While the program is broadly welcoming, certain elements would make current timing a poor fit. They include: 

• You have limited experience as a civic media practitioner

• You’re head-down working on a  project(s) that requires your full attention

• You’re not open to reflection on your practice 

• You’re a full time student or tenured faculty (if so, please sign up for our academic community group)

• Your geographic location is more than 4 hours outside of Pacific Time (PT)

• You’re unable to accept the stipend in US funds and comply with local tax laws

• You’re unable to attend weekly program meetings over Zoom on Tuesdays from 1-2:30pm PT

While the term and the field are emergent, we see civic media as the use of today’s technologies to create media that connects with communities, inspires action, and helps sustain social change efforts. More importantly, we believe that civic media isn’t a thing, but a who, how, and why, embodied by the organizers, the content creators, the artists, the storytellers, and the people in our homes and communities who craft, make and share media. Rather than holding a fixed definition, we’re guided by the voices and stories of the people who live, breathe, and practice through these diverse forms of media. If you’re interested in those aspects of your practice, we welcome you to this ongoing discussion!

Many of our Fellows did not initially identify as civic media practitioners, but as innovators and outliers within (or connecting) other fields. The Fellowship is designed for practitioners who don’t fit easily or completely into established boxes, but who are engaged in what we call civic media. People who are willing to blaze new paths for social change, who appreciate rough edges, and who want to learn surprising new things—about themselves, others and the world—will find the program exciting and rewarding.

We recognize that there are many ways to create media that connect with communities, inspire action, and help sustain social change efforts – potential fellows may have transitioned from doing primarily creative work to more of a producer or leadership role, or vice versa (or would like to!). One characteristic of civic media work is that it’s collaborative at heart, and often involves many minds in many roles.

No degree is required. Fellows come from different backgrounds, modes of engagement, strengths, career stages and perspectives. While Fellows’ career stages vary widely, they all have a well of experience that supports reflection, sharing and harnessing insights with the community. This typically includes a deep understanding of their audience, practice and impact.

Motivations vary widely, but they almost always include some sort of significant change. Some may use their Fellowship time to step outside current involvements and to reflect and explore a new issue, media, technology or community. Others might have hit a proverbial wall in their own practice and need to reinvigorate themselves. Still others are undertaking a new effort and seeking fellow-travelers. The Fellowship has played a significant role in transition for many fellows. All, however, must be eager to contribute to the community and the field as we collectively develop and share a deeper understanding of Civic Media practices. Conversely, we have found that the fellowship is not well-suited to folks who are in a period of focus, production or other concerted effort.

Regardless of where Fellows are when they arrive, we aim to have them accelerating out of the Fellowship and on the path to their next adventure. That said, Fellows bring an infinitely wide range of interests to the group—we designed it to be be responsive to need, including providing a sounding board for working through challenges and decision points in everything from daily practice to larger project initiatives and career goals, exploring new themes and practices, and offering an accountability structure to help individual Fellows realize their goals. This blend of structure and emergence balances past lessons with the capacity to adapt to new people and context. It also means we will ask you to spend some time on things that may not feel directly related to your work, but are optimistic that your investment will be rewarded further down the line!

Our Fellowship meets virtually and we have had Fellows participate from across the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada. However, we run the Fellowship from Los Angeles, and Fellows need to be able to meet synchronously with the cohort once a week (noting a winter break).  To make this practical, we require Fellows to be geographically located within +/- 4 hours of the Pacific Time Zone. With the 2026/27 cohort, we plan to meet on Tuesdays from 1 – 2:30pm Pacific Time. Fellows should also expect to have a few one-on-one conversations with other fellows and staff each month (see “What’s the time commitment?” below for more details).

February 2 - February 22, 2026: Expressions of Interest Accepted

Mid-March, 2026: Invitations to Apply sent out; submission who did not advance notified

March 16-30, 2026: Invited Application Window (letters of recommendation also submitted)

May, 2026: Candidate Interviews

July, 2026: Cohort Selected; all candidates notified.

Sept – Dec, 2026 Fall Fellowship Program Sessions (14 sessions - every Tuesday)

Mid-Dec, 2026 – Feb, 2027: Winter Program Recess

Feb – May, 2027: Spring Fellowship Program Sessions (14 sessions - every Tuesday)

When we have a timeline for our next search, we’ll post it here!

We hope so! Barring unforeseen circumstances, we plan to open applications again in spring 2027. In the meantime, please join our mailing list (at the bottom of this website) to stay updated.

While each Fellow’s experience is singular, there are also some constants: fellows meet together on Zoom once a week to share their experiences, to get and give feedback on work, and to learn new skills and perspectives.

Generally, Fellows will spend their fellowship reflecting on their practice and working on public-interest and civic-oriented media, technologies, and acts. Exploration and creation are encouraged and may be individual or collaborative, short term or longer, fun or serious. In getting to know each other and each other’s work deeply, Fellows form lasting bonds and work with each other and others in guiding, joining and generating projects. Enthusiasm, empathy, patience, and commitment to working through ideas together are essential virtues!

While Fellows may come together over a shared passion for their work, they often find themselves needing space to pause and attend to their own well-being and the larger picture of their life. Taking a moment to return to center, to luxuriate in learning, and (figuratively) travel with people of other backgrounds and disciplines on analogous paths are key components of the program. We invite fellows to challenge themselves to stick to their goals while looking deeper within, quieting the noise and amplifying their intuition. We encourage fellows to set boundaries and say no to things while also getting out of their comfort zones to have hard conversations or participate in learning activities that they might not normally engage in.
In every part of the experience, we aim to make new connections and forge new collaborations, cultivating mentorship as a give-and-get exchange. Bringing varied expertise to the space, fellows are both teacher and student, sharing and completing projects together. Our hope (and experience so far) is that Fellows become vibrant members of a greater community, and expand their networks across new practices and disciplines.

Activities will include:

• Regular check-in calls to share updates, blockers and plans with each other.

• Presenting and participating in fellow-led deep dives on your ideas/projects.

• Getting to know each other and the larger community of senior fellows.

• Based on demand and capacity, we may add extra optional activities.

The fellowship is a 8-month part-time commitment (approximately 6 hours per week, except for winter break). This time is largely spent in collaboration and exchange (once weekly video calls, one-on-one check-ins, etc.) with fellowship peers as well as others on staff and in the community.

The fellowship spans the academic year, about 8 months. Our 2026/27 cohort will run from September 2026 through early May 2027, with a 7-week recess over the winter. After successfully completing the fellowship year, participants continue as Senior Fellows for three years (with possibility of extension) affording them a title, community, access to USC resources and the like, albeit with no ongoing financial support.

We see your time broken up roughly into three blocks with varying degrees of flexibility:

• Synchronously meeting online with other Fellows: Taking Zoom fatigue into account, our weekly calls are typically Tuesdays from 1 – 2:30pm Pacific Time (1.5 hours)

• One-on-one with other members of the cohort and or staff to complement group time, self-scheduled (~1.5 hours)

• Your own personal time thinking / dreaming / in practice about fellowship stuff! (~3 hours or more if you like)

The 2026/27 cohort will receive a monthly stipend of $2000 for 8 months ($16,000 total).

The Fellowship is not a faculty, staff, or student appointment and does not offer any additional benefits (healthcare, insurance, housing, retirement, tuition assistance, etc.).

Fellows have access to distance resources at USC, such as digital library resources.

Fellows are not able to officially enroll in classes (either for credit or for audit) as part of the program. However, many faculty have welcomed fellows to “sit in” informally and participate in classes this way. This is entirely at the discretion of the faculty and department for each class and arranged on a case by case basis. With most instruction happening in-person on the USC campus, this is primarily an option for LA-based fellows.

The Fellowship is not a place-based experience, but we look for opportunities to bring fellows together in real life when possible. For example, we’re planning events in a few locations across the country in 2026 to celebrate the launch of our book, We Are Civic Media, Fellows often organize to meet each other independently, and we are always excited to have folks visit us at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. While we hope to be able to get together, we’re not currently planning any in-person gatherings specifically for the 2026/27 cohort at USC. The Fellowship does not provide office space for Fellows, though all Fellows are most welcome to visit us on campus!

We anticipate approximately eight new fellows in our 2026/27 cohort. They join about 90 Senior Fellows, who are primarily alumni of the fellowship program along with other illustrious and engaged community members.

We have an open application process. All applicants must begin by completing the expression of interest between February 2-20, 2026. Expressions of interest are reviewed for eligibility and alignment, and selected applicants will be invited to complete the full application between March 16-30, 2026. The full application includes samples of work and contact info for two references.

We designed both the expression of interest and the full application to be a non-burdensome way for applicants to reflect on why they and the fellowship are a fit and what they hope to get from the experience (and the next chapter of their life). Some Senior Fellows report having found working on the application to be an excellent foundation for other solicitations.

Both expressions of interest and full applications are reviewed by a team of senior fellows and staff, with a small subset of applicants selected for an interview process, from which our cohort is assembled. Interviews are conducted jointly by staff and senior fellows over Zoom. While we review applicants individually, final decisions are informed by fit within the cohort as a whole.

In the last application cycle, the response to our call was tremendous - on the order of ten times what we had received in previous years. Our cohort of 10 fellows amounted to fewer than 1% of applicants. It felt wasteful for so many folks to complete a full application with so few spots available. The addition of this initial step allows us to ensure the final pool of applicants is aligned with the program, while saving you extra work if the fit isn’t right. For applicants who reach the second stage, your Expression of Interest will be appended to your full application so you don’t have to repeat yourself.

We have always sought to go beyond written communication and this lets you express yourself in a different way. It has the added benefit of foregrounding humanity amidst the global rise of AI-generated materials. You need not have fancy equipment, high production value or a gleaming on-camera persona – the aim is simply to get a sense of the person behind the application. Feel free to adapt this mode to meet your accessibility needs, and email us at annlab@usc.edu if you require specific accommodations.

While we hope you don’t need to create a new resume or CV on our account, we’ve found that they are a useful element of the application because they typically offer a bit of structure – including some activities and timeline – that gives additional coherence to the applicant’s journey. They also limit our need to rely on additional online research, which is both time-consuming and can be uneven. You may use a traditional resume, cv, linkedin profile or whatever you think will complement your primary materials and help us understand your experience.

The full application asks for examples of your work in order to get a better sense of the work you do and how you see it aligning with the concept of civic media. Most applicants provide a link to work they have referenced in their application. This could be a link to the work itself (e.g. video, writing, online platform, etc.) or a link to documentation or artifacts of the work (e.g. write-up of an event or program, presentation from a workshop, etc.). While we don’t have a strict limitation on the length of each sample, the review committee will have A LOT of samples to review, so please use excerpts from longer pieces (something that can be reviewed in 5-7 minutes) to help us focus our attention.

We are unable to accept file uploads directly through our application form. Please provide a link to media available online, whether through a public platform (website, social media, etc.), password-protected platform (e.g. Vimeo, etc. - provide the password with your link), or sharing platform (e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, Canva, etc. - make sure files are shared to “anyone with the link”).

Invited applicants will be asked to provide contact info for two references. These references should be familiar with you and your work. Your references will receive an invite to complete and submit our online recommendation form between 3/16/26 - 3/30/26. If your references fail to respond, we’ll still consider your application, however applications with references are generally stronger, so we advise you to reach out to those folks and let them know this is important to you.

We aim for this program and process to be accessible to all civic media practitioners, regardless of disability, and are committed to providing an inclusive application process and experience. If you need any accommodations to access or complete the submission materials, please let us know (email annlab@usc.edu with the subject line “CMF App accommodations”) so we can help!

Your application is an opportunity to introduce yourselves and your work to us and to let your personality, experience, and perspectives shine through. In reviewing applications that have been aided by generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, we’ve found that they homogenize what should be unique answers and create an overall less compelling and unique application. We’d really love to hear from you in your own words!

That being said, we do not have a rule barring its use completely and recognize that targeted use of AI may be helpful, perhaps as part of a brainstorming process or as part of your editing process. We do not consider solely AI-generated applications or AI translations of your application as appropriate (let alone helpful) uses of the technology. The application requires you to state whether you used AI assistance and if so, how. We do not use AI for the selection process.

This program was conceived to be—and will remain—dynamic and iterative. It is a work in progress that evolves based on Fellows’ experience, inputs and needs in conjunction with developments in the world around us. 

We began by offering both a residential and remote program, becoming entirely remote during the pandemic. We appreciated the increased accessibility, flexibility, and geographic diversity and stuck with a remote program. We are considering different modalities for the Fellowship, including re-incorporating the fellowship into the on-campus community, but as yet uncertain about future forms.

While previous cohorts had twice weekly Zoom meetings, it was a scheduling challenge for many Fellows, so we’re experimenting with a reduction on that synchronous time. This new approach requires consistent attendance and being even more intentional about our time together, while focusing on the elements of programming that have been the most impactful for our community.

Early cohorts were given a reimbursement stipend for materials and professional development, but this proved ill-suited for many of the expenses fellows found most helpful, leading us to include all funding in the cash stipend, so fellows can choose how to best equip themselves for their journey.

After five incredible cohorts and pandemic-driven program reinvention, we needed to turn our attention to cultivating our community of amazing Senior Fellows while reflecting more deeply on the future of the program.

Diversity is a super-power—a resource to be leveraged, not a problem to be managed—and attention to it runs through everything we do. As part of learning with and from each other, the work and well-being of our community are profoundly strengthened by the differences among us, education, geography, culture, lived experience, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, race, ethnicity, age, disability, neurotype, and much more. We actively seek and welcome people from across these and other spectra. Recognizing that it is a work forever in progress, we are committed to harnessing—and demonstrating—the dynamism, joy and strength of an inclusive and empowered community.

We’ve learned a lot so far and are committed to continuing that journey and manifesting those lessons in program improvements. We apply an inclusive lens to every corner of the program, recognizing that there is hard work to do every day to ensure we truly and unreservedly welcome the whole person into our shared space.

Our founding cohort began in January 2019 with four Residential Fellows, who were joined by five Remote Fellows in March 2019. You can meet the full founding cohort here. 

We were inspired to launch this fellowship because while there is tremendous innovation, progress and commitment among civic media practitioners, there are altogether too few supports for them to push boundaries, develop new approaches, and engage across contexts, communities, and disciplines and sectors. Their path is difficult not simply due to the subject matter, long hours or scarce resources, but because it is untrodden and their destination is emergent.

They know the danger of the bleeding edge, the challenge of learning how to actually do the work well, the frustration of not fitting into existing offerings neatly, and life between the rock and hard place of great expectations and never ending need. Painfully aware that these realities are exacerbated due to the relatively few communities working in these ways, we aim to support them directly and through engagement with a participatory civic media network.

Founding sponsorship and support of this program come from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, with inspiration, knowledge and camaraderie shared by a tremendous network of MacArthur’s grantees and other collaborating organizations, our Senior Fellows and other leaders, and the AnnLab team.

We continue to amend and expand the FAQ thanks to your questions and our learning, so feel free to check back periodically and or email questions to annlab@usc.edu.