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A project of the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program
On February 25th the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation released the fourth and fifth in a series of white papers aimed at implementing the recommendations of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. The papers—“Government Transparency: Six Strategies for More [...]
New Policy Papers Call For Adoption of Strategies to Expand Government Transparency and Create Online Hubs
Washington, D.C.—Today the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation released two policy papers that call on community and elected leaders to adopt sensible strategies to expand government transparency, make public records [...]
The Knight Commission released Informed Communities a year ago with an exhortation for both “dialogue” and “action.” Both are happening, and the Commission’s report has helped. There are at least two reasons why.
The first is that key people in local communities throughout the country are hungry for the Knight Commission’s message. Two weeks ago, I had [...]
The staff and fellows at New America Foundation’s Media Policy Initiative have been busy this year formulating policy and regulatory reforms to foster the development of media that satisfy the needs of democracy in the 21st century. Their work has centered on advancing the recommendations of the Knight Commission as articulated in the Commission’s report, [...]
Local officials know that communities depend on credible and accessible information. As technology continues to affect and change how information flows, local officials face a dizzying array of opportunities to inform — and be informed by — their communities.
Taking stock of the information resources available and identifying what information resources the community needs to remain strong, healthy and dynamic are the first steps toward building a healthy, informed community. Share 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.
The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program, with senior sponsorship from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, presented this year’s Forum on Communications and Society (FOCAS) on the theme, “News Cities: The Next Generation of Healthy Informed Communities.”
Social media applications for government are becoming more popular, but significant numbers of federal employees and agencies are not making use of those tools, according to a new Market Connections Inc. research survey of government social media use.
Today, particularly on the Web, openness is supposed to be the watchword when it comes to communication. But, oddly enough, rules that govern much of our information currency are being written by regulatory agencies and lawmakers in closed private meetings, accountable to no one.
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 [...]
The most important thing I learned in grad school was very simple: “Draw the picture.” (Thanks Tony.) By that my advisor meant that it’s often hard or impossible to describe a complex system in words alone. And consequently, if you can’t draw a picture of what you’re trying to explain, you probably don’t understand it. Drawing pictures of complex systems also helps everyone understand where the knowledge gaps are, or where unsolved problems are buried, or where contradictions exist.
We are facing a growing information divide that is leaving more and more people with less and less access to the basic information that helps them make choices about their jobs, families and communities. We have to have a national approach to the challenge of meeting these information needs. But first we have to answer a few core questions: How do we define the information needs of communities, and how do we measure them?
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.
The American public is expressing increased satisfaction with federal government services that are offered online, according to the latest quarterly report of the American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Government Satisfaction Index. The e-government satisfaction index is produced by the market research firm ForeSee Results. This survey and previous research conducted by ForeSee show that citizens who are very satisfied with a [...]
The traditional culture and ethics of professional journalism encourage journalists to hold themselves aloof from the communities they cover; to maintain objectivity through distance. Generally this means not voicing personal opinions on politics or controversial issues, and not engaging directly in civic processes. Sometimes even voting, campaign contributions, or speaking up at civic meetings are [...]
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