At its last convention, DSA created a single editorial board for its two publications, Socialist Forum and Democratic Left - a change aimed at developing a “prolific, democratic, and well-resourced media operation” to serve our “organization, public outreach, and political strategy.” In support of the resolution, one co-author cited Tom Paine’s Common Sense and the Black Panther Party’s newspaper, Black Panther, as examples of how “stories set our movement on fire.” We can add William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator, the German Social Democratic Party’s Neue Zeit, and the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party’s Iskra to the long list of important dissident periodicals.

This National Political Education Committee (NPEC) panel will examine media in the United States. What’s the contemporary media landscape? What political and economic interests have a majority voice, and why? How did past left organizations, like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), think about media, and how did they generate their material? Finally, how should the left, including DSA, think about media? Why is it important for DSA to have a “prolific, democratic, and well-resourced media operation”?

Michael Crown is a member of Space Coast DSA and editor of Cosmonaut Magazine and DSA's Democratic Left.

Carl Davidson is a veteran writer and political theorist. He joined the New Left in the 1960s, worked as a national Secretary of SDS from 1966 to 68, and worked at the Guardian. Today, he is a DSA member rooted in the blue-collar realities of Beaver County, Western PA, where he was born and raised. He is the founder of the Online University of the Left and editor of the newsweekly LeftLinks.

Lee Artz (Ph. D., University of Iowa) is a former machinist and union steelworker, as well as a professor of media studies and director of the Center for Global Studies at Purdue University Northwest. Artz has published twelve books, including Global Media Dialogues: Industry, Politics, and Culture (2023), Spectacle and Diversity: Transnational Media and Global Culture (2022), and The Pink Tide: Media Access and Political Power in Latin America (2017). He has contributed dozens of book chapters and journal articles on global media, US popular culture, media practices, and social movements. He speaks regularly on media, contemporary politics, social movements, and global popular culture.