The Communication Initiative
Development action with informed and engaged societies
The Communication Initiative

After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. 

Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future. 

On the transfer, co-founder Victoria Martin expressed her pleasure to see this work continue under Wits' leadership, knowing that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction. 

As Wits, we honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades and look forward building from that strong base. This includes co-founders Warren Feek (1953-2024) and Victoria Martin as well as La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA), which continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com with links to The CI Global site. We are also eager to forge new partnerships and entertain new ideas as we consider how best to contribute to social and behaviour change in our rapidly evolving environment.

If you are joining the International Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Panama, please join Wits and CILA on Monday, 22 June, to share your thoughts and suggestion for the relaunch of the Communication Initiative. We will be in Pacifica 5 from 12-1:25 for the Refuel, Reflect, and Renew Lunch Series: The Communication Initiative: celebrating a driving force for Communication for Social Change and the way forward. We will reflect on the legacy of Warren Feek and family in creating the Communication Initiative, consider the contributions of CI over the years and then turn our attention towards the future in this dynamic session. 

If you are unable to join us in Panama, we still want to hear from you. Please contribute your thoughts by following this link: https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026 or reaching out to ci_surveys@commint.com. 

You can also follow the QR Code:

 https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026

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Alternative Media and the Cult of Individualism

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Affiliation
Menlo College, Department of Mass Communication
Vice President of the Board, San Francisco Community Television Corporation>
Paper presented at the Our Media Not Theirs II Pre-conference on Alternative Media at IAMCR
Summary

Abstract

Community video cable television facilities in the U.S., "public access," share basic tenets with global community media, including the desirability of a diversity of ideas and freedom of expression. Early access ideology typically drew from unproblematic notions of individual rights to "free speech"; later approaches within the public access movement have included more complex traditional or critical interpretations of freedom of speech as a social good.


Participants in public access typically draw from one-dimensional individualist concepts of free speech. Simple notions of individual rights allow volunteer community producers a mechanism by which they can tolerate deep ideological divisions, as drawn from a study of volunteer access producers. An overemphasis on Individual rights also poses problems for public access, as reflected in problematic practices such as "first come, first served." The discussion holds significance for global participants in community media.


Click here for the full PDF version of this paper.

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Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/30/1999 - 00:00 Permalink

The link on this page is not working anymore.

Link: Click here for the full PDF version of this paper.


Editor's note: The source site had moved the PDF. I have corrected the URL for the new location. Many thanks for letting us know.