1. Define your issue - what is it you really want to change? Learn how to narrow it to get change accomplished when the grand design seems too daunting.
2. Check it out as much as you can through research, discussion and reading.
3. Use media literacy skills (go behind the first words/appearances, statements) to check that what you're hearing is what you want.
4. Decide your goals - immediate and long term and how you want to go about accomplishing them whether it's volunteering at your neighborhood children's center, electing your local mayor, or organizing to save the world.
5. Learn the system and the alternatives to see how to best to get things done.
Check
out Resources for sites such as:
The Freedom Channel
Project Vote Smart
Adbusters
People for the American Way
FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)
Unity: Journalists of Color
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists
and the various media outlets for news and opinion on the web, print, radio and broadcast TV.
