journalism

Journalism is a term that is undergoing both scrutiny and rapid change. It describes the professional standards of information gathering, fact checking, and clear communication. The term has expanded to include citizen journalists who report on their communities and bloggers who indulge in everything from gossip to genuine news to personal reflection. New developments in citizen journalism and youth journalism and new formats such as comics are also part of the civic media landscape.

Putting Voldemort into the Guardian: Remixing the News with Hackasaurus

Submitted by natematias on November 8, 2011 - 1:41pm

Hackasaurus is a great project by Mozilla which makes it easy to see the structure of a web page and remix it. In education, it's a great way to combine learning about composition with learning about how to make.

Today in the Media Lab's class on Technologies for Creative Learning, we met with Andrew Slack of the Harry Potter Alliance, an organisation which mobilises Harry Potter fans for social good. We also had a great conversation on the ideas of Henry Jenkins about participatory culture and participatory learning (for more, see this report by Jenkins funded by the MacArthur Foundation).

Liveblog: Al Jazeera on Liveblogging

Submitted by mstem on November 5, 2011 - 9:46am

I liveblogged a session on liveblogging, and the universe didn't implode! Giant disclaimer that the audio in the room wasn't great, so some of these thoughts and many of the words are my own, trying to capture Bilal's talk. I wouldn't quote him on any of this.

Thanks to Bilal Randeree for sharing with us. You can find him on Twitter @bilalr.

It's been a big year for liveblog-worthy news, which you can quickly see in a run-down of Al Jazeera's Live Blogs:

Begin semi-quotations:

Civic Media Goes to London, Part One

Submitted by natematias on November 4, 2011 - 10:35pm

Greetings from London! Matt, Dan, and I from the Center for Civic Media are in the UK this week for the Mozilla Festival on Media, Freedom, and the Web. Matt and I arrived in London on Wednesday to meet up with interesting people in the UK before the conference. Here's a quick run-down on our trip thus far.

In Cambridge, we spoke with Matt Williams, social enterprise coordinator for the UK Youth Climate Coalition. Matt was the programme manager for PowerShift UK in 2008. We talked about organising climate campaigns as well as models of action around adaptive responses to the human impact of climate change.

The Week in Civic Media: Mapping Media Ecosystems

Submitted by Andrew on October 31, 2011 - 3:56pm

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)
Link: 
Mapping Media Ecosytems
Video: Networks Understanding Networks

Video: "Networks Understanding Networks" with Ethan Zuckerman

Submitted by Andrew on October 26, 2011 - 9:24am

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...

Link: 
Ethan Zuckerman: "Networks Understanding Networks"
Global Voices

"What Is Civic Media" Revisited: A Conversation with Harvard's John Palfrey

Submitted by Henry on October 11, 2011 - 12:17pm

Cross-posted with henryjenkins.org.

Henry Jenkins: On September 20 2007, we officially launched the MIT Center for the Future of Civic Media, a joint venture of the Media Lab and the Comparative Media Studies Program.

What would a nutritional label for the news look like?

Submitted by mstem on October 6, 2011 - 12:34pm

The standard US FDA nutrition label is well-known here in the states because it is both consistent (for better or worse) and ubiquitous: you'll find it on almost all packaged foods, excluding certain foods like fresh meat (until 2012) and fresh baked goods (creating an opening in the market for cupcake detectives).

As we consider the equivalent of a nutritional label for information consumption, I'd like to strike a balance between the consistent, widely-recognized FDA label and the far more creative, dynamic approaches to visualizing information all over the internet.

This Week in Civic Media: Hero Reports in the News

Submitted by Andrew on September 26, 2011 - 1:42pm

Upcoming Events

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

This Week in Civic Media: "Representing Islam," Thursday 5pm

Submitted by Andrew on September 12, 2011 - 8:17pm

Park 51Representing 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

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