These questions lie at the heart of Information Stories, a riveting series of twelve three-to-five minute videos that show how people can overcome the powerlessness caused by living in an information vacuum.  Combining the power of video storytelling with raw personal experience and the strong will to overcome obstacles, Information Stories highlights the critical importance of information to the healthy functioning of communities and the ability of ordinary Americans to live happy and healthy lives.

But make no mistake: there is nothing ordinary about the extraordinary people at the center of these stories, or the efforts they have made to improve the quality of information–and the quality of life–in their communities.

For example, we meet Loris Ann Taylor, Arizona-based executive director of Native Public Media, who explains how she went from growing up on a reservation that relied on a town crier to give the news to working, as an adult, to proliferate broadband availability and public radio stations throughout Indian country. See her video here:

The Information Stories series was conceived by law professor Peter Shane, who served as executive director of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, and filmmaker Liv Gjestvang. Professor Shane wanted to find a way to make the Knight Commission issues more compelling and concrete for the everyday public.

“The Commission explained why ‘second-class information citizenship is looming’ for many Americans,” said Professor Shane. “I hoped to motivate activists around the country to pay attention to their local information ecologies.  I want them to ask whether everyone in their communities gets the information they require to meet both their personal and civic needs.” (Peter gives a great overview of the entire Information Stories project in his Huffington Post blog announcing the launch of the series and website, Digital Stories Dramatize Information’s Role in the Lives of People and Communities.)

Other storytellers we meet are:

• Martin Macias, Jr., a young Latino radio reporter and organizer from Chicago, who explains how he learned what it takes to really hear his own community;

• Maureen Mann, a New Hampshire state legislator who tells how her move to a media-poor part of the state led her to create an online newspaper that turned neighbors into journalists;

• Brenda Jo Brueggeman, a “hard-of-hearing” writer and professor of English, who explains how she came to understand the struggle of deaf people to be part of the flow of information around them – and the life-and-death stakes of being excluded; and

• Joshua Chisholm, a faith-based community organizer from Camden, New Jersey, who explains how he works to help people overcome the sense of powerlessness that arises when they live “in an information vacuum” generated by people and institutions that benefit from the public’s “lack of understanding.”

These Information Stories expose personal experiences with information deficits, obstacles to the free flow and exchange of information and other hurdles that are all too common in communities across America today.  The good news, as each of the Information Stories shows, is that motivated, committed citizens can use a broad array of relationships, resources, tools and technologies to create positive and lasting change in their information environments and communities.

The videos are available on the Information Stories website at http://informationstories.org and on the InfoStories Channel on YouTube. Information Stories was produced with a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Related posts:

1. What are the Information Needs of Communities?
2. New America Foundation: Info Ecosystems in Five U.S. Communities
3. Personal Stories of Broadband Highlight Digital Inclusion Summit

Universal Broadband: Targeting Investments to Deliver Broadband Services to All Americans, Blair Levin, Former Executive Director of the Omnibus Broadband Initiative of the Federal Communications Commission and currently Communications and Society Fellow at the Aspen Institute. The paper analyzes how to diminish second-class digital citizenship by assuring access by all to broadband services. Universal Broadband author Blair Levin rigorously and repeatedly engaged the broadband community and other, more general audiences from Washington, D.C. to Las Vegas, Nevada.  His in-person debates were reported in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and in the PBS space.

Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action

Rethinking Public Media: More Local, More Inclusive, More Interactive

Government Transparency: Six Strategies for More Open and Participatory Government

Creating Local Online Hubs: Three Models for Action

Civic Engagement and Community Information: Five Strategies to Revive Civic Communication

Re-

Assessing Local Information Needs: A Practical Guide

Related posts:

1. Aspen Institute to Advance Recommendations of the Knight Commission
2. Groups Advancing Knight Commission Recommendations Submit Comments to FCC’s Future of Media Inquiry
3. FOCAS10: News Cities: The Next Generation of Healthy Informed Communities

A team of experienced journalists will lead management operations and programming for the new station. Beyond the valuable locally focused and produced news and information, the new broadcaster is expected to bring a variety of benefits to the local communities it serves.  Delaware First Media President Micheline Boudreau has said that the station will bring new jobs to the Dover area, provide another outlet for Delaware businesses to distribute messages through underwriting opportunities with WDDE, and export information from and about Delaware to a national audience in association with NPR.

The collaboration of the nonprofit and the two universities is an example of the type of initiatives needed to expand the availability of quality, locally produced journalism and enrich local  information ecosystems. In announcing the partnership, Delaware First Media said: “The cooperative effort responds to the recommendation of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Democracy to ‘increase the role of higher education, community and nonprofit institutions as hubs of journalistic activity.’”

Read more about the WDDE-FM 91.3 partnership here.

Related posts:

1. Corporation for Public Broadcasting Launches Local Journalism Initiative
2. Assessing Community Info Ecosystem and Needs in Southern Vermont
3. Taking Stock of the State of Web Journalism

Adam Thierer

By Adam Thierer, “Thinking about the Future of Informed Communities and Journalism,” Forbes.com, December 4, 2011

When it comes to the state of our deliberative democracy, here’s one thing we do know: There’s never been a time when citizens have had more informational inputs at their disposal. But here’s something we don’t know: Whether citizens have access to the right sort of information — or know how to take action based upon that information — to make informed decisions about their communities and society. What steps can be taken to make sure they do?

That was the audacious mission undertaken by the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, a blue-ribbon panel formed by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the nonpartisan Aspen Institute. In 2009, the Knight Commission released a report “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age” that included 15 recommendations to better meet community information needs.

Following the release of the report…

Read the full op-ed at Forbes.com.

Related posts:

1. Thierer: Thinking about the Future of Informed Communities and Journalism
2. FOCAS10: News Cities: The Next Generation of Healthy Informed Communities
3. New Initiative to Foster Informed, Engaged Communities

By Mike Fancher, “A Tipping Point for Journalism,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 15, 2011

The long-awaited Federal Communications Commission report on the state of America’s news media landed with a big thud, sort of like the Sunday newspaper of old hitting your front porch.

Initial reactions to the recent FCC report have uniformly praised its exhaustive diagnosis of the problems facing local news reporting. But there also has been disappointment that the report didn’t offer remedies.

Can that really be a surprise?

American journalism is at a tipping point. The Internet has disrupted the business model that underwrote local news for more than 100 years. The Great Recession made matters worse, resulting in local newspaper and television newsrooms dramatically cutting staffs and other news resources. Another economic shock would hit the media like the tornado that devastated Joplin. Little would be left that we could recognize as local news coverage. If remedies to this were obvious…

Read the full article at the Stltoday.com website.

Related posts:

1. Fancher: “American journalism is at a tipping point”
2. Mike Fancher: Contemplating the Future of Local Journalism
3. Of the Press: Models for Transforming American Journalism

Nicol Turner-Lee

By Nicol Turner-Lee, “Mayor Emanuel Must Shed Old Paradigms for True Transparency Reform,” The Huffington Post, December 22, 2011

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is under fire for his office’s denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, with critics in the local and national press and blogs taking the mayor to task for shielding public records from public view. Underscoring this lapse in transparency is Emanuel’s vow to foster “the most open, accountable and transparent government that the City of Chicago has ever seen.” Cities like Boston, Phoenix, and Seattle all routinely release such information, according to reporting by the Chicago Tribune’s David Kidwell, implying that they do transparency better.

This is not to suggest there has been no progress on transparency under Mayor Emanuel. Indeed, he has backed the release of large amounts of government data, including the June release of salary information for all city employees. The city’s September release of city-wide crime statistics for the past decade not only helps crime-fighting agencies, but also journalists, advocates and businesses create more targeted programs to address local concerns.

Chicago, like its big city peers, just needs to decide if government transparency is a core attribute of its government. For the Emanuel Administration, releasing some data and not others does little to shed the old paradigms of closed door politics where waste, government fraud and abuse were the norm…

Read the full article at The Huffington Post.

Related posts:

1. Roundtable to Discuss Public Media Reform
2. The Future of Democracy, According to Knight Reports
3. Transparency in the Courtroom: Supreme Court Says, “Not so Fast”

Peter Levine

By Peter Levine, “Creating Good Citizens,” Huffington Post, June 10, 2011

Today, educators and young people from around the country are meeting in Chicago for the first National Action Civics Conference. These are people who know that teenagers become good citizens — and improve their schools and communities — when they are given the chance to contribute.

Chicago is a natural site for the conference because it is a hotbed of constructive youth engagement. Consider the Gage Park High School students who successfully lobbied for a digital memorial — a public touch-screen kiosk — to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1966 march through their neighborhood. Those students were participants in the Mikva Challenge, a Chicago nonprofit that Education Secretary Arne Duncan cites as a leading example of “cutting-edge civics.”

Similarly, as a result of a grant from my organization, CIRCLE, teenagers in the Cabrini-Green area documented their neighborhood in public videos through a grassroots organization called Cabrini Connections.

Neutral Ground is a multimedia center in Humboldt Park, operated by yet another nationally recognized nonprofit, Street-Level Media. Young people between 8 and 22 meet at Neutral Ground to create journalism, music, animation, and photography for their communities.

These programs and many like them take advantage of young people’s creativity, media savvy, and knowledge of their own communities. They help the kids by giving them creative outlets, skills, and networks. These are important at any time, but…

Read the full article at Huffington Post.

Related posts:

1. GovFresh: New recommendations for improving local open government and creating online hubs
2. Norm Ornstein on Creating a New Public Square
3. Close-up on Seattle: Local Blogs and Community Collaboration

Barbara Cochran

By Barbara Cochran, “Why Federal Support for Public Broadcasting is the Right Decision,” The Huffington Post, December 1, 2011.

When Gary Knell officially takes over today as NPR’s new president, he’ll find no shortage of ideas about what he should do with an organization that has recently survived bad headlines, turmoil at the top and a near-death experience with federal funding cuts.

But he would be well advised to ignore some of those recommendations.

Some say that NPR should simply forgo federal funding, which accounts for 2 percent of its annual budget. Receiving even that small amount, they say, leaves NPR vulnerable to accusations of political bias in its news coverage. How much easier it would be, they argue, to give up the federal dollars and ignore the occasional outbreaks of criticism from Capitol Hill.

Such a move might not affect NPR directly, but it would certainly have an impact on the 400 local station organizations that receive the bulk of the $100 million that goes to public radio.

To cut federal funding would do tremendous damage to local stations. While stations on average receive 10 percent of their funding in CPB grants, the percentage varies dramatically among stations, with some in smaller markets and underserved areas relying almost entirely on federal and state funding.

Would that matter? Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor at City University of New York, says no. “The bottom line on the stations is that they are as doomed as newspapers,” he told Politico shortly after Knell’s appointment was announced.

But local public radio stations are an important part of the nation’s journalism ecosystem and…

Read the full article at The Huffington Post.

Related posts:

1. Gary Knell Takes Helm at NPR, Cochran Advises: Fight for Federal Funding
2. Cochran: Local Public Broadcasters Shouldn’t Lose Funding Because of Problems at NPR
3. (De)funding Public Broadcasting in New Jersey

Richard C. Harwood

By Richard C. Harwood, “Beyond the Outrage: Turning Protest Into Positive Force for Change,” The Huffington Post, December 22, 2011.

What happens after all the outrage?

In many ways the rapid spread of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements is a healthy sign that people are not mere spectators in the public square. Instead, they are stepping forward to express what matters most to them.

But outrage alone will never be enough to create the kind of society people want. It will not, by itself, create more jobs, improve health care, or make us safer. Nor does it build trust across fault lines in society. It ultimately leaves people and the country at loggerheads.

In my travels across the nation, what’s clear is that Americans are yearning to come back into the public square. They want to re-engage and re-connect with one another, join together to make a difference, and become a part of something larger than themselves.

The question is how to break down the silos…

Read the full article at The Huffington Post.

Related posts:

1. Magid: Digital Citizenship Includes Rights as Well as Responsibilities
2. Nicol Turner-Lee: Mayor Emanuel Must Shed Old Paradigms for True Transparency Reform

Sunshine Week logo

EDITOR’S NOTE:  In recognition of Sunshine Week, KnightComm blog presented this special guest article by Matt Rosenberg, an experienced editor, writer and open government strategist based in Seattle. Rosenberg reflects on the changing understanding of what constitutes “open government” at a time when technology is revolutionizing the availability of public data and information. He raises thought-provoking questions about what it will look like in the future and offers real world examples of how the concepts at the nexus of open government, government transparency and local journalism apply in a particular local context, i.e. Seattle.  Rosenberg founded the government transparency project Public Data Ferret covering the Seattle area and Pacific Northwest, and oversees a companion blog, Social Capital Review, where this article was originally posted on March 10th, 2012.

Open government and freedom of information are two of the core values identified by the Knight Commission as central to any healthy democratic community. They are key concepts surrounding the Commission’s recommendations to maximize the availability of relevant and credible information that people need to make informed decisions for themselves, their families, their communities and the nation. Recommendation 4 calls on “government at all levels to operate transparently, facilitate easy and low cost-access to public records, and make civic and social data available in standardized formats that support the productive public use of such data.”

Amplify Accountability, Technology to Boost Open Government

by Matt Rosenberg, Social Capital Review, March 10, 2012

Don’t confuse government “open data” with open government, warn two graduate students from Princeton and Yale in a new paper. Harlan Yu and David Robinson say open data may actually improve government transparency but it also:

…might equally well refer to politically neutral public sector disclosures that are easy to reuse, (and) have nothing to do with public accountability. Today a regime can call itself “open” if it builds the right kind of web site — even if it does not become more accountable or transparent….Technology can make public information more adaptable, empowering third parties to contribute in exciting new ways across many aspects of civic life. But technological enhancements will not resolve debates about the best priorities for civic life, and enhancements to government services are no substitute for public accountability.

What open government needs to look like in the coming decade and beyond involves at least three core considerations: 1) inclusive dialog around potential changes to laws on open records and open meetings; 2) the melding of Internet and mobile technologies with ideals of government accountability; and 3) nourishment for a reformulated news and information ecosystem to fulfill the public interest with robust accountability-driven reporting, teaching and collaboration. We’re going to focus here mainly on 2), and a bit on 3).

Voluntary government disclosure is growing
Baseline voluntary government transparency utilizing the Internet has grown impressively. A wide array of meeting documents, special reports and data are routinely posted online by governments at all levels, in the U.S.

Without the filing of any public records requests it is possible to report – using original and recent government documents “picked from the trees at the edge of the orchard” – on stories such as:

• the $1 billion gap between the market value and 30-year payout obligations of the City of Seattle’s public employee pension system;
• the particulars of the $75 million paid over four years by Seattle for legal and liability claims;
• the difficulties Seattle Police see in implementing on-body cameras;
• the fiscal challenges surrounding Auburn’s traffic safety camera program;
• and recent other-than-Boeing U.S. military contracts awarded to firms in King County, Seattle, and elsewhere in Washington state.

Through voluntary government disclosure online we can also learn about:

• the $21 million paid over four years by the State of Washington tied to employee car crashes;
• the $400 million paid by the state in tort claims over eight years;
• and the $29.3 billion Washington state currently dispenses in assorted tax breaks.

The accountability potential of freely released government information is also gleaned from so-called “open access” scientific journals in articles authored by government researchers. Here we see, for instance, that:

• another study confirms King County’s mandate for prominent nutritional disclosure in major fast food chains doesn’t improve consumer choices, as hoped;
• the Seattle region scores poorly on HIV risk behaviors;
• Seattle urban stream restoration hasn’t kept adult coho salmon from perishing before spawning in alarming proportions;
• and electronic highway tolling is fair to lower-income households, especially compared to increasing sales taxes to pay for transportation upgrades.

Robots, aggregators, broccoli and cheese sauce
Robots now write articles from baseball box scores, and aggregation pays while original content creation has a dicey economic future. But the aggregators and the public do want broccoli to go with their cheese sauce. Rendering comprehensible these valuable yet often oblique government source materials requires professional research and journalism skills that in turn require funding. (We’ll go down this rabbit hole another time).

Does open data open doors?
In theory, utilization of government data in its raw form offers a seemingly simpler “do it yourself approach” and so government “data sites” are increasingly in vogue. The City of Seattle has one, as does King County, Washington State, Oregon, and even the government of Kenya. Many other major U.S. cities and states, and nations do, too. One prominent designer of government open data sites is a Seattle-based company named Socrata, which deserves credit for its work to help public servants “liberate” their data for the public good.

But the intermediary role of civic-minded application developers is key, and unassured. They must translate data sets into mobile and Web apps, and data visualizations we can all use. Even then, meaning isn’t always evident, accenting the need for more actual reporting which draws on public data and public records at a time when legacy media resources continue to contract.

It’s useful to apply the core open government principles of performance measurement and accountability to open data. How many government data sets give rise to useful visualizations and where can these be consolidated and cataloged? How many “open data” packages inform public service reporting? How many Web-posted government data sets actually result in creation of apps? How useful are those apps? Are they kept current, and built out to a reasonable degree? Do they even survive?

Last year, a promising Google Maps-based open data app for mobile and the Web was launched, called Dinegerous, conveying restaurant inspection data from Public Health Seattle-King County. It provides a quick overview of the health inspection record of each establishment in the department’s own online database which lacks the graphical user interface. Dinegerous is a powerful example of how government data can be transformed into a consumer tool. Who doesn’t want to do their best to avoid food poisoning when eating out?

Knight plans “editable catalog” of civic apps, including reviews
To gauge the utility of civic apps, taking inventory of what’s out there is a good place to start. The Knight Foundation has announced it will unveil this spring the Engagement Commons, a “dynamic wiki, an editable catalog of applications that foster civic engagement” including for each: app reviews, tech specs, and locations where in use.

Needles in the haystack
In some cases, government data or records are only grudgingly daylighted online, in ways that beg greater ease of use and support the open data imperative. Consider the online compendium of state disciplinary actions against public school teachers provided by the Washington state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. These include cases of sexual relationships between teachers and students and other forms of professional misconduct. There’s a clear public interest in having the documents be accessible as possible. But curiously, the only way to approach this documents database is alphabetically, by teacher. No descending date view, no by-school-district view – thus mandating a “needle in the haystack” approach if currency and locale are a concern. An inquiry from a reporter about this prompted the ineffable reply, “no one’s ever asked about that before.” What to do? Allow qualified developers full access to the kept-current holdings so they can apply tagging protocols and build tools which extract the reports and order them by specified criteria, such as month, year, and location.

Beyond open data as typically conceived, several other promising technology strategies are surfacing in the U.S. Congress and provide fodder for state legislatures and stakeholders interested in making government more open and accountable. The Congressional Facebook Hackathon late last year was less about Facebook and hacking per say than, as one observer put it, “government getting more geeky.” The session involving developers, legislative staff and transparency stakeholders resulted in a meaty final report which included first-stage proposals for:

• Greater legislative transparency through online real-time bill mark-up;
• Online disclosure of exact timing and authorship of legislative amendments;
• Committee hearings that are crowd-sourced online;
• Secure online handling of constituent casework; and
• Integration of legislator social media accounts with their constituent email processes.

TVW steps up, with Scout
In Washington, state government is already getting geekier, but accessibly so. The non-profit news channel TVW has unveiled Scout, an interactive tool which permits users to have delivered to them video of legislative or committee proceedings on selected bills and topic areas. In addition, TVW video of bill hearings in committee were recently added as a built-in extra to all bill information pages at the legislature’s site. Thanks to special and simple user features, videos of full committee hearings which are appended to the online bill pages can be quickly searched and viewed, and then re-posted to blog or social media accounts with time settings narrowed to hone in on testimony regarding just one measure. No more lamely adding, “Go to 1:09:29 to find the testimony on HB 2213.”

Wanted: accountability-focused, records-driven reporting
Meanwhile, the more traditional open government accountability agenda necessitates a ramp-up in outcomes-based reporting on vertical topics (education, transportation, government finance, public health, social services, ethics, and more) that’s girded by government documents and data typically not put online at present. Office of Internal Audit investigative reports at the University of Washington are not posted online but can be had through requests filed under the Washington Public Records Act. Resulting stories might disclose:

• the discharge of an assistant dean in UW’s School of Social Work who faked credits for 139 students;
• or the pilfering of more than $17,000 under the nose of inattentive supervisors in a unit of a hospital managed by the university.

Another type of open government accountability reporting starts with a germ or two of data online but requires more digging. A UW police crime log provides a one-line tipoff and with some enterprise a story develops about a hate crime reported in a campus dorm. A state appeals court ruling posted online prompts a deeper look at how a well-connected City of Seattle employee managed to stay on the public payroll even after a felony conviction for first-degree perjury.

More sunshine needed on government contracting
Topic-wise, a core focus for more open and accountable government should be the daylighting of contracting-related government source documents online. Not so much janitorial and motor pool supplies; more the consultants working to devise a cost-efficient employee pension plan, or evaluate police staffing levels, and transportation plans. What do they actually produce, how is their work evaluated by city managers, and is their advice actually followed? In a periodiocally-updated .pdf file found under the heading “Consultant Contract Search” at the Web page of the City of Seattle purchasing division, you can scan summary descriptions of current and recently-closed consulting contracts. It’s a step in the right direction and provides the basis for selective public records requests.

Over time, great benefits in contractor performance and public trust would accrue from taking it a big step further, to a public-facing database which links actual consultant contract documents, written deliverables and city performance evaluations – and includes built in shortcuts to the city’s existing campaign contributions database kept by the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, so that users can quickly see if consultant company principals are also helping fund campaigns of city officeholders or ballot measures.

Machine readable documents
Part of the build would require adoption of machine readable document forms so that, for instance, the consultant contract performance evaluations which according to city sources often sit uncompleted in a manager’s drawer and then hide away from public view unless requested under open records laws, would instead be Web-ready after completion on a computer. No more printing out and scanning documents into .pdfs.

Common standards for site architecture, IT back end
User experience is another issue. Across a public-facing city government Web enterprise or that of a county or state government, a common information architecture should be employed so we can find the same kinds of things in the same places and save time. Related concerns include the continued use of outdated, inflexible legacy IT architectures, some dating to the 70s, and stove-piping of IT solutions, department by department.

From 90-9-1 to 75-15-10
Combine these and other suggestions and a plan begins to emerge for breathing new life into open government. But at a time of continuing limits on public resources, we’ll all have to be part of the solution. So the “90-9-1″ rule will have to change. That’s the common seat-of-the-pants measure of engagement in the civic square, especially at online community news sites. Ninety percent of the participants are quiet viewers, or “lurkers” only; nine percent contribute occasionally, but only one percent are frequent contributors.

As regions struggle to replace the declining legacy news media resources which used to help ensure healthy government accountability, 90-9-1 needs to shift closer to 75-15-10. One piece of that is well articulated by USC communications and journalism prof Henry Jenkins, who argues topical experts including scientists and engineers and artists motivated by societal and policy concerns have to learn to stand and deliver their own priority news and analysis in Plain English and in popular forums precisely because the specialized topic reporters of yore on whom they previously depended for this function are going largely the way of the Dodo.

The open government-civic engagement renaissance best begins at the local level, with training the trainers and cataloging how to make a difference. Making the business case to government for greater voluntary transparency will be key. So will teaching citizen activists and interested professionals – sometimes one and the same – what to do with timely news and insights, and important findings gained through public records requests. Self-publishing, and basic audio and video production are the new political currency.

In the end, transparency is only a means to an end. It’s what we actually do with it – and how often and how effectively – that matters most.

Related posts:

1. Stimulus Leading to More Open Government
2. GovFresh: New recommendations for improving local open government and creating online hubs
3. Stimulus Leading to More Open Government

The Six Strategies include:

1. Convene a working group of chief information and technology leaders to determine more effective technical and operational procedures that mitigate change environments for open government;
2. Create opportunities for developing public goods applications that are sustainable through public-private partnerships or philanthropic investments;
3. Establish more flexible procurement procedures, off-the-shelf purchasing and easier contracting for the technologies used to disseminate government information;
4. Improve broadband access to community anchor institutions;
5. Create government content that is relevant and accessible to all populations regardless of ability, language or literacy level; and
6. Promote public-private partnerships for professional development to enhance skill-building, technical expertise and forward-thinking processes within government.

“The purpose of these strategies is to provide a framework for facilitating these activities and placing government entities on the proper pathway toward the full realization of the benefits of information transparency,” note the authors in the paper. Adopting these strategies will enable state and local governments to tap into the expertise and innovative spirit of the public to create new “public goods” apps and community information resources. The authors further observe that “to focus exclusively on the one-way push of information by government to the public is to miss the promise of innovative e-government techniques designed to transform this dynamic into a mutually beneficial, two-way collaboration.”

Government Transparency: Six Strategies for More Open and Participatory Government explores the evolution of transparency and open government policies and the important role that broadband technologies play in moving beyond analog-era notions of transparency. It also addresses the practical barriers that stand in the way of realizing the full value of open government, including design flaws in open government tools, inadequate broadband access and adoption among the public, misunderstanding public demands for information, and legal constraints.

Dr. Jon Gant is a Fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a leading scholar in the field of information systems and public administration, and has advised governments in the U.S. and developing countries on building geographic information systems.

Dr. Nicol Turner-Lee is Vice President and Director of the Media and Technology Institute at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C. She has produced path breaking research on broadband adoption among minority and disadvantaged populations and regularly engages city, state and federal legislators on issues in telecommunications, open government and the emerging technology innovation sectors.

Government Transparency: Six Strategies for More Open and Participatory Government is the fourth policy paper released by the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation aimed at implementing the 15 recommendations by the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. (See other published papers on Rethinking Public Media, Digital and Media Literacy, Universal Broadband and Creating Local Online Hubs). The Commission released its landmark report, Informing Communities, in October 2009 to help promote healthy informed communities across the country.

Government Transparency
Six Strategies for More Open and Participatory Government

A White Paper by Jon Gant and Nicol Turner-Lee

Download | View on Scribd

Table of Contents
From Report to Action
Executive Summary

The Knight Commission Recommendation
Open Government and Transparency in the Broadband Age
Beyond Mere Transparency: How Broadband Technologies Impact Openness and E-Governance at the Local, State and Federal Levels
Barriers to Realizing the Full Value of Open Government
Call to Governments: Six Strategies for Enhancing Transparency and Community Information
Who Should Do What
Conclusion
References

Appendix
Websites promoting Government Transparency
About the Authors
The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program

Related posts:

1. Sensible Strategies for Open Government and Online Hubs
2. Report Cites Need for More Public Engagement in Open Government Proposals
3. Stimulus Leading to More Open Government

Highlights of this years MLS include:

• Thought leaders Dan Gillmor, founding director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship (10:15 a.m. EST) and Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You. (7:15 p.m. EST);
• Foundation leaders talking about their successful news and information projects (11:45 a.m. EST);
• A look at emerging technologies with Knight VPs Michael Maness and Paula Ellis and Amy Webb of WebbMedia (3:45 p.m. EST).

You can also follow the conference on Twitter via @knightfdn and #infoneeds.

Related posts:

1. Media Literacy Starts with Everyone, Report Says
2. New Round of Knight Community Information Challenge Now Open
3. National Contest to Fund Local Information Experiments

To submit an application or for further information, go to www.informationneeds.org. Non-foundation community partners may participate, but they must partner with a qualifying community or place-based foundation. The application deadline is February 27, 2012.

Knight Foundation program directors will host a Web-based live chat at noon EST on February 8, 2012, to answer queries from foundations. The live chat will take place at www.informationneeds.org.

Susan Patterson, Knight’s community director in Charlotte, North Carolina, writes about the challenge, including past winners, on the Knight Blog.

Foundation leaders who want to learn more about supporting media and information environments in their own communities can attend the Knight Foundation’s fourth annual Media Learning Seminar, February 20-21, 2012, in Miami. Registration is open until February 1st.

The Community Information Challenge is one more way that the Knight Foundation is supporting the information needs of communities.

Related posts:

1. Knight, Local Foundations Partner on Community Information Needs
2. National Contest to Fund Local Information Experiments
3. News Leadership 3.0 — LIVEBLOG Mar 1-2: Community foundations, media/tech experts explore local info needs

As the Harrington School’s founding director, Hobbs says her goal is to create “a school of national distinction” that emphasizes digital and media literacy, a global perspective on media and communication, and innovative teaching and learning. The school brings together previously separate programs in communication, journalism, public relations, and film/media with writing and rhetoric and library and information studies.

The Providence Journal published an op-ed by Hobbs the day before she formally assumed her new position, (“Folks need help with information overload,” December 31, 2011 print edition, B7; searchable in ProJo’s eEdition Back Issues). The article raises several key issues relative to digital media and education that suggest the need to think differently, and more broadly, about the interplay of technical, analytical and social skills that are at the core of digital literacy. Citing the findings of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, Hobbs makes a strong case for prioritizing investments in community-based programs and educational curricula that teach the digital and media literacy skills required to thrive in the digital age.

“The Internet is quickly becoming the critical gateway for accessing jobs, education, healthcare, government services and civic participation, yet a disturbing number of Americans lack broadband access or the basic skills in how to use it,” noted Hobbs. “But digital literacy is not as simple as giving people access to a broadband hookup. As the nonpartisan Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy found, digital literacy is actually a constellation of life skills that are necessary for full participation in our media-saturated, information-rich society.”

What are these life skills that are encompassed by digital literacy? They include the abilities to access, analyze and evaluate, create, reflect and act. In her ProJo op-ed, Hobbs lists the following capabilities:

• the ability to analyze messages in a variety of forms, including identification of the author, purpose and point of view of the message;
• the ability to evaluate the quality and credibility of content in a message (e.g., distinguishing between “a marketing ploy for nutritional supplements and solid information based on scientific evidence” or quality content and junk journalism);
• the knowledge of and ability to use powerful search strategies;
• the development of multimedia creation skills;
• the ability to use the Internet to connect with others with shared interests;the ability to reflect on one’s own online conduct and one’s online social responsibilities;
• the ability to use the power of communication as a tool for advocacy;
• an understanding of copyright;
• the ability to apply social responsibility and ethical principles to communication behavior;
• the ability to work collaboratively to solve problems in the civic sphere, which will require many of the other capabilities listed above.

Hobbs envisions a “community education movement” that is embraced by all stakeholders in the community:

What is needed now is a clear and compelling vision of the specific types of instructional practices that can best support the development of these new competencies among all Americans. We need programs to help bring these new forms of learning to educators at all levels. We all have skin in the game when it comes to the vitality of our communities, which is why digital and media literacy needs to be a community education movement, embraced by all stakeholders.

To learn more about the essential competencies of digital and media literacy, and steps that communities can take to strengthen digital citizenship and make digital and media education part of mainstream education in the United States, see Hobbs’ white paper, Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action, published by The Aspen Institute Communication and Society Program.

Related posts:

1. Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action
2. It’s Time for a National Commitment to Digital Literacy
3. Media Literacy Starts with Everyone, Report Says

The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri is seeking applications for its 2012-2013 class of Reynolds fellows. RJI is seeking proposals for eight-month fellowships that would leverage the university’s technology, research and experimentation to advance innovative ideas in journalism. Thye application deadline is January 15, 2012. More information on the Reynolds Fellowship can be found here on RJI’s website.  Previous RJI fellows have included Spot.us founder David Cohn, NPR’s Matt Thompson, former Seattle Times executive editor Michael Fancher, Block by Block Community Journalism Summit co-founder Michele McLellan, and CircLabs partner and Media Giraffe Project director Bill Densmore.

Credit: meedanphotos on Flickr, CC by 2.0

The Nieman-Berkman Fellowship in Journalism Innovation brings together two Harvard University programs with considerable expertise in all things journalism and digital media-related. This new fellowship will support one really smart and talented individual to work at Harvard University for the 2012-13 academic year “on a specific course of research or a specific project relating to journalism innovation.” The Nieman-Berkman fellow is a joint appointment and will be both a Nieman fellow and a Berkman fellow for the academic year. Application deadline is February 15, 2012.

Related posts:

1. Might the new web journalism model be neither for-profit nor nonprofit?
2. New Round of Knight Community Information Challenge Now Open
3. Technology & Innovation Roundtable: danah boyd by Kristie Wells