"There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now. "– James A. Baldwin
What does political participation look like?
How is participatory democracy different than civic engagement?
What sorts of environments foster and grow the ability to be politically engaged?
How does power operate in a participatory setting?
What role can community media environments play in increasing the political participation of marginalized groups?
Can new media and communication technoloiges increase the chances of local people being politically engaged?
Since the entrance of tools like YouTube and Vimeao and other Internet based communications I hear folks say “why do we need community media?” “Is PEG access really necessary?” “Why should we support public media, hasn’t the Internet solved all of our woes?” While it is true that there is more access than ever before to the tools of media making and the distribution of media via new Internet platforms, what is not made more rich is the production of “common goods”.
Lohmann (1989 – http://nvs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/18/4/367) writes that nonprofit organizations are provide more than the production of needed goods and services often ignored by the public and commerical sectors. These organizations produce crucial “common goods” that allow individuals to express themselves and their values, build meaningful practices, learn new techniques and a range of other useful non-tangible goods that are necessary for a fully functioning society.
This concept of “common goods” is not unlike theories surrounding social capital, civic engagement, democratic participation, and freedom of expression often found in other civic sector activities.  Ellie Rennie (http://www.cbonline.org.au/3cmedia/3c_issue3/BarryERennie.pdf) also talks about community media existing as to serve needs that are different than commercial mainstream media. These “common goods” which are about creation of social interaciton, expression of values, and the creation of social spaces where what is produced are relationships, learning, new ideas and expression. The Internet is not particuarly adept at this. It is here that community media has its value.
It is this space that I am interested in exploring more.
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
“A More Perfect Union”
Constitution Center
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Watch the entire speech and read the text below the video player:
Transcript
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
Pretty powerful song / video.
Wonder if you should spend your time campaigning in social networks?
You can use this tool to calculate an estimate of cost and return on investment for the recruitment and fundraising efforts of your staff in social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace. It works sort of like an online mortgage calculator. Just enter the starting assumptions in the yellow boxes below and the tool calculates results automatically.
Need some metrics guidelines? You might check out some of the online advocacy and fundraising benchmark studies. If you don’t measure results strictly by fundraising — maybe your results are based on advocacy or branding only — you can just look at the “cost per friend” or “cost per email name” to compare with the costs of recruiting people elsewhere. You can also see how that translates into cost per action or email viewed (opened).
If you would like to see the assumptions and equations behind the magical calculations, they are available on the original Excel spreadsheet. Email Justin Perkins to request a copy or to send feedback, and feel free to comment below.
Questions:
What sorts of ownership and regulatory schemes best serve both the market and the the public? How do you ensure a range of public uses centered around free speech and access coupled with ownership concerns around innovation, privacy, profit, competition?
How do the market, the state, and the public interact within telecommunications policy in the US? And what space is created for CMT practices?
Do community media & technology practices contribute to stonger communities?
What are the community impacts resulting from CMT practices?
What is the role of media within a community setting?
What defines a meaningful community media practice?
Are communities with a diverse media landscape, including community media, better off than communities without such environments?
Are there ideal environments in which communtiy media thrive (i.e. certain size community, certain types of individuals and groups present)?
Rather than creating a positive enviornment, are strong community media pratices evidence of a civically engaged community?
What are the elements that comprise a strong community media practice?
What are the strongest community media practices (i.e. youth media, immigrant / ethnic media, local orgs, local gov, political / religious speech)?
Is there an indexing or evaluation system that can predict if a community will sustain a meaningful community media practice?
Would it be ideal to focus on public access, community radio, Internet, print, some or all?
Methods:
GIS to map locations – compare against population, age, ethnicity, new american population, political culture, religious affiliation, income, home ownership, crime, race, voter registration, educaiton — are the set indicators of civic engagement?
Case studies of 3-4 different types of communities as a best practice for rural, urban, suburban, and mid-sized urban
What can be done to aid researchers, advocates, and activists in producing, finding, and mobilizing relevant research and data? What can be done to facilitate the analysis of reform activities and strategies, and support the growth of broader conceptual frameworks and linkages between issues? What would a robust knowledge infrastructure for public-interest media look like?
I’m working as a research assistant for Michael Johnson who has just transplanted himself from Carnegie Mellon. One of the project he is collaborating on is “Footprints” which looks at how to use a co2 personal consumption / emission widget to enliven person change. There seems to be some useful links and concepts on the site and certainly a project I’m interested in exploring more about:
I’ve been skeptical against the Open Source Software producers community since years, skeptical against this white, middle-class, male students and engineers. For me this user/producer group is a club, which includes those who have enough time resources to create social capital through peer recognition by working on technologically oriented projects. As early technology adopters, the OSS producers community also actively shapes technology (I have to repeat: they are white, middle-class, male). The OSS producers community tested, improved and incorporated all the elements which can be found in Lazzaratos description of immaterial work above: Flat hierarchies, computerized networks, creating products in their leisure time. So the OSS producer is paradigmatic for the current overage of productivity in the countries of fully developed capitalism, which again gets induced into the circuit of production and exploitation.more here:
https://lists.thing.net/pipermail/idc/2007-August/002724.html