Welcome
Terry : Taylor, welcome home
fpaynter : Hi terry
fpaynter : Hi Taylor
Taylor on the Dell : solving an Achievement Gap problem
fpaynter : Once it's solved can you replicate the solution?
Schumann has entered the room.
fpaynter : Hi Paul
fpaynter :
Taylor on the Dell : Im back
Taylor on the Dell : or here to start with
Taylor on the Dell : checking the calendar
Schumann :
Taylor on the Dell : yep
Taylor on the Dell : American Library Association
Jon Lebkowsky has entered the room.
Jon Lebkowsky : Sorry I'm late
Terry : Welcome Jon
Jon Lebkowsky : Did y'all hear me over the mic?
Taylor on the Dell : Not terribly organized
Terry : yes
Schumann : yes
Jon Lebkowsky : How do you know it wasn't a quorum?
Jon Lebkowsky : If people understood the meaning of the name, it would be cool to keep it. But it's not well understood.
Taylor on the Dell : That was Rayne's question...what is the problem statement
Rayne has entered the room.
Rayne : Howdy!
Terry : Hi Rayne
Rayne : Howdy, Terry!
Rayne : sorry to be late, life interferes
Terry : That's what makes it interesting!
Taylor on the Dell : I think it says a lot for the relationships that have formed
Jon Lebkowsky : Loud hum on this end.
Rayne : or the passion and intention that some of us have for the topic, Taylor
Rayne : But isn't that part of the problem statement, that we are living in something that we cannot agree upon as a democracy?
Rayne : mic keeps cutting out, Jon
Taylor on the Dell : media literacy?
Taylor on the Dell : Yeah, Neil Postman
Rayne : so can we agree that democracy requires a sharing of information -- some of it is push (media), some of it is pull (acquisition, self-empowered education), some of it through deliberation?
Taylor on the Dell : And there are alternative forms of media and information that many people have not tapped into or do not understand
Rayne : yes, exactly
Jon Lebkowsky : Rayne: yes.
Taylor on the Dell : Is there a role in here for citizen journalism? being discriminating consumers of information as well as creating our own story?
Rayne : yes, Taylor, there is -- but I do have a conflict of interest here since I'm a citizen journalist. ;-)
Taylor on the Dell : so you can teach us how to read YOU!
Rayne : heh. actually, folks can read us quite well, it's the barriers that are the problem
Taylor on the Dell : we can invite them
Rayne : agh, yes, Jay should be here.
Rayne : I have been trying to encourage Marcy Wheeler to join, too...
Jon Lebkowsky : We did invite Jay to the earlier sessions, but he didn't make it. We could twist his arm.
Jon Lebkowsky : We could get Mark Dery.
Jon Lebkowsky : We could get Jimmy.
Rayne : Is this the On The Bus or the previous program?
fpaynter : Tish Grier would be happy to share her experiences I think
fpaynter : Assignment Zero
Taylor on the Dell : knew him in San Jose
Taylor on the Dell : way too far back for him to remember me (Dan Gilmore)
fpaynter : I have a domain name statewideview.com...
fpaynter : I have a project idea that will populate that domain
fpaynter : Wisconsin web publishing aggregation
fpaynter : messaging
fpaynter : gateways into the walled gardens like facebook
Taylor on the Dell : where it is, what it is, why it is important...the role of media in transparency, the role of technology in supporting the kind of media that leads to transparency in govt?
Rayne : but our challenging is also taking apart the cultural barriers that encourage people to be more active in voting for American Idol instead of voting for president or congressperson.
Rayne : media is part of that barrier, reinforcing the energy in the wrong direction
fpaynter : yes rayne
Rayne : why are people less torqued off today about the state of our democracy, than they were 35 years ago about Nixon and Watergate?
Rayne : Is it because the media has been so consolidated and utterly co-opted that the public no longer gets the truth?
fpaynter : yes rayne
Rayne : but once they learn to be more critical of media, what then?
Terry : People assume the media as a fact of life, They don;t challengs what they see
Terry : Don't chanllenge what they see
Rayne : another challenge we face is that so many potential voters are too young to remember what media is supposed to do, what it did during Watergate. They no longer have an institutional frame of reference to know the role of the Fourth Estate in providing information -- they don't have a benchmark upon which to build a new citizen-driven Fourth Estate.
Terry : very true
Jon Lebkowsky :
Rayne : Marcy Wheeler may join us in a minute if I can get her downloaded and in here.
Jon Lebkowsky : You're downloading Marcy?
Rayne : Sent her the link to the Forums, she'll need to download the plugin to get here.
Rayne : If the rest of you aren't familiar with her, she's the blogger who liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial, one of the first bloggers credentialed by a federal courthouse.
Rayne : Marcy also has a doctorate in literature, specializing in political dissent literature of France called "feuilleton".
Jon Lebkowsky : That's funny... I thought I clicked on the mic but I clicked on the speaker and muted it... so I didn't hear what Paul was evidently saying, and you didn't hear my speech... heh.
Taylor on the Dell : did you hear Frank? Should he repeat?
Rayne : heh. maybe that was the cosmos telling you to revise your comments first, jon.
Terry : Frank, can you repeat
Jon Lebkowsky : Rayne: I think it was better the first time, but o well.
Rayne : true -- they exclude themselves, and yet at the same time they also have help in the case of certain groups who are being deliberately disenfranchised.
Jon Lebkowsky : Rayne: there's never been a "democracy" that didn't disenfranchise voters, though.
Rayne : true, it's part of the creative tension, a dynamic of human nature to try constantly to game the system
Jon Lebkowsky : And the folks to disenfranchise voters often think t hey're doing the right thing... assuming that some people shouldn't vote, because they won't understand the issues.
Jon Lebkowsky : And there's something to that, which is why I'm stressing education and media literacy.
Rayne : perhaps -- and then there are the people who are just plain bigots. Right is only when it's right for them.
Rayne : true, we have used representative democracy when we cannot effectively advocate for our selves. But that is a component of our nebulous problem statement...
Rayne : we live in a time when nearly all of us have the means to advocate for ourselves, and representatives are now a means to barr our ability to do that.
Terry : Representatives who are open to and working for the constituants
fpaynter : elected officials are more responsive to their donor base than they are to their voter base
Rayne : Yes, Terry. And unlike the recent past, we can see when they are failing us very easily.
Rayne : fpaynter -- another component of the problem statement; the money games the system, too. Money has for too long been a substitute for actual speech; the one with the most money has the most political speech.
Marcy has entered the room.
Rayne : Hey Marcy!!
Jon Lebkowsky : Some argue that money IS speech.
Jon Lebkowsky : In this context, at least.
Rayne : Could we all do introductions and an explainer for Marcy?
Taylor on the Dell : But people are showing up and they are engaged and the school superintendents are thrilled - well, most of them.
Rayne : Marcy, you can either chat by clicking in the space below the text, or you can "grab" the mic by clicking on it and speaking into headphones if you have mic on them.
Taylor on the Dell : quick forum methodology
Taylor on the Dell : but some of it also requires developing the capacity, the habit and the culture
Rayne : I guess I should ask if Marcy could hear the last speaker.
Marcy : Yeah, I can.
Taylor on the Dell : you are absolutely right
Rayne : great.
Terry : Marcy, jump right in any time
fpaynter : too right paul
Rayne : Taylor, can you pull up the last slide?
Rayne : did my mic work?
Rayne : yup that's it
Rayne : and a round of introductions, please
Jon Lebkowsky : x marks the spot.
Taylor on the Dell : with Media Bloggers Association??
Marcy : No
Marcy : FDL had our own passes (mine was technically DKos).
Marcy : We had two passes for the courtroom (both through HuffPo) and mine in the media room (through DKos).
Marcy : I don't have a mike so I'll type.
Rayne : DKos = DailyKos
Rayne : FDL = FireDogLake.com
Rayne : HuffPo=HuffingtonPost
fpaynter : not the old left, the blue left
Marcy : I'm not sure the context, but one thing that comes to mind right away is something Suny Stony Brook is doing as they open a new journalism program. They've including a "how to read the news" program, that they hope to require every student to take.
Rayne : Three of the largest political blogs in the blogosphere, all on the left side
Marcy : I think that's one thing that blogs actually end up doing (at least, I've gotten in comments from people)--to teach people to read, which is something they're not getting in school.
Rayne : (Marcy's a mind reader too, as you can see.)
Rayne : we were just discussing political literacy via media.
fpaynter : a return to respect for principles of dicussion and debate
Jon Lebkowsky : Teach people to read - and write.
Taylor on the Dell : Like the Suny Stony Brook idea - could it be adapted here with Marcy as a kick off speaker?
Marcy : So how you engage? I don't know. But I think one of the things about blogging is the possibility that they can actually teach those reading skills;
Marcy : Taylor--Not sure what you're asking. My thoughts here are all coming from the keynote discussion at a conference at Duke a few weeks ago, on media and trials.
Schumann : How do you teach people to be present? Awake and aware...
Rayne : You call it deep reading, Marcy, and I think that's definitely a lost art for the bulk of the public.
Marcy : Schumann, I think one of the things you do is engage readers in topics that interest them; teach them to read a topic they like. There's a lot of interesting reading on consumer issues.
fpaynter : ]
Rayne : too funny, jon. we are listening to you.
Jon Lebkowsky : That was Frank.
Taylor on the Dell : This is a group that really likes to type
Jon Lebkowsky : heh
Taylor on the Dell : Always been that way, right Paul?
Schumann : yep
Rayne : I guess we're still in need of a problem statement -- we've identified part of the problem as an inadequate media, and a public that is uninformed both willinging and unwillingly.
Marcy : You'd probably want to take to Jane Hamsher.
fpaynter : thanx
Rayne : So what does the next step look like?
Taylor on the Dell : So Rayne, can you take a crack at the problem statement based on tonight's conversation?
Jon Lebkowsky : I don't know that it's inadequate media, Rayne.
Jon Lebkowsky : I think it's inadequate media literacy.
Marcy : What kind of media are you folks talking about? Just mass?
Rayne : Marcy, what do you think? we're talking about the media that the average American uses to inform political decisions
fpaynter : I thought about sending pachacutec a smoke signal...
Terry : Is it soley a media problem or a context problem with the people following it?
Rayne : We've got better tools, we've got better campaigns and applications, and yet the public is still not engaged or informed.
Marcy : I just re-read "Governing with the News" (Timothy Cook). He argues that the institutional nature of our media is one of the things that makes it very passive.
Jon Lebkowsky : I'm talking about all media, broadcast and citizen, etc.
fpaynter : I go back to my concern that we live a thorougly propagandized culture
Marcy : Cook does a lot of meta-discussion about the ways that the media replicates itself over and over.
Rayne : by institutional does cook mean by size or by corporate structure?
Schumann : Suggested topics: 1. impact of media on the way we perceive and think 2. media literacy 4 new media 5. using new media 6 what's needed
Jon Lebkowsky : How we get information and context, how we form our understanding of the world and events.
Marcy : I like his explanation, because it explains why we get really bad journalism from good journalists (something I saw a lot of in the Scooter Libby trial),
Terry : Jon, And how we use that information
Jon Lebkowsky : Right.
Jon Lebkowsky : RE Dean: the media had help from the campaign.
Jon Lebkowsky : I don't agree that one event tanked the campaign... there was more to it.
Jon Lebkowsky : He had already lost Iowa.
Jon Lebkowsky : And his organization was really having issues.
Jon Lebkowsky : But I digress.
Jon Lebkowsky : Not that the media didn't do a job on HD.
Rayne : Yes, he had problems, but the media piled on and sealed his fate.
Jon Lebkowsky : I think his fate was already sealed, though... but that's a discussion for another day.
Marcy : I've got mixed feelings about the cause of Dean's demise, but I think that until we find a way to actually engage people in new technologies, you're still going to have the cruddy filter (and poor judgment) of the media.
Rayne : And because of the reverb throughout the media, I genuinely don't think that the people in the campaign could "hear" the problems.
Jon Lebkowsky : Read Steven Johnson's piece in Extreme Democracy.
Jon Lebkowsky : He did a good post mortem on the Dean campaign.
Terry :
Rayne : So what do we want to do next?
Taylor on the Dell : Life will go on...
Terry : This discussion on the media issues was good
Rayne : The schism between the technical side of democracy and the information side of democracy needs be excised.
Terry : We have enough sopurces for extravisiting speakers, we should be able to learn from them or their mistakes
Rayne : We'ved talked for most of the last 13 weeks about the technical -- meaning the hands-on part of democracy -- but not the information side, the part that may even be more influential.
Taylor on the Dell : If you bring in Jay, give me enough time to promote to Texas Forums Network, please.
Rayne : Did you have any feedback on Assignment Zero, Marcy?
Jon Lebkowsky : Got an email today from Jay re Assignment Zero...
Jon Lebkowsky : just a sec.
Jon Lebkowsky :
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2007/10/09/what_i_learned.html
Jon Lebkowsky : That's his piece on what he learned from Assignment Zero.
Marcy : Do I? As in do I have an opinion? I respect the project, but I think one of the things they didn't consider (which Jay addressed in a post today) was existing communities. I would also say they didn't consider the language they used, which is one of the invisible barriers to participation. And finally, I don't think they thought in terms of nodes of interest.
Jon Lebkowsky : "Division of labor is the key creative decision in acts of distributed reporting. Grok the motivations or it can’t be done. Watch for ballooning coordination costs as ramp up succeeds. Where the small pieces meet the larger narrative the alchemy of the project lives. Shared background knowledge raises group capacity. Extant communities already coordinate well."
Jon Lebkowsky :
Marcy : In other words, I would say Jay put the cart before the horse, trying to put together a community that produced journalism, rather than going into an existing community and finding the appropriate journalism (and language) for that community.
Rayne : "nodes of interest"?
Marcy : Or trying to form a community with journalism.
Rayne : I think one of the other components that is not well understood is the organic nature of community.
fpaynter : bjc list?
Marcy : My instinct (and this is partly based on historical stuff) is that you've got to start with the community. But then that plays into the power of nodes in a network, so that should be a strength.
Schumann : I assume by the use of the word journalism we mean audio and visual...
Terry : Jon, you keep breaking up
Rayne : ah, power laws, Dunbar's number, all that in play in community organization...
Marcy : One of the important things about blogs like FireDogLake is they develop their own lanaguage (the word EPU is unique to FDL, for example. And that creates markers for taht community--that are inclusive if you know them, but not totally exclusive to those trying to enter that community.
Taylor on the Dell : what decisions still need to be made
Rayne : by meeting weekly we also reinforce our own sense of community around this issue...
Terry : yes, Rayne
Taylor on the Dell : If someone wants to write a paragraph, I'll get the word out to the TF network with a special nudge to those who were with us before.
Rayne : Marcy, are you working on any organized programs for educating the public on reading the media or political information?
Marcy : No, though I need to send an email to the head of the Stony Brook program.
Taylor on the Dell : I think that sounds fascinating
Marcy : He had asked for any help I could give, and I've been mulling that for a while.
Terry : can we get a copy of the public chat from tonight
Marcy : I'd love to see what was said before I came in.
fpaynter : Who can write the paragraph that Taylor needs to invite the TF network?
Taylor on the Dell : I'll do a cut and paste of the chat.
Rayne : Maybe that's the convergence -- that Stony Brook is looking to do this, and we see it as a need to further the development of democracy.
Jon Lebkowsky : I wonder if we shouldn't wait a couple of weeks to meet again. Personally, it's harder for me to meet next week because we're working on a big project for Maker Faire.
Rayne : Marcy, we won't have the audio, thought. Will have about half the context.
Schumann : I'm OK for next week but not the week after that.
Terry : Will be watching for it on wetpaint
Schumann : I thinkit's good to regualrily schedule meetings to let it find its own shape and not force it too quickly.
Schumann : Sort of live in the question for awhile
Schumann : but keep talking.
fpaynter : Shall we just book this room for Wednesdays 7 to 8:30 and see how it progresses?
Terry : Sounds good to me
Schumann : yes
Rayne : Central time, of course.
Terry : Thanks Taylor
Rayne : Yes, thanks, Taylor
Rayne : I'm going to try to draft something, will email it to Taylor