The NW-ARM is a collaboration of neighborhood, educational, social service, church, family, and citizen based organizations that have become associated for the purpose of addressing the issues of media violence in our communities. We are gravely concerned that the dominance of violence in our print and electronic media has had and continues to have a harmful influence on the development of our children, the strength of our family units, and the spirit of our communities.

We believe that we have a responsibility to our children, our families, and our communities and indeed to our very culture to resolve this issue on violence in our community. We feel it is incumbent upon the membership to educate the community on the societal cost of this type of "entertainment" and to find positive and creative ways to inform and entertain our children and our families.

We recognize the roles and responsibilities of parents, schools, churches and community in fostering a healthy community. we also recognize the roles and responsibilities of the film, television, internet, video game, electronic and print industries in the same process. We hope that in partnership, communities and the communication industries can assume a "Mantle of Stewardship" so critical to the health of our community.

Together, artist, producer, station manager, parent and child can make our understanding and use of media a blessing we can be proud of in the development of healthy communities across our nation in the Twenty-First Century.

The Department of Communication and Leadership Studies and The School of Professional Studies at Gonzaga University are the home for the Center for Media Literacy Excellence. The Center carries on the work of the Northwest Alliance for Responsible Media.

The purpose of this alliance is to:

• Explore positive solutions to this problem
• Organize and educate our community
• Plan and develop an effective resolution to the issues of media violence