The mission of Portland Community Media is "To promote broad participation in civic and cultural life by encouraging effective use and understanding of community media." PCM has served the citizens of Portland for over 25 years, providing training and tools for individuals and organizations to use cable television and other media as a means of communication, civic involvement, artistic and cultural expression and community development. PCM offers media education, facilities and equipment for ordinary citizens to produce community programming for cablecast on PCM’s public access cable channels, web-based and other distribution systems. Portland Community Media also provides services to non-profit and community organizations to develop and use media to share their mission and develop their organizations.
OLLIE YOUTH MEDIA VISTA:
The Oregon Learning Lab for Information Education (OLLIE) serves approximately 400 Portland-area youth ages 10 to18 annually. The Initiative is provided in collaboration with MetroEast Community Media, a sister community media organization serving east Multnomah County, combining the considerable youth media expertise of both organizations. Portland Community Media serves as the administrative organization.
OLLIE is a media education program that integrates media and technology literacy with core academic and community learning in classrooms and after-school programs. In each OLLIE project, participants plan and create works of video based on their academic curriculum or community learning focus.
OLLIE services are targeted to schools and programs serving underserved and/or low-income youth who would otherwise not be exposed to media-based technology and education. (An average of 72% of students served by the Youth Voices Initiative are eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch.) The program serves classrooms in Portland Public, Centennial, Gresham-Barlow, and Reynolds School Districts; after-school programs including Schools Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN) Schools; and community organizations including Girls Inc., the I Have a Dream Foundation, El Programa Hispano, and New Avenues for Youth.
Participants in OLLIE learn hands-on media production processes from pre-to post-production, creating broadcast-quality video pieces that deepen academic learning and explore youth-relevant community themes. Youth share the videos with their schools, families and communities utilizing end-of project screening events, DVD’s, television broadcast, and web videos.
ACCESS 2.0/NEW MEDIA VISTA
Access 2.0 is a three year project to expand access to and viewership of community media through new media channels. In this project, PCM will upgrade its technology and training to integrate new media channels with traditional public access channels to expand and enhance access to media as a communications tool for community members, community-based and non-profit organizations, government partners and other stakeholders.
Through Access 2.0, PCM will make community media more accessible to a wide variety of community members and groups through the use of new media and increase sharing and distribution of community media among a wide variety of audiences.