A Real Education for a Change

In the convergence of communication technologies, the media environment that will define the 21st century is now being created. Discrete passive media-print, film, radio, television-are giving way to multimedia and interactivity, as they become part of the common flows of digitized "content," controlled for the most part by a global system of ever more concentrated corporations. At the same time, new and affordable technological tools-digital cameras and recorders, more powerful computers, robust image manipulation and video editing software, new media storage and compression techniques, and broadband media streaming, to name a few-also herald the possibility of a rich and democratic media culture. Communication media and information technologies have become important tools to be utilized by even the smallest nonprofits and community-based organizations for individual empowerment, organizational development, community building, arts, and other social goals.