Media, Inequality and Change Center

The Media, Inequality and Change Center (MIC) is a collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School and Rutgers University’s School of Communication and Information. The Center explores the intersections between media, democracy, technology, policy, and social justice. MIC produces engaged research and analysis while collaborating with community leaders to help support activist initiatives and policy interventions. The Center’s objective is to develop a local-to-national strategy that focuses on communication issues important to local communities and social movements in the region, while also addressing how these local issues intersect with national and international policy challenges. The Center’s core principles are to research, educate, connect, and engage. MIC accomplishes this by assessing social movement strategies and democratic deployments of technology; contributing to policy interventions that encourage structural reform; committing to long-term field building in political economy, media, policy and technology studies and other cognate areas; assisting social justice campaigns, and making material interventions around media and democracy. Bringing together scholars, journalists, policy makers, activists, philanthropists, and diverse constituencies, MIC strives to create more democratic media systems that serve community needs. The Center is a forum for faculty, students, activists, policy makers and journalists to grapple with questions related to media, democracy, and social change. With an emphasis on community engagement in Philadelphia and New Jersey, MIC Focuses on research, teaching and learning, community engagement, and field-building. MIC Creates innovative research focused on the intersection of communication, democracy, and policy; Directs a fellowship program with leaders in associated fields to participate in research projects and connect with community initiatives; Supports undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students interested in questions of media, democracy, and community engagement; Cultivates the development of this field through appropriate gatherings and publications.