Save the Date for Facebook Social Journalist Meetup
The Center is teaming up with Facebook for the Washington, D.C. version of their Social Journalist Meetup (the first event was hosted in Palo Alto on April 27). Save the date June 1, and stay tuned to the Center website for additional details.

SILVERDOCS
The AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Film Festival kicks off June 20. Look for Center Director Pat Aufderheide and Associate Director Angelica Das all week. We were honored to participated in planning the International Documentary Conference including an innovative new one-day workshop, which the Center brainstormed, the Transmedia Lab, sponsored by the Tribeca Institute. 

“Two Spirits:” Free Screenings
Community Cinema, presented by the Independent Television Service (ITVS) in partnership with WHUT, Busboys and Poets, the Washington DC Jewish Community Center, S.A.L.S.A. and the Center for Social Media at American University are excited to present this month’s screening of Two Spirits. Filmmaker Lydia Nibley explores the cultural context behind a tragic and senseless murder. Fred Martinez was a Navajo youth slain at the age of 16. But Fred was part of an honored Navajo tradition - the nadleeh, or 'two-spirit,' who possesses a balance of masculine and feminine traits. In relating Fred's story, Nibley reminds us of the values that America's indigenous peoples have long embraced. Screening June 5 at the DCJCC and June 12 at Busboys andPoets. 

Spring Events Showcase PubMedia Research
The upcoming International Communication Association preconference will top off a round of spring presentations by CSM researchers. Read more...

Pubcasting Battle Roundup
Throughout the spring, CSM’s Jessica Clark tracked the furious debate about whether public broadcasting should be defunded on CSM’s blog. Follow the entire series here...

Catch up with CSM on MediaShift
Have you missed our ongoing coverage of public media and journalism trends on the PBS MediaShift site? Catch up here...

Public Media Showcase
In this month’s Pubic Media Showcase, Katie Donnelly finishes up her series on innovative digital and media literacy projects, uncovering key themes in the ways in which these programs assess their impact. Katie also reviews two new media books, Philip Napoli’s Audience Evolution and Nick Couldry’s Why Voice Matters. Read more...

Reclaiming Fair Use: Book Release
Look for the July 2011 release of Reclaiming Fair Use -- a book that empowers creators of all kinds. Profs. Patricia Aufderheide, director of the Center for Social Media, and Peter Jaszi, Professor of Law in the Washington College of Law at American University, urge a robust embrace  of a principle long-embedded in copyright law, but too often poorly understood—fair use. By challenging the widely held notion that current copyright law has become unworkable and obsolete in the era of digital technologies, Reclaiming Fair Use promises to reshape the debate in both scholarly circles and the creative community. Read more...

Talking Copyright at HotDocs
During the Doc Summit put on in conjunction with Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC) at HotDocs, Center Director Pat Aufderheide served with DOC executive director Lisa Fitzgibbons on panel on copyright, fair use and fair dealing.  The discussion brought out a major achievement of DOC in the last few years. Read more...

Fair Use Question Of The Month: I Have Permission From The Performers, But What About The Music Rights?
In this month's fair use question, a middle school teacher wants to upload video of an orchestra rehearsing copyrighted music but is concerned with licensing rights. Read more...

Fair Use Pick of the Month, by Critical Commons
In this month’s showcase on the importance of fair use for media studies scholars, Critical Commons is supplying streaming videos to the weekly column In Media Res, which is "dedicated to experimenting with collaborative, multi-modal forms of online scholarship." Each week, In Media Res presents a series of theme-based commentaries by media scholars on topics such as Labor in the Media Industries, Autism in Media and TV Failure. Read more...

Summer 2011 Producers Institute
The Center for Social Media is joining BAVC’s prestigious Producer’s Institute as a partner. Associate Director Angelica Das will be attending the week-long event and sharing news via blogging and Twitter (@Ctr4SocialMedia)--look for the live posts June 10 - 17. This year’s Institute is for the first time gathering together innovative filmmakers around a central theme: Indigenous Science. Read more...

Transmedia for Social Documentary
What does the new transmedia buzzword mean for social documentary filmmakers? Associate Director Angelica Das explores this question with a guest post on Tribeca’s Future of Film Blog. Read more...

Documenting Death with Dignity: New Film Follows Personal Stories Behind Oregon’s Law
How to Die in Oregon, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, follows individuals whose lives have been deeply affected by Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, which legalizes physician-assisted death for terminally ill patients who request it. It's not an easy film to watch, and at screenings of this heart-wrenching and intimate documentary, filmmaker Peter Richardson admits that the ending of the film is often greeted with silence. This is an understandable reaction to such an emotional and powerful experience; as you become invested in the subjects of the documentary, you can't help but think of how, as Cody Curtis puts it in the film, we are all terminal. Read more...

How to Stay Out of Court: Full Frame Film Festival Panel
When documentary filmmakers take on tough subjects, sometimes the  targets of their investigations attack—like when Chevron demanded that filmmaker Joe Berlinger turn over raw footage from his film Crude. At the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival--noted for its intimate, community approach and filmmaker-friendly environment—panelists on the panel Pat Aufderheide moderated discussed how to avoid what lawyer David Smallman called the “no see ‘ums,” or unpleasant legal surprises. Read more...

Justice Matters to DC
Festival Director Tony Gittens says that Filmfest DC is the only festival in the world that has a Justice Matters award. Associate Director Angelica Das had the privilege of serving on the jury for Filmfest DC’s  2011 Justice Matters series, made possible by the locally based CrossCurrents Foundation. It’s unusual for small foundations to focus on social justice issues, but CrossCurrents is firmly grounded in support of art that creates social change. Read more...

Pull Focus
See the latest Pull Focus interview transcripts with this Spring’s Visiting Filmmakers including: Doe Mayer, Josh Fox and Yoav Shamir. Also stay tuned for an upcoming interview with Julia Reichert and Steve Bogner. Read more...

Not in Our Town
Watch a movie, build a community: Host a free screening of Not in Our Town: Light in the Darkness, part of the larger Not in Our Town project, either before its September 21 PBS airing or around the broadcast. It’s a chance for community-building around the story of how one Long Island community repaired town life after an immigrant was murdered. Contact info@niot.org. Learn more...

Coming Attractions: CINE's Top Student Films
CINE will screen its 2011 Special Jury Award Winning Student Films in Animation, Drama, Comedy and Documentary, May 17, 2011, 1:00pm at Bethesda Row Cinema. Register here...

Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program in China and Beyond
The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program (DFP) has been collaborating with global partners to support and nurture documentary filmmakers on their journeys. The Institute recently led a new workshop for independent Chinese documentary filmmakers in Beijing. Co-hosted with CNEX, a five-year-old Beijing-based foundation dedicated to supporting artistic documentaries about contemporary Chinese life, the gathering brought together 11 projects from several regions in China to work with a group of international Advisors on story and structure. Get an insider’s look at  our China experience from Documentary Film program Director Cara Mertes. Read More...

NAPT to Collaborate with iMA and IBM for Social Media Innovation
Native American Public Telecommunications, Inc. (NAPT) has been selected by the Integrated Media Association (iMA) to be one of three public broadcasting entities to participate in an IBM social media consulting project. Other project participants include Oregon Public Broadcasting and WBUR Boston. Selected participants are all members of iMA. Read more...