Activists, theorists, media makers and researchers are all struggling to understand the relationship between the recent global cycle of protests and the new media ecology. This panel takes a look at how civic action moves between online and offline spaces, with attention to the SOPA/PIPA battles, Justice for Trayvon Martin, and DREAM Activism.

Panelists:

[This liveblog was written by J. Nathan Mathias and edited by Amy Johnson and Gabi Schaffzin]

Michael Maness leads the Knight Journalism & Innovation Program. In the closing presentation of the conference, he takes the stage to present "moments of profundity": the key takeaways and open questions generated over the past two days.

Michael Kupperman, author of Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010, is a writer of what Ethan likes to call "civic fiction." For more portrayls of civic fiction, Ethan is a fan of Benjamen Walker, who hosts Too Much Information on WFMU. It's one of the more unusual shows you will ever listen to on the Internet. It's hard to figure out, according to Ethan, if it's an interview, a serious news piece, or storytelling that blurs the lines of reality.

Yesterday, in the Turning Data into Narrative session, panelists discussed how data can generate or support narratives.

If we were to start CNN today, it might look more like one of the networks featured in this panel. We take a whirlwind tour of new news networks and new models for reporting and sharing information in our connected age.

Mitch Resnick, director of the Media Lab’s Lifelong Kindergarten group, introduces the panel by describing the culture of the Center for Civic Media and the Media Lab at large. There isn’t a central planning committee that assigns projects to the students and researchers.

Note: This was written with the significant help of Amy Johnson

Introduction

Today, the Knight Foundation announced winners of the latest Knight News Challenge, which was focused on on Networks.

The Extreme Data and Storytelling plenary session showcases people who are out on the frontiers of storytelling, and who are analyzing and presenting data to make sense of large-scale, complex human issues. They include a scientist using data to unpack the mysteries of economic development, a cartographer working to make poetic, public visualizations of place and a storyteller who's going to amazing lengths to tell the story of human migration. How do you map the world in ways that people can make sense of? Data visualization for legibility is one thing but visualization is also a form of poetry. How do you create images that stay with us for a long time?