Press Releases

Thursday, June 19, 2008

SSRC Announces Grants Totaling $210,000 for Seven Media and Communications Projects

Next Round of Small Grant Proposals Due Sept 8

The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is pleased to announce seven recipients of $30,000 "collaborative grants" in media and communications, on subjects ranging from "hate speech" in the U.S. media to global best practices for community wireless networks. The seven projects bring together academic researchers with practitioners, advocates, and activists on issues central to creating a richer and more democratic public sphere. The grantees were chosen from a pool of 46 applicants.

The seven projects are:

  • "Assessing for Change: A Study on Latino Media Advocacy Efforts"
    Principal Investigator: Frances Negrón-Muntaner (Columbia University)
    Organization: National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP)
  • "Building a Democratic Regulatory Framework for Community Radios in Thailand"
    Principal Investigator: Pirongrong Kwan Ramasoota (Chulalongkorn University)
    Organizations: Thai Media Advocacy Center (Thai-MPAC); Campaign for Popular Media Reform (CPMR); Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA); and the Center for Global Communication Studies (CGCS) at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
  • "Creating a Women’s Media Equity Collaborative: New Funding Models for Feminist Media"
    Principal Investigators: Lisa McLaughlin (Miami University) and Susan Feiner (University of Southern Maine).
    Organizations: Chica Luna Productions and Making Contact/National Radio Project
  • "Digital Inclusion: Working Both Sides of the Equation"
    Principal Investigator: Dorothy Kidd (University of San Francisco)
    Organization: Media Alliance
  • "From the Digital Divide to Digital Excellence: Global Best Practices for Community Wireless Networks"
    Principal Investigators: Sascha Meinrath (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and Laura Forlano (Columbia University; Visiting Fellow, Information Society Project at Yale Law School)
    Organization: New America Foundation
  • "Hate Speech in the Media"
    Principal Investigators: Chon A. Noriega and Francisco Javier Iribarren (University of California-Los Angeles)
    Organization: National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC)
  • "Mobile Voices: Participatory Action Research for Mobile Community Among Immigrants in Los Angeles"
    Principal Investigators: François Bar and Sasha Costanza-Chock (University of Southern California), and Raul Añorve (IDEPSCA)
    Organization: Mobile Voices, a collaboration between Instituto de Educacion Popular del Sur de California (IDEPSCA) and the Annenberg Research Network on International Communication (ARNIC) at the Annenberg School for Communication, USC

The Collaborative Grants project is part of the SSRC Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere (NKDPS) program, which is supported by funding from the Ford Foundation. Now in its third year, the program works to foster a culture of collaboration between academic and advocacy communities, both in the United States and abroad, on issues of media policy, media reform and media justice.

The Collaborative Grants project awards Small Grants of $7,500, Large Grants of $30,000, Emergency Grants (up to $30,000), and Research Bounties (up to $10,000) via an open, competitive selection process. Grant selection is conducted by an external review committee, with representation from academic and advocacy communities.

The next competition for small grants takes place this fall, with proposals due by September 8. For more information on the Small Grants Project, go to: http://mediaresearchhub.ssrc.org/grants/small-grants-project.

The project also features four Bounties – research questions – that have recently received prize money of $5,000 each. Interested researchers are invited to "claim" a bounty by responding with a research proposal to address the problem. For details, see: http://mediaresearchhub.ssrc.org/grants/research-bounties.