CultureSurfer.com-Your Window on The World
Requested amount from Knight News Challenge:
$100,000Total cost of project including all sources of funding:
$100,000Expected amount of time to complete project:
2 yearsCultureSurfer.com will be a community-based, virtual hub for culture in St. Louis. There is a plethora of newsworthy local & visiting talent in St. Louis, but a majority of it is never covered by the media. CultureSurfer.com will promote this exceptional yet overlooked talent via video, photos, journalism, and any other media which can be put on a web site. Via these various media, we will capture local talent from the fields of cinema, dance, fashion, literature, music, cycling, and art. There will also be a focus on the talent within St. Louis’s untapped Asian, African, Bosnian, and Latin communities, as well as talent that comes to the St. Louis area. CultureSurfer.com will depend on contributions to the site from people in the community to make a rich site with numerous viewpoints, harnessing local talent that might otherwise never see online publication.
In order to futher promote local talent, CultureSurfer.com will produce short documentaries/profiles on the inside of these various industries. It's one thing to look at a painting, go to a fashion show, or watch a cycling race, but it's another thing to look inside the industry, talk to someone whose passion this is, and understand what is beneath the surface.
Funding from the Knight Foundation will be used for the following purposes: to purchase required software and hardware, for programming work to be done on the site, and to produce documentaries/profiles on local talent.
2 commentsHow will your project improve the way news and information are delivered to geographic communities?
CultureSurfer.com- covering news that no ne else covers
People in St. Louis often complain that this is a boring city, with nothing going on, particularly nothing progressive or innovative happening. Watching the mainstream media, one could easily believe this misperception. Mainstream media tends to focus on very limited stories, stories they believe a bulk of the audience will relate to. But where is the news coverage for the rest of us?
Currently, there is no St. Louis media that covers the scope of news that we propose covering. Most local sites cover the same talent and events covered by mainstream media outlets, or they cover only one, specific aspect of St. Louis news. We’d like to focus on this marginalized portion of local talent that exists in so many local industries.
Additionally, no St. Louis web site covering arts and culture allows for the incorporation of media contributed by members of the St. Louis community.
0 commentsHow is your idea innovative? (New or different from what already exists.)
A community-based arts and culture hub to be replicated around the US
CultureSurfer.com will be the first St. Louis-based, community-driven site to focus primarily on arts and culture through various media. We will also be the first site to encourage contributions from individuals or organizations in the local community to the site via open source code software such as Drupal. We will create a site that will not only be reproducible in cities around the US, but future sites will be able to improve on our concept as well. This, in turn, will help us to improve what we have created.
In order to further the implementation of CultureSurfer-like sites around the US, we will also include a written or video log explaining how we do what we do. The log will be interactive, allowing people creating sites based on our platform can connect with each other (and with us) to discuss improvements & innovations.
0 commentsWhat experience do you or your organization have to successfully develop this project?
Well-suited to this project
CultureSurfer.com was launched in September of 2007.
I personally run every aspect of running this site, save for the help of several mentors/advisers, as well as some tech help from a videographer and a photographer. I interview, edit video, do p/r, produce video (meaning setting up filming dates as well as decided how to film), maintain the site, designate when videos will be uploaded, create new relationships and maintain existing relationships (both in the real and virtual worlds) and upgrade and maintain the web site as needed.
Before launching the site, I worked on two political campaigns, which is how I immersed into the various local ethnic communities in St. Louis. Along with the work in politics, I also spent 3 years doing intensive networking, so I am connected to many people in arts and culture, as well as other fields. I previously worked with an Hispanic web site, which is where I got my feet wet with interviewing and production work and my husband learned to film.
I constantly find out about events happening right here in St. Louis though e-mails and list-serves. Outside of St. Louis, I maintain relationships with artists and musicians through MySpace, Facebook, and my blog on MyOpera.com.
For a more detailed description of my work experience, please see my attached resume.
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