Technical Assistance

http://www.cpanda.org/

http://www.wipo.int/

The Web site of this 180-nation organization hosts a wealth of material on the intellectual property topics, including a library and news service. Of particular interest is material on folklore, traditional knowledge, and digital technologies.

The moniker, "Grantmakers in the Arts," could suggest that our job as funders is solely to read proposals and write checks, a straightforward transaction that takes a hiatus when the award letter goes out and revives when the final report comes in. In reality, we know that the most important work we do may take place before the proposal is even submitted and that the impact of our work only improves as the quality of our ongoing interaction with our grantees strengthens.

Following up on Stan Hutton's introduction to arts blogs in the last Reader, in this issue we're looking at the beginnings of the philanthropic blogosphere. As with many blogs covering a specific field, philanthropic blogs tend to offer either personal journals of opinion and ideas or periodic news round-ups, brief abstracts of articles or publications and links to the original. Some, of course, provide both.

Just about everyone by this time, I suppose, has heard of blogging, the act of keeping a Web journal, often accompanied by links to related online articles, photos, or Web sites. Weblogs, blogs for short, first appeared in the late 1990s. Early on, they were a geeky pastime that served mostly as a method to pass on interesting Web links to a small circle of like-minded readers.

Cultural Diplomacy Initiative

Each of the following Web sites is located somewhere on a continuum between the state of the union and the state of the arts.

The Web is a particularly effective medium for creating visual diagrams of events and practices from daily life. According to Paul Miller, one site's creator, we live in a "world of uncertainty." Each of the following sites, in its own way, diagrams an aspect of our uncertain world.

The first site delineates the historical context for current Web projects.

Overview
The information presented here by no means represents an exhaustive review of arts-related advocacy Web sites. I have reviewed three national sites, one state site, and one local site.

The standard I used for defining and rating "advocacy material" was that the information could be printed or in other ways readily utilized by grassroots advocates in their interactions with elected officials on timely issues of concern to the arts community.

Media is pervasive and influences the culture in myriad ways. Technological advances and structural transformations are profoundly changing the way we receive and distribute information, as well as the quality of that information and whether or not we are able to interact with it. Legislative, legal, and regulatory policies that favor corporate interests over the public interest have created an environment where a dwindling number of corporations which control both the content and the means of distribution dominate the market.

Wireless Technology Investment and Digital Dividends Act
Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced a bill on May 2, 2002, that includes some of the ideas introduced last year by Newton Minow and Lawrence Grossman in their Digital Promise proposal.