Offering Voice to the Voiceless...

Community Media is community owned and controlled, giving access to voices in the community and encouraging diversity, creativity and participation. Community media provides a vital counterbalance to the increasing globalisation and commercialisation of the media. Community Media is providing media and information communication technology access, training and employment and is an exciting source of social innovation and practical 'joined up' outcomes. Combining social enterprise, creative content production and skills for the digital economy, Community Media has a vital role in reaching out to people and communities at risk of exclusion and disadvantage.Community-based radio, television and Internet projects work by enabling people to become media producers, to send as well as to receive, and, by working together, to reinforce knowledge, dialogue and cultural expression at neighbourhood and community level.

The freedom of expression underpins all other human rights. It is the means by which other human rights are defended and extended. In the Information Age the freedom of expression takes on additional importance, as the ability to send and receive information, regardless of frontiers, comes increasingly to dominate our economic, social and cultural life. A new grassroots agenda is emerging to articulate the right to communicate an agenda in which access to new media and communication technologies is seen as an essential part of public life and a democratic culture.

Simply put, community media are media created to allow individuals to tell their stories and have the conversations necessary for their own self-directed development as citizens. http://txcms.wikidot.com/example-item-1

Some examples of a community media would be:

• Daily Local Newspaper such as Boston Now
• Radio such as Allston-Brighton Free Radio Non-commercial community radio station at 1670 AM.
• TV such as Cambridge Community Television.