Breakout Report: Mitchel Resnick - Nancy Jones, Day One
The Information Needs of A Community
Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008
Aragon Room
Leader: Mitchel Resnick,
M.I.T.
Scribe: Nancy Jones,
Community Foundation of Broward
In today’s world:
Information
is:
- provided immediately –
- and expected immediately –
- email returns
- phone calls
- everything is on demand – instant
information gratification
As
a result:
- we get too much – too fast – becomes
overwhelming - people self select what
information they intake
Avenues for civic
engagement:
It was felt by the group that
we need to change the ways people become engaged in communities and that we
need to provide opportunities for them to become engaged and how they discover
opportunities for engagement. To do that, community foundations need to
provide them with relevant and timely information.
Mass Media v. all the rest
Mass media is too generic, as
people who take in information; we get the same story from multiple sources.
Other voices are left out.
Mass media is general. Mass
media does not include thoughtful subjects.
This is not reflective of
demographic shifts happening in communities.
While stories are general,
there is a greater need for diversity
Thoughtful and/or experienced
journalists are few and far between. There is no one filling the honest broker
role. There is a lack of “hungry” reporters.
The lack of information need
filling mass media has resulted in the development of other news and
information sources.
People
are taking matters into their own hands.
People are
developing own lists to distribute information to.
People choose their
own sources of information.
People are gravitating
towards hyper-local information. They express need and value in this type of
information. The belief is that the more hyper-local the information is – the
more often that people will source it.
Local news outlets not
covering local news
No place to go to
find local issue coverage
Articulation of
what is helpful and needed
Hyper local information is
thought to be useful on its own and an effective way to keep communities
informed – but leaves us with the need for someone to aggregate the information
and provide relevancy and space for reflection.
Who is aggregating and
extrapolating to the broader community? And if no one, what can funders do to
insure that it is done.
Who is playing role of
synthesizer?
Access (the issue formerly
known as the digital divide)
Once the information is aggregated,
we are faced with the issue of access. Are we further disenfranchising
residents of our communities by rewarding those who are fluent users?
Additional information needs
in our community:
- Something/one to break down the
systems in the community (schools/government/) for average citizen – today,
people only seek out information when they have a need and express frustration
and difficulty - Calendar information
- Information needs to go beyond the
neighborhoods - Source that aggregates the blogs
- Ability/place to dialogue on the
issues - Greater space for reflection
- Vetting of information – avenue to
accomplish this - More diverse voices
- Types of fluencies to understand –
to care about – to sort through the massive amount of information that is out
there - How to make information more
meaningful
Occurrences as result of
an uninformed community:
We are faced with challenges
such as:
- How to we develop interests in
things that people are not interested in – due to self-selecting or information
sources? - Issues that are identified as
neighborhood issues become silo-ed - Mass media dumbed itself down to
reach/appeal mass market - Information needs are segmented –
by their personal needs/wants- Media can appear as “noise” to
those who do not understand issues/events
- Media can appear as “noise” to
Observations:
- People will drill down and source
out all kinds of information about things that they are passionate about – food,
school, etc… - “New voices” have credibility –
without the benefit of layers of editors, fact checkers, etc… - People are self-selecting media –
what they listen to and watch - Diminishment of broad interests
- Awareness of “the stuff” that is
out there – but how do people find it? - Demand for broader information may
be diminished
Potential Solutions:
- Local journalists can/should tell
stories that articulate information that a community needs- Requires investment/investigation
- Analog radio going digital
Online Sources
- Readership Institute at Northwestern University (why and what people actually do read in newspapers) –
- E-Democracy –
- artsopolis -
