Tom Glaisyer: All Related Content

It's been a quiet week in D.C. so we decided to explore one of the arguments being advanced around the  proceeding at the FCC related to bringing broadcaster public files into the 21st century.

Broadcasters have argued that

As Egypt celebrates Mubarek's resignation should discussion again turn to nominating Twitter or Facebook for the Nobel Peace Prize? Did social media push a president out?

Though we focus on media policy here at the New America Foundation’s Media Policy Initiative (MPI), such policy doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It must address the needs of the day. As the FCC explores policies in its “Future of Media” inquiry, understanding the changes in technology and designing the policies to address these changes is crucial to successful media policy.

By Wendy Seltzer, James Losey, Tom Glaisyer, and Kara Hadge

On June 20, 2009, nearly 150,000 people witnessed the death of 26-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan, but unlike the Iranians who passed her by in the street, they weren't bystanders to the post-election turmoil in Tehran that claimed her life. They were merely the first of over 600,000 who have since viewed a now-symbolic YouTube video that helped propel the opposition political movement forward in the following days of protest. The democratizing power of the Web lies in video like this one--not just because of its content, but because anyone with an Internet connection can contribute to a global dialogue.

We have created a map that shows the location of over 300 journalism schools, communication schools, and journalism or communication departments at universities across the country.  The data came from a list compiled by researchers at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg's Department of Journalism and Media Studies.

Today we posted a set of public files we have recently collected. In the context of the Future of Media Inquiry being run by the FCC we have decided to examine copies of the public files broadcasters are required to make available in fulfillment of the public interest obligation they accept as licensees of the public airways.

We have been doing some work to understand local media ecosystems and with some data provided generously by David Keyes we have created the map below. We're providing it in this post now even though it is a work in progress as OpenGov West is going on and we would appreciate feedback.  Unfortunately, to see Seattle and all the markers you need to zoom in on Seattle.  

 We have coded up the websites so that different colors represent the following categories of sites: (1) neighborhood (general, personal interest, news, parent support groups, crime watch, clubs, business associations, community councils, chambers of commerce, community associations, district councils etc. (orange),  (2) parks, gardens, playgrounds, transportation (greenish), (3) school/library (yellow)  (4) arts, historical, food/farmer's markets (red) (5) non-profits/ social justice/outreach programs, (6) Private (dark blue) 

Yesterday, Wednesday February 25, New America hosted the FCCs Steve Waldman and Michael Kinsley, Senior Editor at The Atlantic (video below). Although much of Waldman and Kinsley's discussion was focused on the future of journalism in the digital age, Waldman began the event by speaking about the public interest in the changing media ecosystem.

I have spent the last few months (with my colleagues Nick, Kara, Amanda, and Molly) populating a database with information that seeks to describe local information communities. The objective is to provide a qualitative understanding of the information health of a community. This data will take some time to consolidate and share, but I wanted to provide an example of one city councilor working in one city council in one state. It’s not sensible to draw strong conclusions about this example, but it suggests to me an interesting future.

There’s nothing especially unusual about Pepper Pike City, Ohio. It’s a small community—smaller than average, perhaps, at a population around 6,000—outside Cleveland, with weekly town meetings, a public library, local school system, a budget to balance, and, one imagines, the occasional broken street lamp to fix. But it also has plenty of concerned citizens, who not only want their community to be able to afford gas for snow plows, to give a recent example, but also want their neighbors to weigh in on their own budgeting priorities, to have a voice in the proceedings whether or not they make it to the town meeting.

We put out announcements at the beginning of this week related to opportunities to work with the Media Policy Initiative as either as a part-time fellow or as an intern. As we are receiving questions from potential applicants I wanted to write a short blog post to address the most common ones.

[NOTE: We are no longer accepting applications for Part-time fellows]

1. Range of backgrounds