The Social Science Research Council Awarded Collaborative Grants in Media and Communications to Professors Catherine Sandoval and Allen Hammond, IV

The Social Science Research Council www.ssrc.org has announced the first round of small grants for academic-advocacy collaboration in the media and communications field. The first round will provide grants for research that supports advocacy, organizing, policy and/or campaign uses in the media and communications field in the US. The grants are intended for short-term work, completable and usable by advocacy partners within the next 4-12 months.

Six grants have been awarded in this first round to Children Now, the Consumers Federation of America, the Latinos and Media Project, Media Alliance, the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council and Radio Bilingüe.

Principal researchers Allen Hammond, IV and Catherine Sandoval’s project is a survey on the relationship between minority and female ownership and media consolidation with Minority Media & Telecommunications Council, www.mmtconline.org.

The Minority Media & Telecommunications Council (MMTC) seeks to develop a survey instrument that can be used to discern the relationship between minority and female ownership and media consolidation. They seek to survey minority and female owners who have entered or exited the communications industry between 2001 and 2005 to determine the extent to which various factors may have affected the rate of entry and/or exit.  MMTC’s study will allow policy makers, the FCC, and advocates for a diverse media to better understand and address the structural and non-structural impediments that minority and women media owners face in the current media environment.