Here's your breakdown of news in civic media this week...

VIDEO

Mapping Media Ecosystems
Hal Roberts, Erhardt Graeff, and Gilad Lotan

FEATURED EVENTS

Events This Week

• "Mapping Media Ecosytems". Civic Media Session, Wednesday 5pm w/ Hal Roberts, Erhardt Graeff, Gilad Lotan cot.ag/uad5Sz
• Mitch Resnick joins us Thursday for free lunch (RSVP). "Launching Projects into the World": cot.ag/uwCU4G
• Join Nathan Matias, Matt Stempek, and Daniel Schultz at the Civic Media London Social Thu 3 Nov @ 6:00pm bit.ly/uUzVK6

Civic Videos and Podcasts

• Video: Civic Media Session: "Civic Maps" cot.ag/vwolZi
• Video: Ethan Zuckerman on "Networks Understanding Networks" cot.ag/tCdCFc
• Video: Benjamen Walker talks "Too Much Information" at our Civic Media Lunch: bit.ly/vKJvyv (Great example of "civic fiction" as a genre…)
• Podcast: "Surveillance and Citizenship" cot.ag/saThfE
• Molly Sauter interviewed by BBC4 about Anonymous and hacktivism cot.ag/vwfnHR (~13:50)

Laura Kurgan, Pablo Rey

Maps, Geographic Information Systems, and spatial analysis are powerful tools that recently have become increasingly accessible to non-specialists. Dynamic maps with user created content are becoming part of daily life in the 1/3 world (developed countries and elites in the global South). There is a long history of maps as tools for civic engagement, with public participatory GIS and community engaged mapping playing key roles in (for example) indigenous land rights struggles, mapping health disparities, and the environmental justice movement's demonstration of the unequal spatial distribution of pollution. Most recently, new tools and platforms like Open Street Maps and Grassroots Mapping are democratizing maps even further.

What challenges still constrain the effective creation and use of Civic Maps? What tools and platforms are most promising? What steps can developers, practitioners, and researchers take to help build the field of civic mapping?

Download or watch below.

Benjamen Walker is the host of the program "Too Much Information" a radio show (and podcast) about life in the information age. He reports on many of the issues and topics of the day (Wikileaks, Anonymous, online porn, surveillance, net neutrality) but he also throws in conspiracy theories, fiction and interviews with ordinary people trying to make sense of their digital selves.

Download or watch below.

Center for Civic Media director Ethan Zuckerman during the Media Lab's fall meeting:

It's 2011. This is a year -- depending on how this year ends up -- that is going to be remembered perhaps as we remember 1989, 1968, perhaps 1848 as one of these years where the world as we know it changes fairly radically.

However, as Ethan showed in great detail using visualizations of automated news coverage analysis, these revolutions may well be events that much of the world missed...

From the Center

• Rahul Bhargava presents "Data Therapy Webinar: Techniques for Creative Data Presentation" http://cot.ag/qkzCnA Register today
• RSVP for free lunch tomorrow: "Lunch: Basta! Mapping and Storytelling The World's Fastest Growing Occupation" http://cot.ag/nVYoHw
• MIT TechTV – Ramesh Srinivasan (@rameshmedia): "Empowering Culture and Context" shar.es/bCqPG
• Tackling Co-Design: Molly Sauter (http://cot.ag/ndXUGZ) and Nathan Matias http://cot.ag/ov1Qaq
• "Rethinking the IRC Experience" http://cot.ag/ny8aqO Latest @civicMIT post from Dan Schultz
• "Old School Civic Media: Newsboards in Calcutta" http://cot.ag/pc92JP via Sasha Costanza-Chock's Intro to Civic Media class

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer writes this morning in the Washington Post:

To the villainy-of-the-rich theme emanating from Washington, a child is born: Occupy Wall Street. Starbucks-sipping,  Levi’s-clad, iPhone-clutching protesters denounce corporate America even as they weep for Steve Jobs, corporate titan, billionaire eight times over.

These indignant indolents saddled with their $50,000 student loans and English degrees have decided that their lack of gainful employment is rooted in the malice of the millionaires on whose homes they are now marching — to the applause of Democrats suffering acute Tea Party envy and now salivating at the energy these big-government anarchists will presumably give their cause.

Download!

Upcoming Events

• RSVP for our Civic Media Lunch with Zeega http://cot.ag/nMzel8
• 10/4: *Tuesday* Lunch: "Empowering Culture and Context": http://civic.mit.edu/event/tuesday-lunch-empowering-culture-and-context
• 10/6 Thursday Lunch: "Collectivities and Disappearance": http://civic.mit.edu/event/thursday-lunch-collectivities-and-disappearance
• 10/20 Civic Media Session: "Civic Maps": http://civic.mit.edu/event/civic-media-session-civic-maps

From civic.mit.edu/blog
(You can read a ton of insightful posts from Sasha Costanza-Chock's introduction to civic media students)

Representing Islam, a Civic Media Session this Thursday

• "Representing Islam", our 9/15 event with Boston College/Berkman Center's Intisar Rabb, Sudanese blogger Amir Ahmad Nasr, and civil rights outreach director of the American Islamic Congress, Nasser Weddady http://cot.ag/nc5hYn

Thursday lunch series kicks off (RSVP req.)

• Thursday 12:30pm: "Citizen and Professional Media in Italy" with Luca De Biase: http://cot.ag/oNzqAi

Introduction to Civic Media