The Future of Civic Media

For a continuously updated list of coverage about the conference– from blog posts to podcasts to articles and more — see here.

For a map of all the conference locations, see here.

The Future of Civic Media
Knight News Challenge Winners Conference at MIT
June 11-13, 2008
Cambridge, MA

  
Note: To download a PDF of the conference materials, including the finalized agenda, click here.

 
Wednesday, June 11 at the Media Lab (Wiesner Building) [map]
 

3:00 - 5:00 Arrival and Registration (Media Lab)

5:00 Welcome (Bartos Auditorium, LL Media Lab)
 
Alberto Ibarguen, President of the Knight Foundation, and Chris Csikzsentmihályi open the meeting. We are introduced to some of the experimental media tools we will use during the conference.
 
5:30-6:30 Roundtable: The Future of Civic Media (Bartos, LL, Media Lab)
 
Henry Jenkins, co-director of the Center for Future Civic Media, with Dan Gillmor, Jay Rosen and Lisa Williams.

6:30-7:30 Dinner in the Lower Atrium outside Bartos (LL, Media Lab)

7:30- 9:00 Demonstrations of MIT projects: Cube, Lower and Upper Atria
 

Thursday, June 12 at the Stata Center [map] 
8:00-9:00 Breakfast (Stata Center lobby, Building 32)
 
9:00 -10:30 Plenary 1: New Media, New Voices
 
Mitchel Resnick, co-director, Center for Future Civic Media, and research presenters (Rm. 141)
 
–- Introduction and Overview (Mitch Resnick)
— Silver Stringers (Jack Driscoll)
–- New Media Literacies (Anna van Sumeren)
— Computer Clubhouse (Ingeborg Endter)
–- What’s Up? (Leo Burd)
— Say What? (Karen Brennan)
— Webcomix (Noah Blumenson-Cook)
— Speakeasy (Jeremy Liu)
— Rising Voices, Global Voices (Ethan Zuckerman)
 
10:30 -11:15 Diving Deeper: Previous panel presenters are available at designated tables outside the auditorium, for follow-up conversations. This also is a coffee break.
 
10:45-12:00 Plenary 2: Civic Action (Rm. 141)
 
Chris Csikszentmihályi, co-director of the Center for Future Civic Media, and research presenters
 
— Buy It Like You Mean It (Clay Ward)
— Hero Reports (Alyssa Wright)
— Sourcemap (Leonardo Bonanni)
— About Us (Annina Rüst)
— Freedom Fone / Kubatana (Brenda Burrell)
— Everyblock (Adrian Holovaty)
 
12:00 -12:30 Diving Deeper: Previous panel presenters are available at designated tables outside the auditorium, for follow-up conversations.
 
12:30 - 2:00 Lunch (Stata Center lobby)
 
2:00-3:30 Plenary 3: Knight News Challenge Progress Reports (Stata, Rm. 123)
 
Gary Kebbel, Director, Knight News Challenge, and Knight presenters (TBA):
 
–Introduction of new 2008 Knight Challenge winners
–Progress Reports from some 2007 Knight Challenge winners
–Introduction to the participatory activities to follow and Birds-of-a-Feather meeting invitations
 
3:30-5:30 Games and Birds-of-a-Feather meetings
 
— TimeLab (Eric Klopfer, Judy Perry and Josh Sheldon) (30 people) (MIT Building 4, Rm. 149)
— Street Media (Rekha Murthy) (15 people) (Stata, Rm. 141)
— Making Civic Games (Alice Robison) (30 people) (Stata, Rm. 155)
— Rooms available for spontaneous other meetings
 
6:30 Cocktails and Dinner (Stata Faculty Dining Room, 4th Floor)
 
Friday, June 13 at the Stata Center [map]
 
7:30-8:30 Breakfast (Stata Center lobby, Building 32)
 
8:30-9:45 Plenary 4: Mobile, Viral and Decentralized Communications (Stata, Rm. 123)
 
Andy Lippman, co-director, Media Lab Viral Communications Program
 
— Comm.Unity, with Snap N Share and Social Dashboard (Nadav Aharony)
— Senseable Societies (Sandy Pentland)
— Holla @ Me (Kevin Driscoll)
— DIO.Radio (Colleen Kaman)
— Pakistan Cellphones (Huma Yusuf)
— Xcast (Sung-Hyuck Lee)
— News on Cellphones (Joel Selanikio)
— Ecomedia (Dale Joachim)
 
9:45-10:15 Diving Deeper: Previous panel presenters are available at designated tables outside the auditorium, for follow-up conversations. This also is a coffee break.
 
10:15-12:30 Breakouts and Birds-of-a feather groups
 
I. Breakouts Session One (10:15 am)
11:15 Break and travel time
II. Breakouts session Two (11:30 am) (same topic, same room, with new people)
 
Breakouts:
 
— Immigration and Civic Media: (Leader: Gabriel Berrios, Wireless Philadelphia and others TBD) (Building 56, Rm. 167)
— Mapping and Geotagging: (Leader: Lisa Williams, Placeblogger and others TBD) (Building 56, Rm. 114)
— Civic Media and the 2008 US Elections: (Leaders: Ian Rowe, MTV and others TBD) (Building 66, Rm. 160)
— Civic media in Developing Countries: (Leaders: Brenda Burrell, Kubatana, Aaditeshwar Seth, Community Radio in India) (Building 56, Rm. 162)
— Surviving After the Knight Grant: (Leaders: Gary Kebbel, Jose Zamora, Knight Foundation) (Building 32 (Stata), Rm. 141)
— Citizen Journalism 3.0: (Leaders: David Cohn, Digidave; Amy Gahran, Boulder project; J.D. Lasica, Community Media Toolset) (Building 56, Rm. 154)
— Hyperlocal Media: (Leaders: Dan Pacheco, Printcasting; Chris Dougherty, Chi-Town Daily News) (Building 66, Rm. 154)
— The Future of Radio: (Leaders: Margaret Rosas, Radio Drupal; Geeta Dayal, MIT Center for Future Civic Media; and others TBD) (Building 56, Rm. 180)
— Games: (Leaders: Gail Robinson, Gotham Gazette; Paul Grabowicz, Oakland Jazz; Fabio Berzaghi, Playing the News, U of Minn) (Building 26, Rm. 168)
— Developing Social Networks: (Leaders: Dori Maynard, Maynard Institute blogger; other leaders TBD) (Building 66, Rm. 168)
— How Knight Foundation Winners Can Work Better Together: (Leaders: Chris Csikszentmihalyi, Center for Future Civic Media; and Alexander Zolotorev, Sochi Olympics Project) (Building 32, Rm. 155)
 
12:30-1:30 Lunch (Stata lobby)
 
1:30-2:45 Plenary 5: Visualizing, Mapping and Analyzing Information (Stata, Rm. 123)
 
Judith Donath, Director, Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Lab, and researcher presenters:
 
— Selectricity (Benjamin Mako Hill)
— Egology (Alex Dragalescu)
— ICue (Jason Haas)
— Many Eyes (Fernanda Viegas)
— Many Eyes in the Classroom (Emily Lin)
— Cameras of the Future (Ramesh Raskar)
— Video Data Mining (Deb Roy)
— Placeblogger (Lisa Williams)
 
2:45-3:15 Diving Deeper: Previous panel presenters are available at designated tables outside the auditorium, for follow-up conversations. This also is a coffee break.
 
3:15-4:00 Plenary 6: The Future of Civic Media: Further Thoughts (Stata, Rm. 123)
 
Ellen Hume, research director, Center for Future Civic Media, and Gary Kebbel, Knight News Challenge, moderate a group discussion with participants from the conference TBA.
  

Conference Hotel:
The Cambridge Marriott
2 Cambridge Center
Cambridge MA
(617) 494-6600

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Travel Agency support: Thom Mulhern, The Travel Collaborative (email)

Dear Knight News Challenge Retreat Attendees:

I will help you with your hotel and travel for the June retreat.

1. The following applies to the one subsidized traveler from your organization:

We have reserved a block of hotel rooms at the nearby Cambridge Marriott for the evenings of June 11 and June 12 for the event. All you have to do is to confirm with me that you do, in fact, need a room and I will add you to the rooming list that we will provide to the Marriott. Please note that the deadline for getting a room in the reserved block is May 15, 2008. Please let me know that you need a room no later than May 14, 2008. Email confirmations will be sent out in batches from the hotel.

If your hotel and travel is being subsidized, please do not deal with the hotel to make a reservation. I will do that for you.

We are able to pay for your hotel room plus the local hotel tax only. If there are incidental charges, you will have to settle those when checking out.

We have designated The Travel Collaborative as the travel agent for the retreat. The contact there is Thom Mulhern who can be reached via email by clicking here. He can be reached by telephone toll-free at 800-370-7400, ext. 49. Send him an email with the specifics of your plans (airport departing from, preferred day and times for travel.) Email is the preferred method of communication so that the agent has everything in writing. If you choose to make your own travel plans, we will reimburse you after the retreat once you have submitted your original receipts. Please travel by coach class as inexpensively as possible. In all cases, you can submit transportation-related (cabs, parking, etc.) receipts to me after the retreat for reimbursement. Once you have made your final travel plans, please email your itinerary to me.

2. Regarding a second, non-subsidized guest:

If your organization is sending a second, non-subsidized person to the retreat, you might consider sharing a hotel room at the Marriott, which will not charge you for the second person. When that is not possible we can work with you to find an appropriate roommate during the retreat if you wish to save money by doubling up. Please send me an email if that is the case.

And, please note that while The Travel Collaborative is an MIT-approved vendor that is able to discount some tickets, there is a $43 service charge on all transactions, so you will need to pay that fee for the second reservation if it is made through them. Sorry, but our budget is limited!

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns about your travel to and from Cambridge.

–Brad Seawell, Center for Future Civic Media, MIT
(617) 253-3521

Dear Knight News Challenge Winners,

We at the Center for Future Civic Media are looking forward very much to seeing all of you at MIT this June 11-13. This conference website will give you some of the details as they are evolving. Please read Brad Seawell’s memo about your travel and hotel arrangements. Once you have made them, please send him your final travel plans. The hotel is a five minute walk from the conference buildings. You can contact Ingeborg Endter or me about any other issues.

The Center for Future Civic Media, a joint project of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program and Media Lab, is working to create a hybrid conference/unconference format with interactive games and demonstrations. The Knight Foundation has encouraged us to design this first annual conference as a retreat at MIT for the Knight News Challenge winners. We are looking forward to brainstorming with you. We will have electronic nametags, which will facilitate your setting up one-on-one and “birds-of-a-feather” meetings during the conference. Soon this website will invite you to use a new preferential voting tool, to prioritize breakout topics before you arrive. We hope you will help us experiment with these and some of our other new civic media tools during your time at MIT.

We hope each of you will prepare a very short update about your project. We will be contacting you with further details. The conference agenda will continue to develop so please keep checking this website for updates.

Ellen Hume
Research Director, Center for Future Civic Media
(617) 324-4316

Chris Csikszentmihályi
Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
Director, Computing Culture Group
Principal Investigator, Center for Future Civic Media
(617) 253-3692

Henry Jenkins
Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities
Co-Director, MIT Comparative Media Studies Program
Principal Investigator, Center for Future Civic Media
(617) 253-3068

Mitchel Resnick
LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research
Head, Program in Media Arts and Sciences
Principal Investigator, Center for Future Civic Media
(617) 253-9783

Ingeborg Endter
Outreach Manager, Center for Future Civic Media
(617) 323-0311