Screenshot of the Mikawa Medifes 2014 website

Citizen media makers in Japan are gathering in the Mikawa region of Japan's Aichi prefecture this weekend for the 12th annual citizen media conference Mikawa Medifes 2014 [ja]. Dozens of sessions about civic media will be held at the Kariya City Cultural Center from May 3 to 5, 2014.

Themed in “the media near you”,  the conference counts the participation of local media makers such as Kariya's citizen broadcasting station Channel Daichi [ja] and community radio station fm838 [ja]. Participants will share their case studies and practices in areas such as film production, hyper-local media, online broadcasting, remixing newspapers [ja] and student-produced radio programs.

Over three days, the conference seeks to exchange ideas and information about the relationship between civic engagement and participatory media for the future.