Decentered Media Podcast 077 – Cormac Russell Working in Citizens Space

How do we support and promote the role of community media in a world that is dominated by large media organisations and platforms? What can [...]

The post Decentered Media Podcast 077 – Cormac Russell Working in Citizens Space first appeared on Decentered Media.

How do we support and promote the role of community media in a world that is dominated by large media organisations and platforms? What can advocates of community media learn from the community development movement, that can be applied when working in a local and community media context? That’s the framework for a fascinating conversation I had with Cormac Russell today.

Cormac Russell is the Managing Director of Nurture Development, and a faculty member of the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute at Northwestern University, Chicago.

Over the last twenty years Cormac has worked in over thirty countries training communities, agencies, NGOs and governments in the Asset-Based Community Development approach.

Cormac is passionate about the proliferation of community-driven change, and citizen-centred democracy, and he is a leading advocate of the benefits of the ABCD approach, particularly working at a neighbourhood level, through Neighbourhood Learning Sites.

In 2011 Cormac served on the Expert Reference Group on Community Organising and Communities First, working with Nick Hurd MP, Minister for Civil Society.

Cormac’s motto, paraphrasing Benjamin Franklin, is: ‘When it comes to Community Building, well done is better than well said’.

I’m particularly pleased to have read in Cormac’s new book that he is comfortable with the principle that we should sometime lower our expectations, because to do something badly, is better than not doing it at all. Cormac’s new book is released this week: Rekindling Democracy: A Guide for Professional’s Working in Citizen Space.

Cormac Russell Rekindling Democracy: A Guide for Professional’s Working in Citizen Space.

The post Decentered Media Podcast 077 – Cormac Russell Working in Citizens Space first appeared on Decentered Media.