New Year, New Media

Submitted by jwMediaEditor on Wed, 2011-01-05 16:12

As 2010 exits the stage, and as the cameras swivel toward 2011, SEA-Media is beginning to collect enough media entries to illustrate just what this web site is all about.

What is this site all about?  What distinguishes it from all of the other media sites out there?
 
Our name, SEA-Media, is a clue.  Given that the lion's share (lionfish's share?) of the living space on this planet is ocean, SEA-Media aims to address the fact that our waters, particularly our Pacific Northwest* waters, are woefully underrepresented in the media.
 
What kinds of media?  Another good question.  We think of media in a very inclusive way, putting print media, video, music, graphic arts, scientific articles, radio, sculpture, poetry, and even blogs under our umbrella labelled "media."  The point is that we learn about the world around us by looking through a wide variety of different lenses, so it seems reasonable to expect that we need just as much diversity of perspective to get to know our marine environment. 
 
Do we edit/curate our content?  Absolutely!  Even though we have limited the general topic of the media we will feature, and even though Pacific Northwest ocean related media is in the minority, there is still far more than we'd like to take responsibility for.  The media we'd really like to shine a light on are independent sourced media that don't get the sort of attention that is given to the offerings of the major media conglomerates.
 
Our media won't typically garner the popularity of "...most dangerous catch" or "shark week" or other intentionally sensational media.  Instead, most of the media we feature will be made because the artist, reporter, or scientist believes in the importance of the content, not because of its commercial appeal.
 
This is not without danger.  Marginalized media which lacks commercial muscle often doesn't attract sponsors very well, so the support of this project will rely on the generosity of people who believe in this cause.
 
You will notice that we have three main types of entries on this site.  Specific media items or descriptions of them are manually entered by our editors and by members.  Similarly, pointers to media sources are manually entered.  The third category is content that is added automatically via the magic of "syndication."  If you know of a blog or feed that features media about our northwest waters, let us know.
 
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*In the U.S.A., Pacific Northwest has a clear, though terra-centric meaning, but for those international visitors and oceanographers, we're really referring to the northern part of the eastern Pacific.