Future Civic Media: New Tools and Strategies to Foster Civic Engagement

Prof. Mitchel Resnick (mres at media.mit.edu)
Prof. Henry Jenkins (henry3 at mit.edu)
Prof. Chris Csikszentmihalyi (csik at media.mit.edu)

Research Director: Ellen Hume (ehume at media.mit.edu)
Project Coordinator: Ingeborg Endter (inge at media.mit.edu)

Wednesdays, 3:30-5:30pm
Room 283A, MIT Media Lab

To receive course credit: Register for MIT course MAS.712

Overview

The Center for Future Civic Media (C4FCM) develops new tools and strategies for fostering civic engagement and strengthening social bonds in local communities. The Center takes technologies that have proven so powerful for virtual communities, and re-envisions and re-engineers them to enhance civic participation at a local level, providing new ways for local residents to organize and share information for the purpose of democratic deliberation, neighborhood collaboration, and political action.

Are you doing work involving mapping, mobile phones, or RSS feeds, and looking for a meaningful context and a chance to do field testing? Are you interested in news or politics but not sure how to integrate that into technology research? Then please come join us.

The weekly sessions will focus on discussion and critique of research projects for the Center. If you want to receive course credit (MAS.712), you will be required to present regular updates and write a final report on your research project, and to participate actively in weekly discussions.

February 6

Introduction and Overview
February 13

1. Public Radio: Election 2008 project (John Hockenberry)
The project is an attempt to connect the academic exploration of radically new platforms, tools, and discourse in civic media with the actual launch of a live public radio program in Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami. What would you do with a live morning drive time audience of 1-2 million people? We want to hear the students' answers and connect them with a real-time aggregated community of media consumers on radio and online during the most important election cycle in perhaps 40 years. The takeaway will be the first fully platform agnostic program launch in public radio history. We anticipate that the Knight Foundation will directly fund some direct student involvement in the venture. Funding confirmation expected by the end of March 2008 with ramp-up to follow immediately depending on available resources. Program will launch nationally on April 18th.

Please read the following:
You Don't Understand Our Audience

2. Wiki Government projects (Beth Noveck)
Beth Noveck will present overviews of her research projects and we will explore possible collaborations with the Center for Future Civic Media. Before the session, please review the summaries of Beth's research projects. Also, please read Beth's Wiki-Government paper, and review her Do Tank website and Peer-to-Patent website.

February 20

Silver Stringers: A case study of citizen journalism and civic media

Discussion with Jack Driscoll and representatives of the Melrose Silver Stringers

Readings
Silver Stringers and Junior Journalists: Active Information Producers

February 27

 
March 5
 
March 12
 
March 19

 
March 26
No class: Spring Break
April 2

 
April 9
 

April 16

 
April 23
 
April 30

May 7

Final Project Presentations

May 14
Final Project Presentations
Grading
For those registering for course credit, gradiing will be based one-third on class participation, one-third on contribution to the class blob, and one-third on the final project.