Public Media Showcase

Each month, we highlight a forward-looking project by one of our partners in Ford's Global Perspectives in a Digital Age initiative. This month we review Native American Public Telecommunication's new website. As we suggested in our white paper Public Media 2.0, public broadcasting and radio have the potential to become centers and hubs of public media 2.0.Read more...

On January 20th, we experienced an historic moment in not only politics but in public media 2.0 as well -- Inauguration Report 09. NPR teamed up with American University's School of Communication and CBS to bring you a cutting edge social media tool that utilizes Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, iPhone and Google Phones, and text messaging to engage the public around this exciting event. More than 35,000 user contributions detailed what took place in and around DC on Inauguration day. What makes this project "historic" is a straightforward yet multi-layered design that channels multiple forms of social media—tweets, photos, videos, audio—into one subject stream. The result is an online time capsule that allows any interested party to access and pull information for a myriad of uses.

The recent violence in Gaza has spurred yet another evolutionary surge of public media 2.0 responses. While mainstream media interpretations of the current crisis seem so one-sided, online independent and citizen news sources continue to grow in popularity and offer a myriad of fresh perspectives, many of which are emerging through social media. Read more...

Each month, we highlight a forward-looking project by one of our partners in Ford's Global Perspectives in a Digital Age initiative. This month, we're checking out the new version of the Public Radio Exchange site, described by the Chicago Public Radio blog as "super swanky." What accounts for such swank? PRX had already broken new ground by creating a convenient online marketplace that matches indendent producers with public and community radio stations across the country. The site also doubles as a community destination for fans and producers of cutting-edge audio. Now, PRX 3.0 offers new a set of new features, such as curated playlists and a talent directory.

The National Black Programming Consortium has just released their Masculinity Project--a great new public media resource. The Website aims to redefine our notion of masculinity. It combines creative and provocative media with a chance to participate (via blogs, apps and a wiki) in a discussion about issues that profoundly shape and deform culture. There is a combination of professional and non-professional talents, and invites viewers to become part of the story.