In May 2005, I participated in the Free Culture, Phase 2 conference at American University organized by Kathryn Montgomery, Colin Mutchler and Malkia Lydia. The newly released conference report is now available: Free Culture, Phase 2: Next Generation Strategy for Media Democracy and Participatory Culture. It was an amazing group of young techies, social media producers, policy experts and artists gathered together to talk about what they do, make new connections and generally think about the future of participatory culture and freedom of expression. I was with the Center for Social Media and we were working on the Untold Stories project. I have to admit that I didn’t really understand what ‘free culture’ meant, and even now, I’m a bit baffled by the set of ideas it represents, but I knew that I wanted to be in the room to hear what all of these very cool people are up to.

If you are interested in the wide range of activities happening largely in the digital realm, grab the report and check out the websites of some of these organizations. But the most interesting part of the report for me was actually the general categories of the 50 or so participants.

1. Leveling the playing field around the issues of copyright and ownership of intellectual and cultural property (this is where we fit in…).
2. Increasing access to the means of producing and distributing media and culture.
3. Encouraging effective electoral and civic participation.
4. Expanding the technology infrastructure that supports this work and communication, and preserving access to it.

As many in the film community have heard as the news spreads like wildfire, the Smithsonian struck up a semi-exclusive deal with Showtime to the materials and expertise at the Smithsonian.

I, like most in the indie film community, am worried that such a deal will severly limit public access to our shared resources and history, and the deal is with a commercial entity (premium cable no less!) rather than a public entity such as PBS or perhaps WGBH or WNET. There are tons of articles and blogs talking about the ramifications of that deal if you are interested (Washington Post and NY Times to start). But as I was reading the Free Culture report and I saw those 4 categories, I felt a bit better about the sky falling in. What those categories represent are movements of young people keeping close eye on media and social justice, free expression and constantly coming up with creative solutions when faced with new roadblocks.

I’m just breaking into my 30s and definitely felt like I was on the wrong side of the generation gap in that particular conference, but upon reflection, that is where my hope lies.

Organizations of particular interest: OneWorld, CivicSpace Labs, Facilitating Leadership in Youth and Guerrilla News Network (among many others).