The Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net) is holding its annual Membership Assembly at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, MI on June 15, 2017! Our Membership Assembly is the largest convening we hold. This year, nearly 60 members hope to strategize together and strengthen our movement for digital and media rights currently under threat.
In addition to holding our convening, we’re co-hosting a #MEDIAJUSTICE Mixer on Friday, June 16! Join us to meet new friends and allies who work, organize, and have an interest in digital security and media justice at the Allied Media Conference. All are welcome at this party, co-hosted by MAG-Net, Equality Labs, and Free Press, so bring your friends! RSVP and find party details here.
Tune in for our first-ever LIVE Media Justice Salon: Sustaining Hope in the Rebellion on Saturday, June 17 at 1pm EST! Learn how to envision a hopeful future when it feels like everything is being taken from us. We’ll be joined by special guests Eleonore Wesserle (Line Break Media) and Sage Crump (National Performance Network). Watch the conversation on Facebook Live!
With dozens of MAG-Net members at AMC, we have tons of amazing workshops to support! Peep our full schedule below and follow along as we live tweet throughout the conference!
MAG-Net Member Workshops Schedule:
FRIDAY
CENTER FOR MEDIA JUSTICE
- Friday Plenary: Stories Become Movements, Become Stories
- Friday, 9-10:30am
- DeRoy Auditorium
- This plenary will explore how stories became movements, then became stories in the context of Standing Rock, the Movement for Black Lives, the movement to end caste-based sexual violence in India, and why we need to save the Internet to keep our stories alive and circulating.
WITNESS
- Facebook Warfare: Sharing Stories, Staying Safe
- Friday, 11-12:30pm
- State Hall: Room 125
- In this session, we will talk about how doxing and threats to physical safety, as well as other forms of harassment and surveillance, are being leveraged by the “alt-right” and the government. We’ll use this background, which will include case studies from the U.S. and Brazil, to brainstorm community security practices, both digital and physical.
- Video for Revolution
- Friday, 4-5:30pm
- State Hall: Room 118
- This session will explore how we utilize video for revolution. We’ll facilitate a discussion on how activists around the world are using video now, and provide practical tips on the right to record, filming the police and protests, basic digital and physical security, and media preservation.
WNUC, FROGTOWN COMMUNITY RADIO
- How to Set-Up and Livestream an Event
- Friday, 11-12:30pm
- Student Center: Hilberry D
- Come learn the basics of setting up a live stream and streaming an event with some of the organizers from WNUC, Detroit’s new low power FM radio station. Participants will get hands on experience in setting up the live stream for AMC’s morning plenaries and will leave with the tools to live stream events in your own communities.
MAY FIRST/PEOPLE LINK
- Fact Checking Fake vs Real News
- Friday, 11-12:30pm
- State Hall: Room 127
- Librarian Edna Ewell and tech activist Kendra Moyer will discuss fact checking using the CRAAP system of web research. The CRAAP method tests sources on the web for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose in verifying journalists’ sources. We’ll also explore tools that support journalists like PGP encryption, EFF’s Surveillance Self Defense, the Guardian Project, and Secure Drop for protecting vulnerable sources.
MEDIA MOBILIZING PROJECT
- Technology for Social Justice: Field Scan Workshop
- Friday, 12:45-1:45pm
- State Hall: Room 116
- There’s a lot of feel-good talk about technology and social change, but what does it look like to really use technology as a tool for liberation? In this session, the Open Technology Institute and Research Action Design will share preliminary findings from the Technology for Social Justice field scan and conduct a focus group with participants.
GLOBAL ACTION PROJECT
- Digital Timelines for Movement Organizing
- Friday, 2-3:30pm
- State Hall: Room 118
- In this political climate, it’s crucial to place our organizing work and our stories in historical context and challenge dominant narratives. Join us to create a digital timeline and learn how our web-based tool can support your organizing work!
SOUTHWEST WORKER’S UNION
- Community Led Business Models
- Friday, 2-3:30pm
- State Hall: Room 125
- How do we deconstruct economic cultures and shift towards sustainable models built on love, social justice and community support? In this skillshare we will examine the history of these models in South Texas, explore our shared working experiences and the challenges and solutions we have encountered. Participants will have interactive opportunities to try out social media marketing, pop-up market organizing and reflect on economic models in their home communities.
STOP LAPD SPYING COALITION
- Surveillance as a Primary Tool of the Stalker State
- Friday, 4-5:30pm
- State Hall: Room 123
- Participants in this workshop will collectively map their understanding of surveillance and how they think they are traced, tracked and monitored. We will share strategies and tactics toward building a culture of resistance and abolition of the national security surveillance state.
MAY FIRST/PEOPLE LINK, CENTER FOR MEDIA JUSTICE, HIGHLANDER CENTER
- Beyond Security: Technology and Revolution
- Friday, 4-5:30pm
- State Hall: Room 111
- Securing our data is critical for our movements, but is that enough? This year, May First/People Link has called on our movements to converge in groups of all sizes for conversations about “Technology and Revolution”. This workshop will explain that process and why it’s critical.
SPNN
- Illuminate the World with Light Painting
- Friday, 4-5:30pm
- McGregor: Room L/M
- Did you know that it’s possible to paint with light? With a DSLR camera and a little know-how, you can do just that. Light painting is super fun, and can create amazing and unique images. Participants will learn the basics of light painting, and create portraits that show how each one of us are powerful and one-of-a-kind.
SATURDAY
VOICES FOR RACIAL JUSTICE
- Protect Ya Self Love
- Saturday, 11-12:30pm
- McGregor: Room J
- This will be an interactive workshop that considers our power to heal individually and collectively from the traumas that live in our bodies. We will share resources rooted in mindfulness meditation and sensory healing for participants to integrate into their own lives and organizing.
STOP LAPD SPYING COALITION
- Power Not Paranoia!
- Saturday, 11-12:30pm
- Student Center: Hilberry C
- How are data-driven systems affecting our community’s ability to access basic human needs? In this interactive storytelling session with the Our Data Bodies Project, we will explore the experiences of individuals from Charlotte, Detroit, Los Angeles, and the AMC. We will examine connections and patterns so we can begin to imagine and develop creative tools and practices that will advance our communities from paranoia to power.
GLOBAL ACTION PROJECT
- Fighting Islamophobia and Anti-Blackness through Youth Media
- Saturday, 2-3:30pm
- State Hall: Room 118
- Using the film Keep Ya Head Up, Global Action Project’s youth producers will engage participants in exploring root causes for oppressive school policies and practices and then brainstorm solutions that empowers educators and young people to fight back together.
ALTERNATE ROOTS
- Living Letters: A Hollerin Space
- Saturday, 4-5:30pm
- State Hall: Room 127
- What is the medicine in bearing witness? We will imagine a post-literate classless society with the formation of a waiting room. Using the tools of letter writing, QR codes, and live performance we will enact the art of listening, hearing, and transliteration. Participants will engage in a generative sound and body resonance process guided by prompts from letters written by freedom fighters such as Audre Lorde, Maya Angelou, folks in our kinfolk communities, and ourselves.
GENERATION JUSTICE
- Electronically Woke
- Saturday, 4-5:30pm
- Student Center: Room 384
- What are the digital implications of the moment we are in, and how do we prepare for the future? Journalists, activists, organizers, and media-makers are invited to learn about how technology can be a tool for both liberation and oppression. Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of surveillance, as well as specific tools and resources for digital security self-defense.
SUNDAY
GLOBAL ACTION PROJECT
- Rapid Response Media
- Sunday, 10-11:30am
- State Hall: Room 135
- In this panel, we will share our work on “Hate Free Zones” with Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM). We will facilitate dialogue with other groups that use digital media to facilitate relationship building and empower communities most impacted by injustice in the era of Trump.
WITNESS
- Collaborative Security: From Training to Empowerment
- Sunday, 1-2:30pm
- State Hall: Room 125
- Security education should ideally be a collaboration between people with technical knowledge and those with lived experiences. The reality is that cis, male, white trainers continue to train folks who couldn’t be more different from them. We will learn how to re-center security trainings around communities, empower movements, and adopt a participatory approach to digital safety.
FORWARD TOGETHER
- Artists and Organizers Shifting Culture
- Sunday, 1-2:30pm
- State Hall: Room 131
- In this session, we’ll explore how artists and organizers produce transformative work through collaborative, not transactional, relationships. Using stories from the Trans Day of Resilience art project, Echoing Ida writing program, and more, we’ll share how to center the radical imaginations of culture workers.
SPNN
- Stop Motion PSAs
- Sunday, 1-2:30pm
- Student Center: Hilberry D
- Want to encourage people to think about or take action on an issue important to you? Come make a stop-motion animation PSA! Come with an issue you believe in, and we will supply the technology. We will share some cool animating techniques, many of which are available on your phone or tablet!