Media Research and Action Project - Definition

The Boston College Media Research and Action Project (MRAP), founded in 1986, provides training and technical assistance to community and grassroots organizations. In collaboration with community and grassroots organizations, we address: the problems of negative interaction of community and mass media; and the lack of resources that community organizations and groups experience when they attempt to change negative stereotypical images of their communities and their issues as commonly portrayed in the mass media.

William Gamson, professor of sociology, social theorist and former president of the American Sociological Association, and graduate student colleagues at Boston College founded the Boston College Media Research and Action Project (MRAP). MRAP develops networks of community non-profit, labor and advocacy organizations with whom MRAP conducts collaborative action research on media related topics. MRAP began funded projects of direct action with community organizations in 1997, after several months of collaborative planning with the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute's Empowerment and Change Project (MLRI).

MRAP's primary focus of its work is with non-profit organizations in New England. Secondarily, MRAP collaborates with two national organizations that offer technical assistance, training and support for the development of public policy to community organizations and groups around the country. These organizations, the Preamble Center and Grassroots Policy Project of New York City and Washington D.C. share MRAP's vision of providing strategic development training to community organizations. MRAP's vision includes the development of a national media resource network, the Community Media and Internet Resource Network, including Internet and organizational linkages to other media research centers in other areas of the country.