Witness to a conversation about media and democracy

To arrive in Miami on the day Fidel Castro resigned is to witness a community confronting its conversation with history.

“What Next?” asked The Miami Herald in its print edition, a full day after Miami, Cuba and the world heard the news.

But in the virtual communities of web sites and blogs, as well as in the physical neighborhoods in and around Miami’s Little Havana district, that question has long been discussed in ways that transcend the printed pages of The Herald and its sister publication, the Spanish language El Neuvo Herald.

Today, the Knight Foundation begins a two-day, media learning seminar in Miami with the Council on Foundations to consider how the conversation has changed, and how to address the information needs of communities in a democracy.

While the seminar did not anticipate yesterday’s news – Castro’s resignation letter was first released on Cuba’s state-run website about 36 hours before the start of the seminar – it nonetheless provides context for the changing needs of physical communities community at a time when they are increasingly informed by digital media and the virtual worlds that comprise them.

One context is democracy. Knight and the Council of Foundations are encouraging community organizations to use the “digital public square” to think broadly about citizenship, community involvement and civic betterment.

At the same time the citizens of Miami are exercising the responsibilities of the culturally rich, free community they’ve made in South Florida. In blogs such as babalublog,com, as well in coffee houses and shops on Calle Ocho, they explore the “What Next?” question for the small island 90 miles to the south from which many fled when the communist Castro took power nearly 50 years ago.