formed by the Knights Foundation and The Aspen Institute delivered it's detailed report on the information needs of a community in a democracy, the state of things in the United States, and its recommendations on public policy directions that would help lead us from where we are today to where we ought to be.
Excerpt:
The commission recommends:
1. Direct media policy toward innovation, competition, and support for business models that provide marketplace incentives for quality journalism ...
2. Increase support for public service media aimed at meeting community information needs ...
3. Increase the role of higher education, community and nonprofit institutions as hubs of journalistic activity and other information sharing for local communities ...
4. Require government at all levels to operate transparently, facilitate easy and low-cost access to public records, and make civic and social data available in standardized formats that support the productive public use of such data ...
5. Develop systematic quality measures of community information ecologies, and study how they affect social outcomes ...
6. Integrate digital and media literacy as critical elements of education at all levels through collaboration among federal, state, and local education officials ...
7. Fund and support public libraries and other community institutions as centers of digital and media training, especially for adults ...
8. Set ambitious standards for nationwide broadband availability and adopt public policies encouraging consumer demand for broadband services ...
9. Maintain the national commitment to open networks as a core objective of Internet policy ...
10. Support the activities of information providersto reach local audiences with quality content through all appropriate media, such as mobile phones, radio, and public-access cable ...
11. Expand local media initiatives to reflect the entire reality of the communities they represent ...
12. Engage young people in developing the digital information and communication capacities of local communities ...
13- Empower all citizens to participate actively in community self-governance, including local “community summits” to address community affairs and pursue common goals ...
14- Emphasize community information flow in the design and enhancement of a local community’s public spaces ...
15. Ensure that every local community has at least one high-quality online hub ...
Full report on knightcomm.org Website
Full report as PDF, 148 pages
Sunday, October 04, 2009
