Community and communication share the same roots, and that is, mainly, because one can’t exist without the other. We are part of society as long as we interact with others, as long as we recognize and understand them, and also, as long as we are capable of negotiating and coexisting.
 

It is in this spirit that the World Wide Web offers an extension of the streets where citizens share and basically, talk. Thus, the Net allows conversations in real time, with a democratic world-wide reach. At the same time, the Net also has the possibility to trespass borders, give a common space to global citizens, and allow us to participate in new sorts of activities… activities close to where we are and molded to our needs and realities… cyber activities.

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Here’s a news release we’re distributing today about the We Media Film Festival …

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Online Festival Celebrates the Power of “My Community”

ifocos.org today announced a call for entries and viewer-judges to the 2007 We Media Film Festival. The user-generated online film festival, launched in conjunction with the We Media Miami conference to be held Feb. 7-9, is organized in cooperation with the University of Miami School of Communication and Magnify.net, an online resource for community-powered video.

Video creators can upload or link to their videos and anyone can review and judge the entries online at: http://video.ifocos.org

The theme of the video festival is “My Community.”

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“The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.”
       – Frederick Buechner
 

Belonging to a community in a connected age affords us additional options to develop ourselves and to affect others. We can actively participate in a wider range of groups than ever before, spanning all types of interests. They may have geographically dispersed memberships, yet we can participate in them irrespective of time zones and distances. New communications and digital media services have profoundly transformed how we meet and interact with others and in turn, how we spend our time and fulfill ourselves.

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The boundaries that divide most communities are usually based on race, language, religion or socio-economic differences. At the U.S. – Mexico borderline where I live, the separation between people is physical and political – government policies that create walls and other barriers to the free exchange of travel, business, education, ideas and personal relationships. Unfortunately, traditional news media (newspapers, broadcast television, magazines, newsletters) have reinforced the separation of my community of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, twin border cities of about 2 million residents that meet at the banks of the Rio Grande.

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In May 2006, Salem Communications, a conservative talk-radio company, purchased Townhall.com and on July 4, 2006, launched a new web presence that combines the grassroots mediums of talk radio and the Internet.
 

How do you merge an existing online community with a national fan base of radio listeners? How do you grow the community and ensure that a platform exists for different voices to be heard?

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