Vibrant, Diverse and Accountable Broadcast Media
Local media play a critical role in communities across the United States.
For more than 60 years, UCC Media Justice has worked to hold local media outlets accountable to the viewers and listeners they serve.
When people watch and listen to local television and radio broadcasts, they learn about the concerns and celebrations of their neighbors, local political candidates and the issues that impact them every day, including government, schools, libraries and health providers.
Media help us to know each other, find out how to help our neighbors, and how to work together to create a more just world.
Television and radio stations hold licenses that permit them to use the airwaves in public trust.
The people who control these stations determine what information we receive, and ultimately the kind of communities where we live. Since the earliest days of the United Church of Christ’s media justice ministry—during the Black civil rights movement of the 1960s–it has been working to push the Federal Communications Commission to enforce its rules and make stations accountable. Today we continue to pursue that mission, as well as opposing those mergers of media companies that we believe will harm the public interest.
Social Media Platform Accountability
As internet platforms provide more opportunities for people around the world to connect, they have also provided a forum for groups to spread hate and fear and to engage in abusive behavior.
Social media have become “weaponized,” aggressively spreading misinformation and disinformation, threatening our democracy and endangering people of color, religious minorities, women, the LGBTQ+ community and others.
In addition, many of us are challenged every day to conduct ourselves on social media platforms with care and attention, and to make sure that all of us, including our children, live up to the best selves we can be.