Future of Public Media

Here’s a report from CSM Media Fellow Neil Sieling, fresh off the plane from his recent trip to the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA):


In late November, some 3,000 filmmakers, distributors, television commissioners and other funders descended upon Amsterdam to help the IDFA celebrate its 20th anniversary and participate in a series of sessions on future trends in the quickly changing world of documentary media.
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As the year comes to a close, the grantees of the Ford Foundation Future of Public Media initiative, an alliance of leading nonprofits, continue to redefine the role of public media by forging new models and practices for the future. Here are some of their latest initiatives: Read more...

As the nation awaits tonight’s online CNN/YouTube Republican debate, Center Research Director 6 reflects on the changing nature of electoral engagement in a digital age. Her cover piece for In These Times explores the implications, both good and bad, of the online offerings of digital participatory platforms like YouTube and MySpace that are used to interact with voters and help candidates to vie for public approval. Read more...

Social Networks, Web 2.0, the "semantic web"--these are all unexplored territories for media scholars more accustomed to the terrain of broadcast, print, and even regular old hypertext. But a new generation of researchers are donning their virtual pith helmets to report back from parts unknown, providing accounts of platforms, spaces and practices that might support future public media. Here's a short list of notable projects:Read more...

MinnPost is a new online news project that provides professional-quality journalism focused specifically on the Minneapolis area. Launched just a week ago, the project differs from the broader, more general reporting of larger newspapers by providing its readership with important stories from its own community, as well as original reporting on national and global news. The site is representative of an upsurge in digital media projects tied to a particular community or region.
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