From the community

What are we?
www.indiconews.com is a site for anyone with online access to report, assign, collaborate and share news and issues that matter to them.

We've worked hard at crafting a system that not only puts users at the heart of reporting; it also puts them at the heart of the news agenda - from the local to the global.

The New England Ethnic Newswire is a one-stop platform for stories from the 100 ethnic media in the region, together with blogs, photos, audio postcards, resources, and a special health report offering a stream of original medical stories to and from underserved neighborhoods.

Welcoming Incorporated is a grassroots collaborative that utilizes direct community dialogue as well as communications technology to promote understanding and respect between "arriving" immigrants and "receiving" communities in towns and cities across the United States. In Welcoming communities, underlying tension and misunderstanding between groups is gradually replaced by acceptance and cooperation.The ultimate goal of the collaborative is the development of a full-fledged welcoming movement, in which immigrants across the world feel welcomed in the places where they choose to live. There are currently twelve states in which significant Welcoming campaigns are currently underway.

A re-creation of Oakland’s once vibrant 7th Street blues and jazz club scene as an online video game and virtual world. The multi-player game allows people to experience the club scene as it was in its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s, before it fell victim to redevelopment schemes and urban decay. The project was a Knight News Challenge recipient in 2007.

The Open Media Project is a two-year effort to develop a comprehensive set of open-source tools designed for Public Access TV stations, Community Technology Centers, and other noncommercial community media organizations with an interest in helping under-represented communities use the media to increase the presence of low-income perspectives in the media landscape, and to encourage greater communi

The Playing the News project is testing the idea that presenting the facets of complex news issues through the use of game environments or interactions would engage and inform the news audience.

We are developing two different game approaches.

Printcasting will make it possible for anyone to create a local printable newspaper, magazine or newsletter that's supported with local ads. No money, tools or design will be required -- only passion!

The Printcasting system turns traditional "terrestrial" publishing roles upside down and inside out so that anyone in the community can participate in one or more of them. We're partnering with the community to help us grow niche audience and revenue organically.

The Project will provide an international project-based participatory learning experience that:

Project-based educational programs will be delivered to teams that combine Chinese and US students through online, interactive environments making maximum use of social media, social production, collaboration, and communication (text, audio, video) tools. New School Student Ambassadors has fully developed and piloted joint US-Chinese participatory learning, project-based programs using open source course management, electronic portfolios, and activity management systems. Through a network of collaborating professionals and organizations, we support teacher/coaching professional development in both China and the US.

Can a citizens' publication work in a community of 5000?

Rye Reflections started in June, 2005, in the New Hampshire seacoast community of Rye. It publishes monthly, and members meet once a week for two hours at the Rye Public Library.

A thesis for Comparative Media Studies at MIT.

An inventory and analysis of the media lining our urban surfaces that describes how residents, visitors, governments, and businesses great and small use the streetscape to communicate.

by Rekha Murthy