2. MIT Media Lab
(PARTICIPATORY)
MEDIA
CIVIC
INVOLVEMENT
CIVIC
MEDIA

3. MIT Media Lab
protests organized online
cc flickr photo by cisc1970

4. MIT Media Lab
protests organized online
cc flickr photo by cisc1970
viral video campaigns

5. MIT Media Lab
protests organized online
cc flickr photo by cisc1970
viral video campaigns
“facebook revolutions”

6. MIT Media Lab
protests organized online
cc flickr photo by cisc1970
viral video campaigns
“facebook revolutions”
DIY “cyberwar”

7. MIT Media Lab
enthusiasm
skepticism

8. MIT Media Lab
exaggeration and distortion

9. MIT Media Lab
exaggeration and distortion
slacktivism

10. MIT Media Lab
exaggeration and distortion
slacktivism
mis/disinformation

11. MIT Media Lab
exaggeration and distortion
slacktivism
mis/disinformation
oversimplification
and backlash

12. MIT Media Lab
CIVIC
MEDIA
Tools that help communities express themselves
Tools to study media attention and frames
Digital Civics

13. MIT Media Lab
expression and amplificatoin

16. Vojo is a free and open-source platform to
create, share and publish multimedia stories
directly from your phone

17. MIT CENTER FOR
CIVIC MEDIA
The Institute for Popu-
lar Education in South-
ern California has worked
with low-wage immigrant
laborers for more than 20
years. With the negative
portrayal of immigrants in
the news, IDEPSCA knew
there needed to be a way
for immigrants to tell their
own story, and easily.
IDEPSCA teamed up with
USC Annenberg School
of Communication to
collaborate directly with
immigrants on what this
could look like. After
many surveys, interviews
and codesign workshops,
VozMob was born.
VozMob transformed cell
phones into media cre-
ation devices. By calling
in and messaging, users
could create multimedia
stories incorporating text,
photos and audio record-
ings.
As groups around the
world learned about Voz-
Mob, they wanted to do
the same thing to serve
their communities. The
code was free software,
but nonprofits and grass-
roots groups often lack
in-house developers and
resources to maintain a
robust digital platform.
MIT Center for Civic Media
took up the challenge,
developing VOJO as a
hosted instance of Voz-
Mob where groups could
encourage their commu-
nities to share their sto-
ries.
THE STORY BEHIND VOJO

18. 21 Days in Cambridge gives
voice to people's questions
about domestic violence.
Residents' questions,
collected via Vojo, will
drive new policy.

21. v
www.erasetheborder.com

22. Between
the Bars
mail-based
blogging for
incarcerated
populations
MIT Media Lab

23. Data Therapy helping community groups present their
data creatively

28. MIT Media Lab
mapping media ecosystems

29. pageonex.com

32. mediacloud.org

39. natematias.com/medialab/uknews-gender/

40. 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007
Content Gender, NYT Style 1987 - 2007
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
1 Jun 1995 1 Aug 1995 1 Oct 1995 1 Dec 1995 1 Feb 1996 1 Apr 1996 1 Jun 1996 1 Aug 1996
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
1 Jun 2004 1 Aug 2004 1 Oct 2004 1 Dec 2004 1 Feb 2005 1 Apr 2005 1 Jun 2005 1 Aug 2005
Winter 1995! Winter 2005!
Winter articles are about just men or just women!
Summer articles are about women and men together!

41. passing on

42. follow bias

43. natematias.com/medialab/gv-viewer/

44. natematias.com/medialab/gv-viewer/

45. fight
for
a*en-on
fight
over
frame
zimmerman
not
trayvon
celebrity
trial
~8,000
stories
over
3
months
28$
29$
1$
2$
3$
4$
Mar$5$
6$
Mar$7$
Mar$8$
9$
10$
11$
12$
13$
14$
15$
Mar$16$
17$
18$
19$
20$
Mar$21$
Mar$22$
Mar$23$
24$
25$
Mar$26$
27$
Mar$28$
29$
30$
31$
1$
2$
3$
4$
5$
6$
7$
8$
9$
10$
Apr$11$
12$
13$
14$
15$
16$
17$
18$
19$
Apr$20$
21$
22$
23$
24$
25$
26$
27$
28$
29$
30$
(all$volumes$are$normalized)$
Media$Cloud$stories$
Newspaper$front$pages$(%$of$NY$Times,$WaPo,$LA$Times,$and$NY$Post)$
TV$naOonal$news$menOons$of$Trayvon$MarOn$(closed$capOoning)$
Google$searches$for$"Trayvon$MarOn"$
Google$searches$for$"George$Zimmerman"$
Tweets$about$Trayvon$MarOn$
Change.org$signatures$

47. Mar
25—Conserva-ve
blog
Wagist.com
runs
story
“Was
Trayvon
Mar-n
a
Drug
Dealer?”
digging
up
unfla*ering
content
from
Mar-n’s
old
social
media
accounts

48. MIT Media Lab
digital civics

53. cc flickr photo by Brandon Doran
- Does media-centric activism work, and how?
- Does civic crowdsourcing change public goods?
- How do you combine new and old theories of change?
- (How) do we teach “new civics”?
- Can we design effective civic interventions?

56. triac
Shuts
off
power
hacked
up
Kill-­‐a-­‐wa*
Measures
energy
usage Main
Power
supply
Interfacing
board
+
ADC
USB
Serial
Sheevaplug
ARM
Computer,
The
heart
of
the
system
GSM
Modem
handles
transac-ons