OURMedia / NUESTROSMedios 4
Porto Alegre, Brazil
July 22-25, 2004

The OM 4 was planed and developed by a Planning Committee -- a team of 35 OM members collaborating online from 17 countries around the world. The conference was coordinated by Aliza Dichter, Media Action Center.

The 2004 OURMedia conference (OM4) took place from July 22-25 in Porto Alegre, Brazil as a pre-conference to the annual meeting of the IAMCR - the International Association of Mass Communications Research / Association Internationale des Etudes et Recherches sur L'Informationet et la Communication (AIERI) / Ascociación Internacional de Estudios de Comunicación Social (AIICS) - the largest international professional organization in the field of mass communication research.

This arrangement was intended both to help OURMedia participants acquire the funding and institutional support they require to attend and to continue to raise the profile of citizens' media issues within IAMCR.

At the 2004 OURMedia/NuestrosMedios Conference, members from around the world gathered to:

* Strengthen principled collaborations among researchers, practitioners and advocates
* Build strategies and resources for effective advocacy around media and ICT development
* Learn from Brazilian models and experiences in community activism, policymaking, popular education and advocacy on media and ICT issues.

OM4 featured four main components:

Presentations: papers, panels and small roundtable debates
Strategy Meetings: facilitated discussions, workshops and action-planning sessions
Polymedia Lab: a multimedia workshop, exhibit and production space organized by grassroots media producers, autonomous ICT collectives and indymedia activists. For more information or to join the planning group, please visit the Polymedia Lab wiki.
Field Trips: visits to local Brazilian community groups, advocacy campaigns and popular education centers working with media and ICTs.