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"What is the Free Music Archive? The Free Music Archive is an interactive library of legal audio downloads directed by legendary freeform radio station WFMU. This project wouldn't be possible without our curators, who select and upload all the music you'll find here. Curators come from all over the world, and have a wide range of experience with good music. They include freeform radio stations, netlabels, artist collectives, performance spaces, and concert organizers. If the FMA were a radio station, the curators would be our awesomely obsessive DJs."

From website: "This portal is a gateway to the cultural materials of Plateau peoples that are held in Washington State University's Libraries, Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections (MASC), the Museum of Anthropology and by national donors. The collections represented here have been chosen and curated by tribal consultants working in cooperation with University and Museum staff." The About section has a good description of the curation process. In summary, the digital collection allows annotation and content submission by registered tribal members and organizations; also allows visitors and guests to leave text, audio, and video comments on content. The Tribal Links section for each category connects the historical content to contemporary cultures. Content controls allow participants to flag content as sensitive; presumably there is non-public content that is somehow managed. Here is a record that has some annotation by tribal organization: http://plateauportal.wsulibs.wsu.edu/html/ppp/display.php?tid=2&cid=4&fid=147&pgst=0 Metadata seems to include geospatial metadata that allows mapping of buildings, etc. From what I understand, the software used to support this collection is based on an Australian project with similar approach. Unfortunately, not much on the site about the software tools. I will try to locate and add the Australian project and related documentation. Is this digital ethnography? It seems to approach it; but limited markup by tribal members and organizations gives limited view of offline implications of online data.

This curated collection of online tools, tutorials and resources is designed to help nonprofits and ethnic and community news organizations navigate the often intimidating and ever-evolving new media landscape. Whether you're a beginner or a pro, you will find valuable information on the technologies and best practices you need to tell a community's stories in compelling ways; engage new audiences; optimize your website; and measure online impact.

I think this article is really spot on in providing an important model for empirically studying and representing the spread of ideas (or controversies) between media and how participatory and professional media influence one another. The fact that this article is written as much for academics as for activists is also exciting (and scary) to me, as a means of thinking about agenda-setting and influence. How might access to these tools help activist campaigns, and how might they swing back to challenge them? How can you really measure effect? "Even when we are able to access the data we need for analysis, interpretation is complicated by the specificity of individualized media experiences, where we've each curated our own individualized lists of sources on platforms like Twitter and Facebook. This can leave us with very different understandings of the day's news. Is it possible to speak meaningfully about a media agenda when agendas are set by individuals following a combination of friends and professional sources they've chosen to meet personal preferences and needs?"