Bringing community media together under the big tent: rabble radio November 2015

This program comes to you from the Community Media Convergence, a gathering of community television, radio, online and gaming people from across the country. We all know that different media forms are coming together. Radio websites have video on them. Newspapers have podcasts. If rabble.ca had been around 20 years ago, we would have likely been a paper based magazine. And a radio show. There would have been no rabble tv because there aren't very many independent community tv stations out there. Now we're a whole combination of different kinds of media.

The conference features two days of panels about everything from "Social Media: Is it Community Media and How Do We Leverage It?" to "Community Media 3.0: Games and Interactivity?" The third day is a policy development forum, where attendees will have the opportunity to help shape a policy proposal to support community media in the digital environment.

That's just one of many examples of how media convergence works. On today's program, lots of ideas about how it could all work in the future. The first two segments were recorded at the conference.

1.) Cathy Edwards – organizer of the Community Media Convergence. A lot of the people at the conference are here to talk about community television, and that's because this conference was organized by the organization CACTUS, which stands for the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations.

2.) David Diamond – Artistic and Managing Director – Theatre for Living speaking at a panel called Maximizing Community Impact and Engagement.

3.) Stefan Christoff – excerpted from Talking Radical Radio – Music and Grassroots Politics in Montreal.

When you think about music and radical politics, what usually comes to mind are the lyrics – from Public Enemy to Ani Defranco, Rage Against the Machine to Paul Robeson, the call to action and for change was found in the words over the melody or beat. Yet for Montreal based activist and musician Stephan Christoff – songs of solidarity can be instrumental….Using the power of collaboration Christoff believes that music can bring people together and nurture the imaginative, creative and even spiritual sides of ourselves.

Christoff speaks with us about his music, his activism and how the two intertwine. This interview is an excerpt from Talking Radical Radio, the November 11th edition called Music and Grassroots politics in Montreal. He spoke to Scott Neigh.