The Book

This book is a collective manifesto for field builders, stakeholders, educators, creative professionals, and community leaders who want to understand BOTH the deeply personal human as well as the broader conceptual dimensions of civic media.

Created through a process that aligns with a commitment to participatory meaning-making, this book is by the people and about the people. It takes a human-centered approach to civic media; one that foregrounds lived experiences, struggles, concerns, solidarity, and aspirations of those who create and engage with civic media, whether they realize it or not. Each section of this book offers one of many possible paths through the contributors’ lived experiences as civic media practitioners as they engage in their own journeys, projects, challenges, and joys.

The stories shared deserve and need to be read as rich and complex as their own pieces as well as a collection alongside one another. These stories cannot be contained or put into limiting categories, so we invite the reader to enter the world of our civic media and find their own paths and connections.