08 Feb Philadelphia Organization Spotlight: Love Now Media

BY ERICK BARRAGÁN RAMÍREZ

The cinéSPEAK Journal publishes a monthly Philadelphia Organization Spotlight highlighting a local film or moving image focused organization, business, or collective doing unique and impactful work.

Love Now Media is a media production company founded in Philadelphia in 2016. The organization’s mission centers around the love at the root of social justice organizing and aims to provide a space of healing for artists and activists. They utilize storytelling as a tool that can change social narratives and shine the spotlight on undervalued and underserved communities via multi-media platforms, innovative programming, and strategic consulting.

cinéSPEAK spoke with Jos Duncan Asé, Executive Producer and Publisher of Love Now Media, to explore the meaningful impact the organization has on the complex cultural kaleidoscope that is Philadelphia.

cinéSPEAK: What is unique about your organization within the Philadelphia landscape?

Love Now Media: The love in our work is rooted in community love (philia love). By amplifying acts of this kind of love, we cultivate space for the healing, growth, and sustainability of communities. This subsequently impacts the spaces where other forms of love exist and can thrive more healthily in a community that does experience trauma at a large scale and can simultaneously experience great acts of love as well. Love Now Media is an empathy-centered media company which produces actual news stories. We distribute that news from a solution-oriented framing in a fair and balanced [manner] which is often very different from establishment media.

cinéSPEAK: What is one thing the general public might not know about your organization?

Love Now Media: We recently launched a new print publication, Love Now Magazine. It will be released quarterly and will give us an opportunity to slow down, listen to authentic stories, and put love in people’s hands. While some may see print publications as a thing of the past, we see it as an opportunity to stay connected to people seeking hope and inspiration without the barrier of algorithms standing in between us. 

Through this publication we are able to provide joy and liberation seekers with tools to achieve those things in their daily lives. It also provides an opportunity for community members to be more media-informed, engaged and in a position to tell their own stories from an equitable landscape. We are a small and mighty team working daily to leave a lasting resounding impact grounded in love and centered on empathy, from the inside out.

cinéSPEAK: What impact do you hope your organization has in the Philadelphia community?

Love Now Media: Love Now Media and Love Now Magazine aim to provide empathy, care, wellness, [and] equity to those who are committed to community service, engagement and activism. We want [it] to be a space, an outlet for the healer to be a participant in their own healing. 

We amplify the voices of the undervalued and unheard from a solution-framed focus, which empowers the reader, participant, and the community at large to see themselves within those mirrors and unite all together for the mission of community love.

cinéSPEAK: What are some of the programs or opportunities at your organization that folks can get involved in?

Love Now Media: Community members have an opportunity to contribute to our news outlet as well as our poet’s press as writers. Community organizations, [including] local small businesses, nonprofits, and corporations, can engage us as consultants to lead storytelling workshops and love activations. Those same businesses and others can also utilize our print publication of Love Now Magazine to advertise their services to our readers and community.

cinéSPEAK: Tell us something exciting that is coming up for your organization

Love Now Media: The spring issue of our Love Now Magazine will be released March 15, 2024. We are also looking to hire an Editor for Love Now Magazine and Love Now Media.

This year we will also be releasing the second part of our youth led podcast, Dinner w/ Friends and a new podcast, Making Love, led by our Executive Producer & Publisher Jos Duncan Asé.

Love Now Media will also partner with Women’s Way this year for their 2024 Change the Narrative Fellowship to lead fellows in uncovering their personal stories; investigate the design and history of social justice issues; and reimagine and redesign both future systems and policies through a lens of love.

Stay up to date on our organization’s work by subscribing to our newsletter; follow us on all social platforms; and subscribe to our magazine. 

*Featured Image: Image of youth storytellers Nathan Mutale, Journey Moses, and Taylyn McMillan. Image credit: Tezarah Wilkins.

Would you like your organization to be featured in a future spotlight? Please fill out the  Philadelphia Organization Spotlight form. The cinéSPEAK Journal maintains sole discretion over  the publishing of any information provided via the form. Questions: journal@cinespeak.org.

---

Erick Barragán Ramírez is an immigration specialist at Catholic Social Services of Philadelphia, PA.  In addition to being an avid cinephile he serves as a board member of the Association of Mexican Business Owners of Philadelphia. With a background in law studies in Mexico, he came to the US in 2017 and actively volunteers at various organizations supporting imm