Portland Media Lab

By Melissa Chavez, Edited by Michele Elder, Co-Posted to The Sentinel

By Melissa Chavez
Most commonly associated with programs found on cable access, Portland Community Media partners with local nonprofits and community-based organizations in Portland to bring media access to local neighborhoods, produce local programming, and offer media education opportunities.

Now PCM is using the digital media realms of Facebook, Myspace, and YouTube to encourage the public to share stories about the community. Winning a recent matching grant from Mount Hood Cable Regulatory Commission for more than $300,000 and partnering with Central Northeast Neighbors are just the first steps PCM is taking toward expanding its reach.

PCM’s new project, SmartAccess, will launch six centers offering classes to the community on emerging social media platforms and how to produce and share videos.  In this way, multimedia community content can by delivered beyond PCM’s six cable access channels, reaching underserved people throughout the city.

With the grant, SmartAccess administrator Cece Hughley Noel said PCM is looking to “diversify our reach into the community through our partnerships – people of color, refugees, seniors – people on the other side of the [media] divide.”

“SmartAccess is a program [PCM’s] CEO developed last year when applying for grants,” she said. “It brings community together. More people will be using digital media, using computers for storytelling, and expanding the local voice.”

Over the next three years, PCM plans to partner with a total of six community-based nonprofits – opening a new SmartAccess Center with each partner – to extend social media and digital technology opportunities. CNN is the first announced partner, and Hughley Noel adds that the public should “expect to see an announcement of additional partnerships in this calendar year.”

PCM received a Mount Hood Cable Regulatory Commission grant of $306,750 for capital expenses for the SmartAccess program, with the stipulation that PCM match that funding for operations costs. In fact, the total budget for the project is a little more than $614,000, since PCM “went above and beyond” in matching the grant money, Hughley Noel said.

The funds will be distributed over the three years, as is stated in the proposal, and will be used to open and operate the new centers, and to purchase additional equipment – video cameras, lighting, and MacBook Pro software for editing, since the cameras are file-based and don’t use tapes.

Though CNN is specifically a northeast neighborhood organization, the SmartAccess center operated with them is open to all.

“It’s absolutely open to the public,” said Alison Stoll, executive director of CNN. “With the work that we do, neighborhood associations are geographically based, but there are immigrant and refugee communities all over town that aren’t in one specific area – they’re culture based, and we want them to be able to tell their stories, too, so we are welcome to everyone.”

Stoll said that with the new center, CNN is “hoping neighbors in the area can come here and take classes to learn how to use a camcorder to tell their stories through social networking. Once they take the [SmartAccess] training, they can use PCM’s equipment, and do it really pretty professionally.”

To register for training, each two-hour class is $10, but the SmartAccess Center offers a discounted price of $25 for all three courses currently offered. These courses are slightly reduced in price than ones PCM offers, as the community partners are supplementing the activities fee of $50.

Hughley Noel says that PCM is also looking into offering a field production course at the center, which would certify new videographers to rent or remove equipment for use.

She added that new courses and possibly more centers could be introduced to PCM’s outreach goal because the response from the public was so great.

“It was a true upswelling of support,” she said. “We’re looking at opportunities to seek additional funding to expand the program further.”

Central Northeast Neighbors
4415 NE 87th Ave
Portland OR 97220
(503) 823-3156
www.cnncoalition.org
Portland Community Media
2766 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd.
Portland OR 97212-3036
(503) 288-1515
www.pcmtv.org