Hobbs cites a new study conducted at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy which found that students in grades five through eight, particularly kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, tended to post lower scores on standardized tests once computers and high speed Internet access reached their homes.

Hobbs, a national leader in the fields of digital and media literacy who founded and runs Temple University’s Media Education Lab, explains why home computer access could lead to a widening of the achievement gap:

In many homes, the computer is now primarily an entertainment device, for downloading music, watching videos, playing games and social networking.

While some people may assume that the computer is a research tool, used for exploring the world, keeping up with current events and learning new things, in many families, people lack the knowledge and skills to use it for these purposes.

Parents’ behavior and attitudes toward technology are a critical factor in predicting a child’s experience with various media. Research shows that students who have at least one parent with a graduate degree are significantly more likely to create content, online or off-line, than others.

So what can we do?  How about a nationwide commitment to integrating digital and media literacy as critical elements of education at all levels, as the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy has recommended? And funding and supporting public libraries and other community institutions as centers of digital and media training for adults, another Knight Commission recommendation?

The Knight Commission has urged the federal government to launch a national initiative to assess the quality of digital and media literacy programs in the nation’s schools. If the Duke study’s findings hold true across the country, then such an initiative borders on necessity as federal officials at the FCC and elsewhere work to expand broadband and computer access and adoption (goals that the Knight Commission has also endorsed).

As the Knight Commission indicated, it will take collaboration among federal, state and local education officials to produce the reforms that are needed.  Other community stakeholders have a role to play as well.

To promote a broader public discussion and explore what collaborations might work to achieve widespread digital literacy, the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program has commissioned Professor Hobbs to prepare an action agenda that addresses these needs. Hobbs’ recommendations will be released as a white paper in the fall. Her ideas will be previewed at this week’s FOCAS 2010 meeting.

Related posts:

1. Calls for Greater National Investment in Digital Literacy Grow
2. One Economy’s National Digital Literacy Initiative
3. Digital Literacy Skills Essential to Closing Broadband Gap

Live webcast at www.aspeninstitute.tv

The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program, with Senior Sponsorship from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, presents this year’s Forum on Communications and Society (FOCAS), to be held August 15-18, on the theme News Cities: The Next Generation of Healthy Informed Communities. The 2010 FOCAS, occurring on the campus of the Aspen Institute in Aspen, Colorado, will aim to develop a set of actionable steps to improve the information health of communities. In so doing, it will be advancing the recommendations of the Knight Commission.

Background:
In October of last year, the Knight Commission released its report, Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age, making 15 recommendations based on its three major objectives: maximizing the availability of relevant and credible information, enhancing the information capacity of individuals, and promoting public engagement. The Commission’s recommendations cover a continuum of information needs, from good journalism to digital and media literacy, from universal broadband and open networks to transparent government and public engagement. At the same time, the Commission envisioned eight elements of a “Healthy Informed Community.”  Citing the Knight Commission report, the Federal Communications Commission in January 2010 launched a major inquiry into the Future of Media & Information Needs of Communities in a Digital Age.  The Knight Foundation and the Aspen Institute have commissioned white papers to suggest ways to move the recommendations forward.  FOCAS 2010 will explore these strategies.  Government officials, media and business executives, civic leaders, consumer and user representatives, and other thought leaders will meet in roundtables and working groups to arrive at specific action steps that communities can take to improve their information health.

FOCAS 2010 will be broadcast live at www.aspeninstitute.tv beginning Monday, August 16, at 8:30 a.m. Mountain Time (10:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time).  Tune in and join the dialogue on our interactive livestream.

The full schedule of the event is available at the FOCAS 2010 webpage. The Twitter hashtag for this event is #FOCAS10.

FOCAS 2010 leaders and experts include:

Marcus Brauchli, The Washington Post
John Carroll, (formerly of) Los Angeles Times
Mark Contreras, The E.W. Scripps Company
Commissioner Michael Copps, Federal Communications Commission
Chairman Julius Genachowski, Federal Communications Commission
Patricia Harrison, Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Reed Hundt, Coalition for Green Capital
Alberto Ibargüen, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Paula Kerger, Public Broadcasting Service
Bill Kling, American Public Media
Marissa Mayer, Google, Inc.
Craig Newmark, craigslist.org
Donna Nicely, Nashville Public Library
Paul Sagan, Akamai
Vivian Schiller, National Public Radio
Paul Steiger, ProPublica
Ernest J. Wilson III, Annenberg School for Communication

The full list of FOCAS 2010 participants is available for download here.

Please tune in and join the discussion at www.aspeninstitute.tv starting Monday at 8:30 a.m. mountain time (10:30 a.m. eastern time).

The live schedule at www.aspeninstitute.tv is as follows:

Monday, August 16, 2010
(all times listed are mountain standard time)
8:30 a.m. – 8:45 a.m.________Opening of Forum – Introductory Remarks
8:45 a.m. – 10:15 a.m._______Plenary Roundtable I:  Local Journalism 2010
10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.______Plenary Roundtable II:  Public Media Reform

Tuesday, August 17, 2010
8:45 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.________Plenary Roundtable III:  Universal Broadband Access
9:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m._______Plenary Roundtable IV:  The New Literacies
11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.______ Plenary Roundtable V:  Public Engagement

Wednesday, August 18, 2010
8:45 a.m. – 10:15 a.m._______Plenary Roundtable VI.  Recommendations from the Working Groups
10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.______Plenary Roundtable VII.  Moving Forward: Synthesis of Action Steps

For more information on this event, please visit the FOCAS 2010 webpage.

Last year’s FOCAS, Of the Press: Models for Preserving American Journalism, looked at the innovations, experimental business models, and evolving philosophies to preserve journalism as a critical instrument in American society. The report of the 2009 FOCAS is available here.

The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program addresses the societal impact of communications and information technologies, and provides a multi-disciplinary venue for considered judgment on communications policy issues.

Related posts:

1. Aspen Institute to Advance Recommendations of the Knight Commission
2. League of Women Voters to Examine Knight Commission Recommendations
3. Knight Commission Report Presented to CPB Board

Blair Levin, Senior Fellow at the Aspen Institute

Blair Levin is a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute’s Communications and Society Program. J. Erik Garr is a partner at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants. Both were instrumental in leading the development of the National Broadband Plan at the Federal Communications Commission. The following op-ed, originally published on July 16, 2010 by The Washington Post, presents a vision for how new and creative thinking about broadband and other digital technologies can transform education through the creation of information-rich learning environments.

A New America Through Broadband

By Blair Levin and J. Erik Garr

The Texas State Board of Education voted in May to adopt a controversial set of guidelines for social studies and history textbooks. Countless hours of debate and indignation — and countless words in newspapers and on blogs — were dedicated to such questions as whether Texas schools should teach about the Contract With America and John Calvin.

These issues are important to get right. But the debate misses a more important question: Why are we still using ink-on-paper textbooks, when digital technology offers a much better way?

Today, Johnny opens his math textbook and reads a chapter. He understands parts of it, but not all. He does the 10-question homework on paper and hands it in. Later, he gets the homework back and sees that he answered seven questions correctly.

Envision this: Johnny pulls up a math chapter on his e-reader. When he doesn’t understand something, he clicks a link and watches a video of a great teacher presenting the concept, perhaps using a cool simulation. If Johnny still doesn’t understand, he can chat online with a tutor familiar with the material. When Johnny does his homework on his e-reader, he immediately learns what he got wrong and sees an explanation based on his particular mistake. Johnny’s parents receive a text or e-mail saying that he finished his math homework. The teacher receives a report that evening outlining what the class found straightforward and which problems puzzled students, along with suggestions on how to address the inadequacies. The school board receives data that lead to constant improvement in the effectiveness of course material.

Replacing textbooks with e-readers would create a platform that lets students learn as much as they can, as fast as they can. The teacher is freed from drudgery, such as correcting homework, and given the tools to teach more effectively. Parents and school officials get data that help them guide the educational experience.

And those improvements are just the beginning. Because the learning happens on a digital platform, everything about the experience can be captured. Teaching can be constantly analyzed and improved.

Equipment such as the iPad and technological developments such as 4G wireless and massive computing power mean that the technology needed for such a platform is available today, at costs cheaper than providing material that Gutenberg could have produced.

For the sake of our children, and for the competitiveness of the nation, America ought to be aggressively developing a new category of educational content, delivered using high-speed Internet access.

Unfortunately, America is not grasping the opportunity that broadband presents. As the leaders of the team that prepared the National Broadband Plan that was presented to Congress in March, we have seen that the public debate on broadband focuses too much on how our networks compare with those in other countries. Instead, the discussion should focus on how to use those networks here in America and rethink how we deliver key services.

And it’s not just education. Broadband networks can create ecosystems for health care, such as through remote, in-home monitoring, that can improve patient well-being while lowering costs. In public safety, emergency alerts delivered through mobile devices can be far more targeted and effective than many current practices are in providing critical information in a disaster.

The barriers to shifting the delivery of services to modern technology are many. Outmoded licensing and reimbursement rules create significant disincentives. Incumbent providers often throw up obstacles to new methods.

But perhaps the biggest barrier is the difficulty in shifting to a new type of thinking. In the 1997 business classic “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen showed that successful companies are usually late to employ more efficient, radically different approaches to meet their clients’ needs.

Still, however hard the problem of innovation, we must solve it — or U.S. leadership in the world will be threatened. America invented the Internet and is the leader in developing the applications the world uses to search, to connect to friends, to shop and to do many other things. Our country should also be the leader in using broadband to reinvent how we deliver education, health care, public safety and other government services.

Instead, we appear to be suffering from an innovator’s dilemma: spending all our time debating what to put in the history books, without rewriting history by questioning the need for the book in the first place.

Related posts:

1. FCC Takes Steps to Implement National Broadband Plan
2. National Broadband Plan Debuts
3. Personal Stories of Broadband Highlight Digital Inclusion Summit

Blackwater, Missouri Photo credit: KansasExplorer 3128 on Flickr

The New York Times recently ran an article (”High Speed for the Sparsely Wired,” July 9, 2010) reminding us that the September 30th deadline for awarding broadband stimulus grants is approaching. The Times article by Susannah G. Kim highlights the pending impact of federal stimulus money to extend high speed Internet access to rural areas.

Now that grant-winning projects are underway, residents in rural communities from North Carolina to Kansas to remote parts of Alaska are expressing optimism that broadband access will give them the tools they and their children need to compete and prosper in the future.  I hope they succeed. To read several of the public comments in response to Kim’s article, there are people who don’t seem to care if they do. 

One commenter from Troy, New York (recommended by 41 readers) wrote:

Boo hoo hoo. You live in a remote area, and can’t have high speed internet. I’m heartbroken. Have the government spend a few billion…..and send the bill to my grandchildren.

And from Cleveland, Ohio (recommended by 80 readers):

…These folks don’t need no stinkin’ internet to access their Higher Authority. We gave them dial up telephone service years ago, let them live with that until they sign onto the concept of paying for what they get. Ingrates.

And this one from Jersey City, New Jersey (12 recommendations):

Wait. High-speed internet is a widely-available service to anyone living in a city, the suburbs, or the exburbs. How did it become the federal government’s responsibility to provide this service to people who have made the CHOICE to live where the service isn’t available?

There’s no doubt that delivering meaningful affordable broadband access to every community in America presents a great challenge, especially in these tough economic times. But information is not a luxury and never has been, even if some forms of content seem frivolous and diverting. Information is a necessity, as vital to the healthy functioning of communities as clean air, safe streets, good schools and public health. Information is important to help citizens coordinate, solve problems, ensure public accountability and stay connected.

Reasonable minds will differ on how best to pay for the enormous investment that such an undertaking will require. Considering the magnitude of the need, it’s obvious that, like the interstate highway system, rural electrification, and universal childhood immunizations, it won’t happen without a combination of private and public investment (as the Knight Commission has observed). Nor should we discount government’s interest in promoting the diffusion of information technologies, given that information is often a public good and such investments do have significant beneficial educational and economic ripple effects.  

The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation together are exploring public policies that can realize the Knight Commission’s recommendations to promote universal broadband access and adoption. We have commissioned a white paper by former National Broadband Plan Executive Director Blair Levin, who is looking at how existing funds already allocated for various telecommunications, information and community uses can be redirected to meet these needs (this is just one of several policy options Levin’s paper will address). In fact, we’ve commissioned eight white papers, to be published later this year, aimed at offering policy options at the local, state and national levels for implementing the Knight Commission’s 15 recommendations. 

The information issue is everyone’s issue. If some of the public comments to the Times article are any indication, changing individual attitudes about the importance of information and information tools in supporting individual and collective community life may be as challenging in the long run as achieving universal broadband. But I hope not.

Related posts:

1. Congress Considers Universal Service Reforms to Boost Rural Broadband
2. Recommendation 8
3. Op-ed: In the Digital Age, We Need Universal, Affordable Broadband

The Knight Commission report’s Appendix I — Taking Stock: Are You a Healthy Information Community? — provided the framework for the group exercise at the workshop.

Following a welcome by LWVUS National President Mary G. Wilson, Charlie Firestone, executive director of the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program, kicked-off the workshop with an overview of the Knight Commission’s findings and recommendations. A panel discussion and group exercise followed.

Other experts featured at the workshop included Leonard Witt, director of the Center for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University; Jim Walls, former head of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s investigative team who now runs Atlanta Unfiltered, his own online investigative blog; and  Steven Clift, founder of E-Democracy.org, whose presentation focused on information needs to support open democracy and “Sunshine 2.0.”

Lenn Witt posted a video interview with Charlie following the workshop (”Firestone: Healthy Communities Need High Quality Information“)  in which Charlie points out the importance of engaging community-focused organizations like the League of Women Voters  in a broad, sustained effort to bring communities together around the issue of information health in the same way that community leadership has coalesced around urban renewal, education and other critical issues.

Related posts:

1. League of Women Voters to Examine Knight Commission Recommendations
2. Knight Commission Presents Workshop on Information Needs
3. News Leadership 3.0 — National Broadband Plan: Opportunities for community news, civic engagement

Mike Fancher

As part of the ongoing work to promote the Knight Commission’s vision for healthy, informed communities, the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program has commissioned a series of policy papers to detail specific steps for implementing the Commission’s 15 recommendations. The research and writing of these papers is now underway, with publication slated for the fall.

We recently invited a small group of forward-thinking journalists, news entrepreneurs, analysts and community leaders to discuss and debate specific proposals for promoting healthy news and information flows at the local level. The half-day meeting centered around a “critique” of the first draft of a white paper on local journalism (recommendation 1) written by Mike Fancher, who for 20 years was executive editor of the Seattles Times.

Len Witt, who runs the Center for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University and participated in our “critique” session, interviewed Mike about the work that he is doing to identify specific actions that can promote the growth of local journalism through marketplace incentives. Here’s a short excerpt of the interview.

Fancher: The themes that I’m working on are essentially experimentation, collaboration, and engagement. Experimentation – nobody knows what’s going to work. So let’s try lots of things. Collaboration – it’s in the DNA of journalists to be very competitive and independent. But in this day and age, with fewer and fewer resources and journalistic organizations, and more and more startups, we need to collaborate a lot more than we ever did in the past. And engagement is that journalism is for the public, and we need to bring the public into this conversation and let them help us create the journalism of the future.

To watch video of the full interview and read the transcript, click here.

Related posts:

1. Of the Press: Models for Transforming American Journalism
2. Future of Journalism – Waxman Sees Government Role
3. Boosting Production of Local Civic Journalism

"Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society." Oliver Wendell Holmes quote on IRS headquarters, Washington, DC. Photo credit: afagen on Flickr.

A couple of things became clearer at this week’s third and presumably final Federal Trade Commission workshop on the future of journalism (“How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?” June 15, 2010, at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C.). For a good summary of the meeting, see Fiona Morgan’s “A subtle victory for policy interventions in media at the FTC workshop” at New America Foundation.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz made it clear that the commissioners are not inclined to reach for new antitrust exemptions for the news industry or recommend changes to copyright. Leibowitz called the commission “allergic to antitrust exemptions, as well as changes to expand copyright law.” He also stated rather forcefully that the “FTC will not support taxes to subsidize journalism or to fund any particular medium of journalism.”

The commissioners and staff present seemed to agree with nearly all of the speakers participating in the workshop, the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, and critics and observers elsewhere, that they don’t want government picking winners or influencing content.

Speaking for the Knight Commission, Charles M. Firestone of the Aspen Institute observed that, for local journalism, we are in a time of considerable experimentation and will be for the foreseeable future. In this environment, he said, “the Knight Commission preferred market forces to develop new business models.”

So what role is left as the FTC considers how government might support journalism?

Firestone and other speakers encouraged the FTC to let competition run, but said the commission might consider content-neutral measures that can support an environment for competition. One such area relates to tax treatment of journalistic organizations.

While the Knight Commission did not endorse any specific tax proposals aimed at sustaining journalism, Firestone presented three possibilities for equalizing or otherwise improving the tax  treatment not-for-profit journalistic enterprises. The proposals come from “Taxes,  Local Journalism, and Transition to the Public Sector,” a discussion paper prepared for the Knight Commission by Ohio State University law professor Stephanie Hoffer.

1.    Allow a full or partial (50%) deduction for the contribution of a journalistic enterprise to not-for-profit organizations. This would ease the transition of news businesses from a for-profit to a not-for-profit business model.

2.    Allow deferral of gain in the acquisition of a for-profit journalistic enterprise by a not-for-profit. Currently, tax law prefers exchanges between corporations over donation to a not-for-profit by allowing significant tax advantages for trading ownership interest in a news organization for ownership interest in another organization (aka, a stock swap). Allowing a deferral of taxable gain if the news organization goes to a journalistic nonprofit would put nonprofits on the same footing as for-profits.

3.    Allow tax exempt or reduced bond financing for the nonprofit acquisition of a news enterprise. Because a for-profit entity can deduct interest payments from its gross adjusted income, the overall cost of borrowing money is lower. Finding a way to lessen the cost of borrowing by not-for-profit news organizations would put them on more equal footing with their for-profit peers.

It’s not clear whether the FTC will include these or other proposals for tax changes in its final report, which is due out in the fall. And the issue of not-for-profit ownership of news enterprises should not downplay the vital role served by a vibrant, diverse and competitive for-profit journalism sector in American democracy, as the Knight Commission has recognized. However, addressing structural impediments in tax policy, through these or other measures, would recognize the growing role of nonprofits in the emerging media marketplace.

What do you think about these proposals? Would more permissive tax treatment for journalistic nonprofits have an appreciable impact on serving the information needs of communities? Is it a fair approach toward reforming media policy?

Related posts:

1. Finding a new model for news reporting
2. FTC Announces Second Workshop on the Future of Journalism
3. Reed Hundt to Present KnightComm Report at FTC Workshop on Future of Journalism

To address this urgent need, we at the National Black Programming Consortium, an organization with a 30-year track record of increasing capacity in minority communities to create and use public media, are launching the Public Media Corps, using a service core model to encourage and support healthy, hyper-local twenty-first century community information ecosystems, using public media assets and tools as a driver of demand.

“We need to tackle the challenge of connecting 93 million Americans to our broadband future,” said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski at the release of the National Broadband Plan. “In the 21st century, a digital divide is an opportunity divide.”

The Fellows chosen, representing a range of professional skills from experienced veteran journalists and educators to recent college graduates with training in the latest media technologies, will work to close that opportunity divide by connecting schools, museums, libraries and other important hubs in underserved communities to public media tools and assets that include technology-rich teaching curricula and materials, relevant and timely public interest content and technology training to increase the capacity of local non-profits as well as to increase the digital skill set of the community at large.

On Friday, June 25th as part of the Silverdocs Film Festival, the official launch event, a panel moderated by Dr. Michael Eric Dyson and taped live to air on his public radio show, will introduce the class of 2010 and the thirteen partners in the beta phase of the project. The partners include three at-risk high schools, a community museum and neighborhood library, three community centers serving predominantly African American and Latino residents of DC, and five public broadcasting entities including WHUT Howard University Television, WETA, WEAA-FM and PBS.

And, now, introducing the 2010 inaugural class of the Public Media Corps:

Kibwe Chase-Marshall – video and digital producer and designer
T. Je’Nein Farrell – former adjunct professor, producer, videographer and director
Brennan Gerald – virtual brand and marketing consultant
Khalil Gill – illustrator, web designer and educator
Robin Hamilton – freelance writer and television reporter
Ivana Jackson – recent journalism graduate
Mike Janssen – writer and public media professional
Molly McDonnell – journalist and web designer
Gerardo I. Medrano, former researcher, curator and education specialist
Ashley Mosley – video producer and community organizer
Selina Musuta – radio producer and DJ
LaToya Peterson – blogger and new media entrepreneur
Olivia Rubagumya – journalist and human rights media programmer
Danielle Scruggs – photographer, writer and blogger
Ariel Valdez – journalist and musician with public radio experience

For more information on the project, the partners or the Fellows, please visit: www.publicmediacorps.org.

Jacquie Jones is Executive Director of the National Black Programming Consortium (NPBC) and a guest blogger for Knightcomm.org. She can be e-mailed at jacquie-AT-nbpc.tv

Related posts:

1. Senior Public Media Officials Meet to Create New Public Media Corps
2. Digital Literacy Skills Essential to Closing Broadband Gap
3. Corporation for Public Broadcasting Launches Local Journalism Initiative

LWV 2010 Convention

 The League of Women Voters will feature the work of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy at its annual convention in Atlanta this month. The 2010 Convention, with the theme “Making Democracy Work,” will be held June 11-15, 2010.

Charlie Firestone, executive director of the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program, will lead-of the first convention workshop with an overview and presentation of key Knight Commission recommendations related to LWV’s mission. The workshop, “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy and Citizen Participation in the Digital Age,” is designed as a training opportunity for LWV members to explore what role the national and local LWV organizations can play to bring about healthier, more informed communities.

 The workshop will feature a panel of experts and a small group exercise adapted from Appendix I in the Informing Communities report. Participants will be asked to rate their own communities’ information health, identify challenges, and suggest what role the League can play is resolving those challenges.

Information about the convention is available on the League of Women Voters website. Follow the convention on Twitter (#LWVAtlanta2010).

Related posts:

1. Knight Commission Presents Workshop on Information Needs
2. Civic Leaders Consider How to Meet Community Information Needs
3. Waldman Appointed by FCC to Explore Knight Commission Recommendations

Photo Credit: gennaro cicalese.it on Flickr

Since the release of the report of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, we’ve seen efforts in communities across the country to take stock of their unique information needs and assets. One of the great things about these case studies is that they are bringing a discussion that has raged largely in professional and academic circles at the national level into the mainstream of public conversation at the community level.

In some cases, the Knight Commission’s call to action inspired the community assessments as part of the process of addressing the overall health of the community. In others, the inquiries are part of the broader movement concerned with the future of media and journalism at a time when both local and national media systems are undergoing massive restructuring. Regardless of origin, these case studies are available to other communities as potential models for engaging in similar assessments toward creating informed communities, addressing community affairs and pursuing common goals.

Each community has a unique blend of interconnected networks of people, organizations, institutions, technological infrastructure, content, habits and values that make up its information ecosystem. Taking stock of the information resources in your community and identifying what information-resources the community needs to remain strong, healthy and dynamic are the first steps toward building a healthy, informed community.

This is the essence of the Knight Commission’s Recommendation #5: develop systematic quality measures of community information ecologies, and study how they affect social outcomes.

The problem at the moment is a lack of good tools for communities to assess the quality of local information ecologies. The Commission noted:

There are no widely accepted indices for comparing different communities’ ecologies or determining whether information flow within a particular community is improving or degrading. Communities need measure of both kinds. If activists, policy makers, and the general public had more concrete ways of describing, measuring and comparing the systems of community news and information flow, it would be much easier to mobilize public interest around community information needs.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which funded the Knight Commission and continues to sponsor its ongoing work to implement the 15 Commission recommendations, is currently at work to develop better tools to measure the information health of communities. (As a precursor to Knight’s current work, see Esther Thorson & Eric Newton’s paper, “Indexing Community Information Needs in a Democracy,” which contains a checklist outlining some basic requirements for community information needs.) The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program, which provided the institutional home of the Knight Commission, has commissioned a series of white papers on various aspects of  building healthy information communities. (These will be published in Fall 2010.) In the meantime, KnightComm.org is collecting information about and links to community information case studies and updating the list here.

Our aim is to use crowd sourcing and collaborative methods to tease out a template that will be a useful resource for hosting public conversations and community information summits and assessing the information resources available. Because this is only a starting point, we need your help to grow this list. Post information and links about community information assessments in the comments section below, or send me an email at garmer@aspeninstitute.org with sample documents, links or  other resources for assessing community information resources and I’ll add the information.

The Community Information Ecosystem Assessments below highlights published case studies of projects that have inventoried all or part of the information and media-related resources that exist in the community.

Additionally, there is a growing number of local and regional conversations about strengthening  the information environment and creating more engaged communities, such as those convened by Journalism That Matters in Seattle and Detroit. These convenings–billed as summits, conferences, “unconferences”,  gatherings, conversations or other titles–can be invaluable to the understanding of the community’s information ecosystem and lay the groundwork for more rigorous, detailed case studies. Thus, I’ve started a second list below of Community Information Summits and Conversations.

This is most certainly a work in progress, not a finished product. Neither list is intended to be exhaustive and I’m sure there are many endeavors which we’ve missed that deserve to be included. This is why collaborative technologies and crowd sourcing techniques are so important–please join our effort to build up this database of information!

Take a look at what others are doing in their communities to mobilize public interest in creating more informed communities. Share with us what’s happening in your own community. And join us in highlighting new and ongoing projects that measure and improve the information health of America’s communities.
Community Information Ecosystem Assessments (by state)

Illinois | Chicago
The New News: Journalism We Want and Need
Community Media Workshop commissioned by The Chicago Community Trust, June 2009.
Economic pressures on one hand and continuing democratization of news on the other
have already changed the news picture in Chicago, as elsewhere in the U.S.

Maryland | Baltimore
How News Happens: A Study of the News Ecosystem of One American City
Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, January 11, 2010.
The study suggests that while the news landscape has rapidly expanded, most of what the public learns is still overwhelmingly driven by traditional media—particularly newspapers.

Oregon | Portland
City of Portland Social Media Conversation Audit
Jamie Beckland, White Horse (digital marketing agency), Portland, Oregon, December 2009.
Study finds local blogs beating legacy media on substantive policy discussions.

Pennsylvania | Philadelphia
Exploring a Networked Journalism Collaborative in Philadelphia
Jan Schaeffer, J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, April 2010.
The city is awash in media and technological assets that can pioneer a new Golden Era of Journalism.

Pennsylvania | Scranton
An Information Community Case Study: Scranton
Jessica Durkin and Tom Glaisyer, New America Foundation’s Media Policy Initiative, May 2010 (release 1.0).
An industrial city with a media ecosystem yet to take advantage of digital opportunities.

Washington | Seattle
An Information Community Case Study: Seattle
Jessica Durkin, Tom Glaisyer, Kara Hadge, New America Foundation’s Media Policy Initiative, May 2010 (release 1.0).
A digital community still in transition.

Community Information Summits and Conversations (by date)

Re-imagining News & Community in the Pacific Northwest, Journalism That Matters, Seattle, Washington, January 7-10, 2010.

Meeting the Information Needs of Southwestern Vermont, Shires Media Partnership, Inc., Bennington Free Library, Bennington, Vermont, January 24, 2010.

Creating an Online Community Hub, Bill Densmore and Gail Burns, Williamstown, Massachusetts, March 1, 2010. See http://williamstownbeat.org/.

Informing Scranton: Gauging Community News and Information Needs, Jessica Durkin/University of Scranton, Scranton, Pennsylvania, March 3, 2010.

Create or Die, Journalism That Matters, Detroit, Michigan, June 3-6, 2010.

Related posts:

1. How Will Comcast Ruling Affect the Information Health of Communities?
2. How ‘healthy’ is Scranton’s news and information system?
3. Close-up on Seattle: Local Blogs and Community Collaboration

New America Foundation, Free Press and Media Access Project submitted the following comments to the Federal Communications Commission’s examination of The Future of Media and Information Needs of Communities in a Digital Age.  Heeding a call by the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, the FCC established the Future of Media inquiry to consider whether the rapidly evolving media environment warrants changes to federal media and communications regulation. A final report by Steven Waldman, who is leading the inquiry, is expected in the fall.

New American Foundation, Free Press, and Media Access Project et al. respectfully submit these comments in the FCC’s inquiry into the Future of Media.  This proceeding represents an ambitious, yet critical undertaking to examine the news and information needs of communities in light of economic and technological shifts in the media industry.  These comments encompass four broad areas for the Commission’s consideration:

1. The information needs of communities and whether they are being met
2. The trends and challenges in the provision of news and information
3. FCC-specific policy recommendations to increase transparency and accountability of media, as well as to promote access to diverse sources of information
4. Policy recommendations that fall outside the FCC’s regulatory jurisdiction, but that are nonetheless an important component of a holistic approach to the crisis in media

Information Needs of Communities

While it is true that most people now have access to more information than at any previous time in human history, it also unfortunately remains the case that race, gender, income, education, geography, age, disability, and sexual orientation all continue to unjustly shape Americans’ opportunities.  Many communities, both of identity and geography, have never been well-served by existing media outlets and infrastructure.  Communities of color, native and rural areas have often been excluded from access to robust infrastructure and emerging technologies, and the issues affecting them have too often been unexplored by professional journalists.  New technologies are creating opportunities to address that, but technological change alone will not create equitable representation or access.
We determine that despite the proliferation of new technologies that have the potential to enhance access to information, by and large the information needs are not being met.  In particular, the unevenly distributed nature of the “digital revolution” and the lack of local information equality have a negative impact on both health and economic well being of communities.

Trends and Challenges in the Provision of News and Information

The digital revolution has upset old business models – particularly those of the advertising-reliant variety.  As a consequence, there exists a looming – though not certain – market failure in the production and circulation of publicly relevant news, especially at the local level. Traditional media are scrambling to maintain balance in the new environment, but have been slow to adapt.  However, while there is much cause for concern about the ability of the new media environment to meet the needs of a democratic society, there are also innovations currently underway in newsrooms.  While many are in their infancy, they hold the promise for enhancing both production of information as well as engaging communities and individuals in creative new media endeavors.

Additionally, new journalistic and civic engagement ecosystems are sprouting up in local news markets across the country, but these systems are emerging in a halting and uneven fashion. As has been widely noted, many of the newest digital media outlets do little or no original reporting. What’s worse, practices of “digital redlining” and the consequences of the migration of legacy news organizations to suburban markets have the potential to replicate patterns of clustered “information paucity” that existed in the pre-digital era.

FCC policies can enhance the availability and diversity of information

The FCC has a legitimate interest and important to role to play in promoting a vibrant Fourth Estate.  Historically, the FCC has sought to foster, not only a substantial quantity of information, but also quality of, as well as access to information by promoting competition, diversity, and localism.  We suggest a number of FCC actions, many on existing proceedings that would preserve or enhance the production and availability of news and information.  Moreover, none of these policy recommendations involve any foray by the FCC into content regulation.  In particular we recommend that the FCC:

• Maintain local media ownership limits, and prevent any contractual circumvention of the FCC’s media ownership rules.
• Protect the open nature of the Internet
• Increase transparency and accountability of local media through reformation of the sponsorship identification rules, and implementation of enhanced reporting requirements and online public file requirements for local broadcasters
• Act on a still extant Petition for Inquiry into the use of misinformation and hate speech in media
• Conduct additional information collection and analyses on broadband  and media ownership data
• Support policies that encourage provision of and access to public and government access channels

The Government’s Role in Development of a Healthy Media Ecosystem

FCC policies alone cannot save journalism.  In some cases, important potential solutions will fall outside the FCC’s regulatory ambit.  Thus, we also discuss broader policy shifts that could support a healthy information ecosystem, including:

• The government’s role in supporting public and noncommercial media outlets and infrastructure, including new funding models for public media
• Incentives to encourage private sector production of media
• Ways to enhance public engagement with information
• Encouraging anchor institutions, such as schools, universities, and libraries, to support community information flows and provide media training
• The importance of media literacy training in preparing citizens to use media in democratic life.

(For a copy of the full comments click here or see the pdf on the right hand side of the page.)

Related posts:

1. FCC Future of Media: Submit Your Comments by May 7
2. FCC Launches Examination into Future of Media
3. Tracking the Policy Debates on the Future of Media

Although the FTC has not yet posted an agenda, the commission has indicated that the workshop will include

…a small group of experienced journalists, publishers, academics, economists, and other policy experts [who] will compare, contrast, and evaluate the ideas for sustaining journalism that have been set forth in two previous FTC workshops and in a wide variety of reports and conferences. This discussion will help inform potential recommendations to be contained in a report the FTC will release later this fall.

In preparation for this meeting, the FTC has posted a Staff Discussion Draft of Potential Policy Recommendations to Support the Revinvention of Journalism. The public may submit comments on this draft to the FTC at http://public.commentworks.com/ftc/newsmediaworkshop.

Related posts:

1. FTC Announces Second Workshop on the Future of Journalism
2. FCC Announces 2nd Future of Media Workshop
3. Reed Hundt to Present KnightComm Report at FTC Workshop on Future of Journalism

The Knight Commission has called for policymakers to “maintain the national commitment to open networks as a core objective of Internet policy” and sees the “openness of networks as essential to meeting community information needs” (Recommendation 9).

As Chairman Genachowski stated:

I will ask my Commission colleagues to join me in soon launching a public process seeking comment on this narrow and tailored approach.  The proceeding will seek comment regarding the Title I and Title II options discussed above, will seek input on important questions such as whether wired and wireless broadband access should be treated differently in this context, and will invite new ideas. As we move forward, my focus will be on the best method for restoring the shared understanding of FCC authority that existed before the Comcast decision and for putting in place a solid legal foundation for achieving the policy goals that benefit consumers and our economy in the most effective and least intrusive way.

Clearly, this is the start of a long public discourse. Please share your thoughts here. Does the FCC’s approach to reclassifying broadband services solve the dilemma posed by the Comcast ruling? Will this third way approach work?

Related posts:

1. Court Overturns FCC Net Neutrality Ruling
2. How Will Comcast Ruling Affect the Information Health of Communities?
3. Digital Literacy Skills Essential to Closing Broadband Gap

Keep the Worldwide Net Open

by Reed Hundt and Charles Firestone

Human history is replete with stories of nations in conflict but it is rare for a huge national government to do battle with an influential global business firm. The tale of China versus Google is something new, and it threatens to upset many existing arrangements necessary to maintaining peaceful relationships among people.

As a conflict between a government with a 14% share of the world’s population and a company with 40% share of the world’s Internet searchers, China vs Google resembles a battle across spheres, like a lion versus an eagle. Yet China has used an array of modern and traditional weapons in order to bring Google to heel. It has allegedly mobilized distributed computing to launch cyberattacks against Google. It has imposed on the company legal restrictions inimical to the culture of many countries, including the United States. And it has engaged in a war of words against the company. Google now has at best a precarious hold on the biggest Internet market in the world.

This conflict, the harbinger of 21st century geo-commercial disputes, tells us two new things about the world today. First, even Internet-based firms are not necessarily going to be able to do business across national boundaries. Second, the world lacks enough arrangements among nations, firms, and people to assure shared economic growth in a global information economy.

Read more

Related posts:

1. Vint Cerf to FCC: Assure Fairness and Open Access to Net Resources
2. Reed Hundt Presentation of Knight Commission Report
3. Sec. Clinton Calls for Uncensored Global Access to Internet

The public comment period for the Federal Communications Commission’s inquiry on the Future of Media & Information Needs of Communities ends this Friday, May 7th. Comments may be submitted directly to the Future of Media website, where the FCC has posed these questions to direct comments to the issues that are of central concern to inquiry:

How should media companies change their approaches to delivering news and information?

What government policies could improve the news and information media?

Media in Your Community: Tell us about your community and its media.

Last Friday, the FCC held its second public workshop under this inquiry and has recently posted workshop materials. The workshop focused on Public and Other Noncommercial Media in the Digital Era and included an impressive set of panels and presenters exploring a vision for public media in the digital era.  FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Commissioner Michael Copps provided the welcome and opening remarks before turning over the agenda to co-moderators Steven Waldman and Ellen P. Goodman who set out to explore the following issues:

• The possibilities for greater collaboration among noncommercial media entities such as public broadcasters, PEG channels, noncommercial web-based outlets, and other new media entities;
• The role of public and other noncommercial media in serving the information needs of the underserved, including minorities, children, the disabled, and the economically disadvantaged;
• Evolving business and organizational structures of public and other noncommercial media entities and the ways these are impacted by government policy;
• Innovative uses of social media, gaming, Internet applications, citizen journalism, mobile technologies, and other technological and organizational innovations;
• The possibilities for new kinds of noncommercial media networks and associated funding models

Huffington Post (Craig Aaron, “Journalism’s Crisis is Public Media’s Opportunity“) and Broadcasting & Cable (John Eggerton, “Genachowski: FCC Should Not Dictate Programming“) have coverage of the workshop, which was live streamed but has not yet been archived on the Commission’s website.

Related posts:

1. FCC Announces 2nd Future of Media Workshop
2. Groups Advancing Knight Commission Recommendations Submit Comments to FCC’s Future of Media Inquiry
3. FCC Launches Examination into Future of Media