Visions for Media Justice

Coalition and Ally Issues in Other Areas of Social Justice Organizing

Resources for Anti-Oppression Education and Organizing

Media Accountability Organizations and Other Resources

  • The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) produces a bibliography of Anti-Arab Discrimination, Stereotyping, and Media Bias
  • The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is dedicated to promoting and ensuring fair, accurate and inclusive representation of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. GLAAD Media Resource Kits including: Media Reference Guide, Communities of African Descent Resource Kit, Covering Hate Crimes available from this website.
  • Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a national media watch group, has a Racism Watch Desk which presents an excellent resource of articles and information dealing with the media's misrepresentation of people of color.
  • UNITY:Journalists of Color, Inc. Representing 7,000 journalists of color, UNITY is a strategic alliance comprised of four national associations: Asian American Journalists Association, National Association of Black Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and the Native American Journalists Association. In addition to planning the largest regular gathering of journalists in the nation (the UNITY 2004 Convention), UNITY develops programs and institutional relationships that promote year-round journalism advocacy and education, with a focus on fairness & accuracy in news coverage and diversity in newsrooms.
  • The National Association of Hispanic Journalists published a report entitled Brownout 2003: The Portrayal of Latinos in Network Television News, by Serafin Mendez-Mendez and Diana Alverio.
    Despite the enormous growth of the nation's Latino community, Latinos continued to be marginalized on the evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC in 2002, according to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists eighth annual Network Brownout Report released. This year's study found that two-thirds of all Latino-related stories that aired on the network news were about crime, terrorism and illegal immigration.
  • A number of industry studies have documented the lack of diversity in news organizations and racism and bias in the media. The Maynard Institute offers several useful resources gathered here.
  • From Assimilation to Annihilation: Puerto Rican Images in U.S. Films by Richie Perez., Centro de Estudios Puertorriquenos Bulletin, Hunter College 1990.
  • Pictures of our Nobler Selves - A History of Native American Contributions to News Media by Mark N. Trahant.
  • African-American Video Resources: a Select Guide, by Patricia B. McGee
  • Midnight Ramble: Oscar Micheaux and the Story of Race Movies.
    1994 documentary recounting the little-known story of a remarkable independent film industry that produced close to 500 movies for African-American audiences between 1910 and 1940. These "race movies" provided black moviegoers with images that didn't demean them, but depicted them as real people.
  • Soldiers Without Swords: The Black Press in America. This documentary chronicles the history of the Black press and contribution of black journalists.
  • Race: The Power of an Illusion; a recent PBS series.
  • Third World Newsreel is one of a number of media arts organizations dedicated to promoting the production and distribution of media work by historically marginalized communities.

Also see these sites to locate films for public screenings:

Media Justice Organizations

MAG-Net Organizations

Other organizations:

  • Third World Majority offers training in digital story-telling to organizations around the country. For a terrific article on TWM’s work and reflections on media justice, by TWM's Thenmozhi Soundararajan see: www.clamormagazine.org/issues/18/feature2.shtml
  • Innercity Struggle (ICS), based in East Los Angeles, is a community organization dedicated to promoting social and economic justice for youth and families of Boyle Heights and the surrounding communities of East Los Angeles. Through it’s youth component, Youth Organizing Communities (YOC), InnerCity Struggle(ICS) has tools and curriculum that can help build the organizational capacity of your group.
  • Media Empowerment Project www.ucc.org/ocinc/mep
  • Representing Education, Activism, and Community through Hip-Hop: www.hiphopliveshere.org
  • Indigenous Media Arts Group: www.imag-nation.com
  • Industry Ears: www.industryears.org
  • Silicon Valley De-Bug publishes stories and pictures on youth and working people's perspective on Silicon Valley life. We are a platform for the unheard voices of Silicon Valley's young and temporary. Training opportunities for journalists of color.
  • Sista II Sista (SIIS) is a Brooklyn-wide community-based collective of working-class young and adult Black and Latina women building together to model a society based on liberation and love.
  • Southern Echo, Inc. is a leadership development, education and training organization, working through an intergenerational model, to develop accountable grassroots leadership and community-based organizations throughout the state of Mississippi and the Southern region.
  • The Rural Coalition/Coalición Rural, based in Washington DC, is an alliance of regionally and culturally diverse organizations working to build a more just and sustainable food system. Its programs include advocating for national policies which support this goal, as well as economic development efforts such as bridging the digital divide, and helping our diverse members market the products of their farmers.
  • Videomachete is a Chicago-based, inter-generational, collective of cultural workers. We are activists, students, media artists- both youth and adult- who are all committed to cultivatng images, ideas, and words that transform our communities, raise consciousness, and generate collective analysis and action.
  • DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving) is a community-based social justice organization of working class and poor South Asian immigrants and immigrant detainees and their families in New York City. Desi is a common term used by people of South Asian descent to identify as people from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Guyana, and Trinidad.