Center for International Media Action (CIMA)

CIMA's archive is designed to help groups:

• identify allies and collaborate effectively
• translate key issues for broader audiences
• share "best practices"
• document media advocacy campaigns, projects, strategies, and meetings

Initial programme work included the Media and Communications Policy Clearinghouse (MCPC), which consists of interactive online tools to track, centralise, and cross-reference news, proposals, research, campaign strategies, and events in media policy from a public-interest perspective. In addition, CIMA has contributed to workshops, presentations, and materials related to the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and regulatory debates taking place at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and in the United States (US) Congress, focussing on translating issues for a wider audience and highlighting possibilities for action. CIMA produced The Reporters' Guide To Media Ownership Rules And The FCC, among a number of toolkits, research documents, and directories in its archive.

Alternative media.

At its inception, organisers wrote: "The mass media and the Internet are becoming ever more central to our political and social lives, and the stakes are rising...social-justice values, civil rights efforts and dissenting voices are being blocked by concentrated and homogenous media. Journalism itself, so fundamental for informed democracy, is endangered by commercial and political pressures - locally, nationally and globally." They claimed that media advocates, with the support of widespread public concern, could help advance media policies, practices, and systems that reflect the needs and interests of citizens and communities. However, they were concerned that "Too often, advocates, academics, community groups and (inter)national campaigns aren't aware of - or able to build upon - each other's strengths and research." They stated that CIMA was founded to help bridge those information and communication gaps.