.
A project of the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program
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.
The League of Women Voters took up the Knight Commission’s challenge to help meet the information needs of America’s communities during a workshop at its 2010 convention in Atlanta last month. The session, entitled “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy and Citizen Participation in the Digital Age,” provided an opportunity for LWV members to explore what role the national [...]
While home broadband adoption continues to rise, with an average of well over 60% of Americans having high-speed internet available in their homes, African Americans, Latinos and people in low-income communities continue to lag behind by double-digit margins. As both the Knight Commission Report, Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age and the National [...]
“Media literacy” concepts are generally part of a major effort to push adoption of voluntary “Common Core State Standards” for English and literacy in history, social, studies, science and technical subjects, an initial line-by-line comparison of drafts shows. But do the standards go far enough?
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 [...]
A recent study by the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy found that U.S. educators are not very good at teaching digital literacy. The commission, a collaboration of the Knight Foundation and the Aspen Institute, reports that “although virtually every school in the United States is connected to the Internet, many local communities have not integrated either digital or media literacy into their K-12 curricula.”
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 [...]
We’ve just published our first two information ecology case studies, which take a close look at the local conditions in Seattle and Scranton. When we started investigating these media ecosystems, we used the Knight Commission Report, “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age,” as our guide.
Josh Stearns at SavetheNews.org has posted a helpful guide to Ten Policy Debates Shaping Journalism Right Now listing 10 legislative proposals, policy proceedings and inquiries taking place in Washington that could have a significant impact on the future of journalism in the United States. Here’s the list of 10 (go to SavetheNews.org for descriptions and [...]
Libraries, once considered a necessity, are now seen as a luxury. They are low-hanging fruit for budget pluckers, particularly at the state and local levels of government in communities across the country.
A new report in the US IMPACT series of studies, How the American Public Benefits from Internet Access at US Libraries, examines in detail how libraries are helping people meet a variety of online needs. It provides particularly intriguing insight into who’s using library internet to engage with community life, and how they’re doing it. Keeping up with the news is a big part of that picture…
One key recommendation in the National Broadband Plan was that the government support a scheme to wire hundreds of thousands of “anchor institutions” with 1Gbps fiber. The move would mean that schools, libraries, colleges, and community centers in every town in the country could eventually have a fat pipe and a future-proof fiber connection.
From the PEJ New Media Index comes the following about a new BBC survey that found four out of five adults worldwide consider Internet access to be a “fundamental right”:
The FCC’s broadband plan is released today (Tuesday 16th March), as the Great Recession slogs through its 27th month. Central to the pitch for the plan is the economic impact of expanded Internet access: ubiquitous affordable broadband will grow businesses, spur innovation, and create jobs. There’s little doubt that the FCC plan, if enacted, would give the economy a boost.
Finally, it’s here – the National Broadband Plan. Released yesterday by the Federal Communications Commission, the National Broadband Plan mandated in last year’s stimulus legislation lays out a broad, aspirational and ultimately attainable vision for achieving universal broadband service across the United States. With the release of the Plan, the national conversation on the information needs of Americans [...]
