Media Mouse was a Grand Rapids, Michigan independent media group founded in 1999. [1] In 2004 the group's primary focus shifted to providing regular news coverage of "progressive" movements for social change in Grand Rapids [2] that were posted online via its website, www.mediamouse.org. Media Mouse ceased production in 2009. It described its goals in its mission statement: [3]
"Media Mouse is an independent media collective that works to provide independent news pertaining to Grand Rapids and the world. Wherever possible, Media Mouse aims to draw links between national and local issues and between movements for social change. In turn, it is hoped that this news will be a catalyst for action and will help spur organizing for social change."
In 2007, Media Mouse began hosting and collaborating with the Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy (GRIID) which was previously a part of the Grand Rapids Community Media Center. [4]
In addition its news coverage, Media Mouse offers a variety of resources including databases and special subject areas:
In June 2007, Media Mouse became involved in The Bloom Collective, an infoshop located at 8 Jefferson SE in Grand Rapids, Michigan. [5] [6]
In addition to lending books and videos, the Bloom Collective also serves as a meeting place for mediated community discussions on various radical topics and strategies for change.
Alternative media are media sources that differ from established or dominant types of media in terms of their content, production, or distribution. Sometimes the term independent media is used as a synonym, indicating independence from large media corporations, but this term is also used to indicate media enjoying freedom of the press and independence from government control. Alternative media does not refer to a specific format and may be inclusive of print, audio, film/video, online/digital and street art, among others. Some examples include the counter-culture zines of the 1960s, ethnic and indigenous media such as the First People's television network in Canada, and more recently online open publishing journalism sites such as Indymedia.
Davenport University is a private, not for profit, university with campuses throughout Michigan and online. It was founded in 1866 by Conrad Swensburg and currently offers associate's, bachelor's, and master's degrees; diplomas; and post-grad certification programs in business, technology, health professions, and graduate studies (MBA).
WZZM, virtual and VHF digital channel 13, is an ABC-affiliated television station licensed to Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States and serving the Grand Rapids–Kalamazoo–Battle Creek television market. The station is owned by Tegna Inc. WZZM's studios are located on 3 Mile Road NW in Walker, and its transmitter is located in Grant, Michigan.
WOOD-TV, virtual channel 8, is an NBC-affiliated television station licensed to Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States and serving the Grand Rapids–Kalamazoo–Battle Creek television market. The station is owned by Nexstar Media Group, as part of a duopoly with Battle Creek-licensed ABC affiliate WOTV ; it is also sister to Grand Rapids-licensed Class A MyNetworkTV affiliate WXSP-CD. The three stations share studios on College Avenue Southeast in the Heritage Hill section of Grand Rapids; WOOD-TV's transmitter is located on Cherry Valley Road southwest of Middleville, near the Barry–Allegan county line.
Robert Alan Haber is an American activist. He was the first president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a U.S. radical student activist organization. Haber was elected at the first meeting of SDS in 1960. FBI files at the time indicated his official title as Field Secretary. Described variously at the time as "Ann Arbor's resident radical" and "reticent visionary", Haber organized a human rights conference in April of that year which "marked the debut of SDS" and invited four organizers of the 1960 NAACP sit-ins against segregated lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Infoshops are places in which people can access anarchist or autonomist ideas. They are often stand-alone projects, or can form part of a larger radical bookshop, archive, autonomous social centre or community centre. Typically, infoshops offer flyers, posters, zines, pamphlets and books for sale or donation. Other items such as badges, locally produced artworks and T-shirts are also often available. Infoshops can also provide printing and copying facilities for people to produce their own literature or have a meeting space.
Advance Newspapers, based in Hudsonville, Michigan, publishes weekly community newspapers for Kent County, Michigan and portions of Muskegon, Ottawa, and Allegan counties. Advance Newspapers started as an independent company. They are now owned by Booth Newspapers a division of Advance Publications.
Bluestockings is a radical bookstore, fair-trade café, and activist center located in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City. It is volunteer-supported and collectively owned. The store started in 1999 as a feminist bookstore and was named for a group of Enlightenment intellectual women, the Bluestockings.
The Iron Rail Book Collective ran a volunteer-run radical library and anarchist bookstore in New Orleans, Louisiana. The infoshop's main focus was a lending library featuring a wide selection of books on topics including anarchism and socialism, fiction, gardening and philosophy. The Iron Rail also sold records, zines, local CDs and some miscellany. Events held at the Iron Rail included workshops and art presentations. The Iron Rail also contained the Above Ground Zine Library with a selection of thousands of zines, some very rare. As of September 2017, their personal site and Facebook page have not been updated in since 2015 and 2016 respectively.
Self-managed social centres in the United Kingdom can be found in squatted, rented, mortgaged and fully owned buildings. These self-managed social centres differ from community centres in that they are self-organised under anti-authoritarian principles and volunteer-run, without any assistance from the state. The largest number have occurred in London from the 1980s onwards, although projects exist in most cities across the UK, linked in a network. Squatted social centres tend to be quickly evicted and therefore some projects deliberately choose a short-term existence, such as A-Spire in Leeds or the Okasional Café in Manchester. Longer term social centres include the 1 in 12 Club in Bradford, the Cowley Club in Brighton and the Sumac Centre in Nottingham, which are co-operatively owned.
Internationalist Books and Community Center, located in Carrboro, North Carolina, was a volunteer operated infoshop, non-profit collective, and community center for local activists. The store name was a reference to the political philosophy of internationalism. Often, the center was called "The Internationalist" or merely "Eye Books" by its volunteers, members, and supporters.
WOOD-FM is an American radio station in Muskegon, Michigan, broadcasting a news/talk format, and is owned by iHeartMedia.
WYCE is an American community radio station, broadcasting a noncommercial, Triple A format. The station's music is programmed by volunteers, drawing from a diverse library of eclectic music, primarily folk, rock, blues, worldbeat and jazz music, with some emphasis on local musicians.
The Trumbullplex is a housing collective and showspace in the Woodbridge neighborhood of Detroit, Michigan, USA.
Salon Mazal was an infoshop in Tel Aviv, Israel. Its purpose was to spread information and raise awareness of issues related to social change, including human rights, animal rights, the environment, globalization, social and economic oppression, consumerism, feminism and gender issues. It ran by an open, non-hierarchical collective of volunteers at 32 Yitzhak Sadeh Street, Tel Aviv.
Boxcar Books was a non-profit, independent bookstore, infoshop, and community center in Bloomington, Indiana. Collectively run by volunteers, Boxcar Books was "one of the highest-volume zine sellers" in the United States. According to its website, the store existed to "promote reading, self-education, social equality, and social welfare through increased accessibility to literature and workshops." Boxcar Books was for a time also the home of the Midwest Pages to Prisoners Project, a non-profit organization that distributes books and reading materials to prisoners. By the end of 2017, Boxcar Books had closed their operations.
Radical media are communication outlets that disperse action-oriented political agendas utilizing existing communication infrastructures and its supportive users. These types of media are differentiated from conventional mass communications through its progressive content, reformist culture, and democratic process of production and distribution. Advocates support its alternative and oppositional view of mass media, arguing that conventional outlets are politically biased through their production and distribution. However, there are some critics that exist in terms of validating the authenticity of the content, its political ideology, long-term perishability, and the social actions led by the media.
Interference Archive is a volunteer-run library, gallery, and archive of historical materials related to social and political activism and movements. It is located in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, at 314 7th St, Brooklyn, NY 11215. The mission of the organization is "to explore the relationship between cultural production and social movements."
The Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh, also known as ACE, is an infoshop and autonomous social centre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1997, although it follows on from previous groups.
Self-managed social centers, also known as autonomous social centers, are self-organized community centers in which anti-authoritarians put on voluntary activities. These autonomous spaces, often in multi-purpose venues affiliated with anarchism, can include bicycle workshops, infoshops, libraries, free schools, free shops, meeting spaces and concert venues. They often become political actors in their own right.