The Northern Plains of Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead, Minnesota are now home to a group of media activists. The Fargo-Moorhead area is about 150,000 people large, so it’s not the smallest city in the world. People here have access to many media choices.
Also, people in this small metropolitan area are now awakening to the idea that in order to influence media, you need to proficient with media tools. This includes knowing how to craft media products that commercial media will notice.
This is why the People’s Press Project has formed. This organization was created to give advocates the tools to create media so that they have a voice.
Origins and Tools of the People’s Press Project
The project is due in part is due to the region’s alternative news weekly, The High Plains Reader. Cindy Gomez is editor of the paper and her husband Duke Gomez-Schempp, are helping to put the project together. Both of them have extensive experience in the world of non-profit organizations and know how difficult it is for these organizations to be heard in the mainstream media.
Part of the problem with being heard, or noticed says Cindy, is that non-profits don’t have the money, or media knowledge to compete with the voice of those who have access to commercial media.
Cindy says the question arises from this, “What can we do as a community to get that access? The right to that access?” Cindy says that it is a communication rights issue to help non-profit organizations get that access. The High Plains Reader, through this non-profit venture is trying to get people that access through providing organizations with media technology to build multi-media projects that will generate attention. Cindy says, “We’re trying to create technologically-literate activists.”
The project is attempting to also take advantage of the fact that there are three four-year colleges in the area. This means that the People’s Press Project can avail itself of interns to learn valuable skills and help pass those skills on to others. One of those interns, Jessica Ballou wrote in The High Plains Reader about the value of becoming technologically-literate, “Knowing how to successfully utilize tools like Facebook, design programs, QR codes which connect to Smartphones, Google Docs, and more has helped me to be able to better understand and communicate with people all over.” To make sure that the technology is used most efficiently alliances have to be forged.
Building Networks in the Fargo-Moorhead Area
Duke adds that that some of the people that they’re communicating with are in the Fargo-Moorhead area. “We’re trying to develop this network and cross train people,” he says.
One of those groups that they’re working with is a cooperative that runs a coffee shop and studios out of an old downtown firehouse. The Station House, as it’s called provides studio space for area artists. People who have training in art and people who have training in media communication are starting to share their resources.
While media activism is often a movement associated with larger cities, it’s now coming to smaller metro areas. The technology is becoming cheaper and easier to use and projects like this one are putting that media in the hands of the people.
Jon Pike - Pike is a Ph.D. in communication and writes about activism and popular culture topics for Suite101.
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