Sent April 27, 2006

Hello Adbusters folks,

I am jazzed to see that you included New Mexico Media Literacy Project (NMMLP) on your “After 50 Years of Media Activism, What Will it Take to Break Through?” chart in the May/June 2006 issue.  The organizations you referenced, including Adbusters, do important media work, and bring a much-needed perspective not covered in Big Media.  In fact, NMMLP relies on many of the resources and insight provided by these very groups to help fulfill our mission.

However, what’s a chart without any critical analysis of its content? 

In any piece of media, chart or otherwise, not all points of view can be accommodated.  Editors choose to include some perspectives, while excluding others, even if they are trying to present objective and unbiased information.  Thus, for every piece of media that tells a story, there are untold stories as well.  Unfortunately, those untold stories often include under-represented populations like people of color, the disabled, youth, the working class, recent immigrants and LGBTQI communities.

While the groups mentioned in your chart do necessary and compelling work, there are other organizations that were not mentioned yet are breaking ground in terms of media analysis, production, justice and activism.  I’ll list only a few (due to space & time constraints):  Project Censored, Bitch Magazine, Third World Majority, Bodies of Work (The Chicago Festival of Disability Arts & Culture) and Listen Up.  I’m inspired to know that in the fight for better media we are much stronger when we join together to know the media, change the media and be the media.

United in democracy,

Christie McAuley
New Mexico Media Literacy Project
Albuquerque, New Mexico

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