C4FCM Blog

Henry Jenkins: Thanks for this really rich provocation, Dayna. These are questions which we need to be discussing as a society and they should be central to our understanding of "civic media," "social media," whatever we want to call it.

A Greener People forum survey seeks to determine if the struggling economy is changing our green shopping habits. So far, 3/4 of the site’s readers indicate that they will spend the same or more on environmentally friendly products as a result of the economy.
Is this surprising?
What does this mean for Buy It [...]

is an email list that tells the stories of innovative nonprofits and social entrepreneurs around the world that could use help with the projects they’re working on. I really like that each article they write is also a call to action and look forward to the day when every news media adopts this mandate.
Their [...]

One of the most powerful sessions of my class on New Media Literacies and Civic Engagement last fall came as a result of a visit from Dayna Cunningham from MIT's Community Innovators Lab shortly after the 2008 election.

One of the most powerful sessions of my class on New Media Literacies and Civic Engagement last fall came as a result of a visit from Dayna Cunningham from MIT's Community Innovators Lab shortly after the 2008 election. Cunningham challenged me and my students to think about whether new media tools and platforms might help address the erosion of the black public sphere.

One of the most powerful sessions of my class on New Media Literacies and Civic Engagement last fall came as a result of a visit from Dayna Cunningham from MIT's Community Innovators Lab shortly after the 2008 election. Cunningham challenged me and my students to think about whether new media tools and platforms might help address the erosion of the black public sphere.

I've written before about the extrACT suite of software tools we have been developing at MIT: information and communication technologies that promote community collective action. We have started to introduce the first of these tools, "Landman Report Card":http://lrc.media.mit.edu, to communities in Texas and Ohio that are being confronted by the impacts of natural gas extraction. The experiences that citizens are recording with it are as remarkable as they are heartbreaking.

Residents out west, in some of the most scenic and (until recently) unspoiled parts of the US have called their regions a "national sacrifice zone" where their health, welfare, and environment are being traded for energy that used in other parts of the country. In many cases rural and suburban communities lack the experience, knowledge, or political capital to hold industry accountable. Industry can cut corners, use unspecified and dangerous chemicals, and negotiate substandard agreements with the people whose property and livelihood they are impacting. ICT systems that record an individuals' experiences, make them accessible, and allow these individuals to network and organize can help rectify the knowledge gap. Film maker Paula Aguilera followed some of our fieldwork and put together this video:

I've written before about the extrACT suite of software tools we have been developing at MIT: information and communication technologies that promote community collective action.

I attended the Mobile Tech 4 Social Change barcamp in New York with MIT colleagues Audubon Dougherty, Nadav Aharony, and Danielle Martin last weekend.

Unfortunately, I missed Ethan Zuckerman’s keynote (hoping it will be posted online) but according to Patrick Meier’s informative post about the day, one of Ethan’s biggest takeaway points focused on the importance of using of multiple technologies together:

(The) convergence of ICTs is far more powerful than the increasingly ubiquitous mobile phone. When mobile phones and SMS are paired with radio talk show programs, the combination replicates much of the functionalities that characterize the Internet. Once information is broadcast over radio, it becomes public knowledge.

I find this to be a valuable take away not only because of my own interest in radio and mobile but also because it suggests the larger need to focus on strategies over technologies. Mobile phone by themselves probably won’t solve entrenched issues, particularly those that extend beyond geographic and disciplinary boundaries, but they can be a valuable part of larger tactics.

Collaborative online news production: Introducing Open Park

Now that the spring semester is in full swing, I thought I would write a little Intro about my project for the Center for Future Civic Media [C4FCM] where I work as a Research Assistant, and the ideas and ideals behind it.