MIT Communications Forum: Online News — Public Sphere or Echo Chamber?

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Two panelists debate whether journalism in a digital age amounts to feast or famine, and differ on even basic questions.

Communications Forum: Civic Media and the Law

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 17:22:05 GMT

David Ardia, Daniel Schuman, and Micah Sifry

What do citizens need to know when they publicly address legally challenging or dangerous topics? Journalists have always had the privilege, protected by statute, of not having to reveal their sources. But as more investigative journalism is conducted by so-called amateurs and posted on blogs or websites such as Wikileaks, what are the legal dangers for publishing secrets in the crowdsourced era? We convene an engaging group law scholars to help outline the legal challenges ahead, suggest policies that might help to protect citizens, and describe what steps every civic media practitioner should take to protect themselves and their users.

David Ardia runs the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Micah Sifry is a co-founder and editor of the Personal Democracy Forum.

Daniel Schuman is the policy counsel at the Sunlight Foundation, where he helps develop policies that further Sunlight's mission of catalyzing greater government openness and transparency.

Civic Media and the Law

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 04:00:00 GMT

11/04/2010
5:00 PM
E14-633

Micah Sifry, Founder, Editor, Personal Democracy Forum; Daniel Schuman, Policy Counsel, Sunlight Foundation; David Ardia, Fellow, Berkman Center

Description: While these panelists diverge on the precise metaphor -- 'picking through a minefield,' 'hacking through the underbrush,' 'navigating uncharted waters' -- they all agree that the web poses novel dilemmas and hazards for truth"seeking and speaking citizens.

First the good news: "There was a conscious decision by Congress to give online space some breathing room," says David Ardia, shielding website operators "who allow others to use their site to speak out" from liability for some published content. This has permitted the explosive rise of YouTube and blogging services that serve as platforms for the masses. On the other hand, copyright and other legal claims are being successfully prosecuted against website hosts and posters.

Ardia worries about the underreported phenomenon of citizen journalists who post on the web and find themselves "fighting an authority." There is "an extensive chilling effect," says Ardia "If you discover information that shows government corruption or puts powerful institutions on the defensive, you run the real risk of having them lawyer up, come after you, or put you in a position where you can't afford to stand up for your rights."

Another emerging issue: When web content is construed as invading privacy, legal suits arise that lead to a delicate dance between free speech and privacy. "Horrible things are said and done through the internet," says Ardia, "but overall the impact is far more beneficial than harmful. As we start to fix instances of bad conduct, we run a great riskof correcting one thing, but at the cost ofspeech that should be protected."

While the Obama Administration has pledged to make government more transparent, there is wild inconsistency in how federal, state and local governments make their work available. Daniel Schuman describes how some public authorities offer "giant data sets" lacking the kind of sophisticated formats that enable fruitful vetting. Congress members must post an earmarks request online, but Schuman says, "If you want to find it, good luck." And in certain areas, there is no web data at all: For access to congressional ethics information, someone must visit Capitol Hill in person at the right time, and copy pertinent pages. Schuman researched a "fantastic, sortable, downloadable" database describing the disbursement of Wall Street bailout money. The drawback: license provisions that permit the database owner "to pull back" the information, posing a major "impediment to people who want to use this information to talk about what's going on."

Another problem involves credentialing of online journalists. "Members of the civic media simply can't get in the door" of press galleries in some House and Committee meetings, and forget recording Supreme Court justices by cellphone or other electronic devices. "As a private citizen, it's hard and expensive to push back," says Schuman. The Wikileaks disclosures are shaking up discussions of government transparency as well as those about online freedoms. Says Schuman, "It makes the political climate more difficult. Irresponsible journalism will need to be protected, and condemned when done in this kind of way." Moderator Micah Sifry sees an overreaction: "Leaks happen every day in Washington; secret information is out there all the timeNo one is prosecuted. It's the currency of information there." Ultimately, says Ardia, we want to "bring information together in a way that moves us from a glut of data to real knowledge, and hopefully to wisdom, to make better decisions as a society. We are moving in that direction. I'm optimistic."

About the Speaker(s): Micah L. Sifry launched Personal Democracy Forum, a daily website and annual conference on how technology is changing politics. He is also the editor of the group blog TechPresident, which focuses on how campaigns use the web.

Sifry also consults on how political organizations, campaigns, non"profits and media entities can adapt to and thrive in a networked world. Current clients include the Sunlight Foundation, the Campaign for America's Future, and Air America.

From 1997 to 2006, he worked closely with Public Campaign, a non"profit, non"partisan organization focused on comprehensive campaign finance reform, as its senior analyst. Prior to that, Sifry was an editor and writer with The Nation magazine for 13 years.

He is the author or editor of four books, including Is That a Politician in Your Pocket? (John Wiley & Sons, 2004), written with Nancy Watzman. He is also an adjunct professor of political science at City University of New York/Graduate Center.

Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Communications Forum (From the MIT World collection)

Democracy after Citizens United

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 04:00:00 GMT

09/30/2010 4:00 PM Wong AuditoriumLawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics; Allison R. Hayward, Vice President of Policy, Center for Competitive Politics; John Bonifaz, Founder, National Voting Rights Institute; Legal Director, Voter Action (Free Speech for People Campaign); Gabriel Lenz, Associate Professor, Political Science, MIT; Stephen Ansolabehere, Professor, Department of Political Science, MIT and Professor of Government, Harvard UniversityDescription: Just when it seemed the corrosive influence of big money on American politics could not be greater, the Supreme Court gave corporations full license to exercise 'free speech' during campaign season. Renowned legal scholar Lawrence Lessig and his respondents debate the most effective response to the 2010 Citizens United ruling, which, Lessig claims, poses an imminent danger to our democracy. Consider how corporate political clout has shaped critical areas of public policy, Lessig begins. For instance, subsidies to influential corn producers in the past three decades have led to shifts in food production, such as feeding cattle antibiotics to help them digest corn fodder, and high fructose corn syrup pervasive in food and soda. The result: an epidemic of obesity and antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria -- both antithetical to public health. Industries engage in "rent seeking," contributing to politicians in exchange for some kind of economic advantage, and blocking action in the public interest in the process: fossil fuel industries defeat climate change legislation; financial services defeat tough banking regulation; the health insurance sector defeats truly comprehensive health care law. Now, says Lessig, the Supreme Court has "taken a bad situation and made it much worse," by lifting restrictions on corporations at election time. Lessig does not disagree with the essence of the decision -- that the First Amendment permits corporations to engage in political speech. But he takes issue with the Court's reasoning, which ignores what he describes as "dependency corruption." The framers of the Constitution intended that Congress depend exclusively on its citizens. This is no longer the case, says Lessig: "People have increasingly been replaced by the funders." (Political scientist Gabriel Lenz confirms this perception, citing studies showing that when it comes to enacting policy changes, "Congress is mostly responsive to the 99th percentile in terms of income.") Congress members spend most of their time raising money, and the dominant givers are special interests, which have now been entirely unleashed by Citizens United. The great evil, argues Lessig, is that Americans believe that corporate money alone "buys results," and "this belief is sapping our will to participate in politics." Lessig strongly supports the idea of citizen"funded elections, which would permit only small"dollar contributions matched by the government, to help reduce the influence of corporations and reconnect citizens with their leaders. John Bonifaz sees a calculated effort over the past 30 years to enhance the power of corporations by fabricating corporate rights, and now through Citizens United, to permit businesses to tap their general treasury funds to influence elections, so they can "effectively own our democracy." He proposes a constitutional amendment that would restore the First Amendment, and elections, to the people. Identifying herself as a "small government libertarian," Allison Hayward wants to give the ethical actors in Congress an opportunity to clean their own house. She is also concerned that a focus on campaign financing may "drive good people out of politics, while bad people will still give." There are few enough opportunities for political participation for most people, says Hayward, and we "need to make sure that contributing to a candidate is a virtuous thing." About the Speaker(s): Prior to his current appointments at Harvard, Lawrence Lessig was a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School (where he was founder of Stanford's Center for Internet and Society), Harvard Law School (1997"2000), and the University of Chicago Law School. Lessig clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court. Lesser's academic focus has concerned law and technology, especially where they concern copyright. He has written five books on the subject, and served as lead counsel in major copyright law cases. His current work at the Safra Center focuses on the question of institutional corruption. Lessig has won numerous awards, including the Free Software Foundation's Freedom Award, and was named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. Lessig earned a B.A. in economics and a B.S. in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in philosophy from Cambridge, and a J.D. from Yale.Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Department of Political Science

"Crossing Mandelbaum Gate" Book Talk with Kai Bird

Wed, 19 May 2010 19:40:33 GMT

A Starr Forum event presented on May 6, 2010
Pulitzer prize-winning author, Kai Bird, came to MIT for a book talk and book signing: Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978 (Just released this April!)

ABOUT KAI BIRD:
Kai Bird's recent book, Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978, was released by Scribner on April 27, 2010. His book is a meld of personal memoir and history, fusing his early life in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Egypt with an account of the American experience in the Middle East and intimate insights into the Arab-Israeli tragedy. He is the co-author with Martin J. Sherwin of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenhelmer (2005), which also on the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography and the Duff Cooper Prize for History in London. He lives in Kathmandu, Nepal, with his wife and son. For his complete bio, visit: www.kaibird.com

For more information visit the event page.

The Interaction Between Poverty, Growth and Democracy

Mon, 03 May 2010 04:00:00 GMT

05/03/2010 12:00 PM Wong AuditoriumPresident Alejandro Toledo, President of Peru 2001"2006Description: Alejandro Toledo has remained a passionate advocate of reform since departing the presidency of Peru in 2006. In his home country, he embodied the possibility of transformation, having risen from poverty in an Andean village to top political power, where he initiated a process of economic and social change for Peru. Now he serves as a kind of roving ambassador on behalf of the most deprived populations in Latin America. Toledo is advancing a particular initiative, the "Social Agenda for Democracy in Latin America," which asserts an inextricable link between effective, inclusive political institutions, and economic justice. "If we're not able to reduce high levels of poverty, inequality and social exclusion, then poverty can conspire against democracy," says Toledo. Natural resources are not a solution, but actually a burden, he believes. Many nations rich in mineral or agricultural wealth, including Peru, have very low standards of living. Inequitable foreign exchange and trade, buttressed by corrupt leaders, often robs these nations of their treasure, and of any chance for investing in development at home. The poor remain poor and, with no way of achieving a decent income or meeting their basic needs, hopeless. They "lose faith in democracy," says Toledo. The path out of poverty and corruption represents an opportunity and challenge for Latin America, says Toledo. Citizens must demand that their institutions be accountable, and political leaders must provide a plan for economic development that incorporates "explicit social policies that go beyond trickle down." Topping Toledo's agenda is quality education. Investing in the minds of people is a long"term proposition, acknowledges Toledo, and many politicians "don't have the patience, when they know the return will take 18 to 20 years before the kid turns out to be an engineer." But only education can "bring a family, a region, a nation, into a world of opportunity." Educated populations create citizens "with a sense of solidarity," who can work their way out of indigence and engage meaningfully in a democracy. Toledo also wants sustainable development in Latin America, so future generations can enjoy clean water and healthy forests. He is a fan of microfinance as well: "You give me $1 to invest in a poor woman ... and we begin changing the face of the world." He encourages fellow Latin Americans in the audience to return: "Latin America is a promising continent, but ... it will only play a crucial role in the world economy and democracy if you are there." About the Speaker(s): Alejandro Toledo was born in a remote village in the Peruvian Andes, one of 16 brothers and sisters from a family of extreme poverty. At the age of six, he worked as a shoe shiner and sold newspapers. By chance, he had access to a decent education, and went on to earn a B.A. in Economics and Business Administration from the University of San Francisco, and two masters degrees and a Ph.D. in the Economics of Human Resources, all from Stanford University. He worked as the Director of Peru's Economic Development Institute, and in positions at the World Bank, the Inter"American Development Bank in Washington, and the United Nations in New York before running for president of Peru. After his presidential term, Toledo left Peru and served as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University from 2006 to 2008. During this period, he was also a Payne Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a CDDRL (Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law) Visiting Scholar. More recently, Toledo was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C., and also a Non"Resident Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development at the Brookings Institution < br> Toledo founded and continues to serve as the President of the Global Center for Development and Democracy, which is based in Latin America, the United States, and the European Union. Host(s): School of Architecture and Planning, Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship

MIT/ Harvard Gaza: America's Response

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:44:03 GMT

Guest speakers:
Augustus Richard Norton, professor of anthropology and international relations, Boston University
Robert Blecher, historian and analyst with the International Crisis Group
Uri Zaki, USA Director, B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center

Moderating the discussion:
Balakrishnan Rajagopal Acting Head, International Development Group at MIT Associate Professor of Law and Development at MIT Director, Program on Human Rights & Justice at MIT

MIT Communications Forum: Civics in Difficult Places

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 04:00:00 GMT

In a live demonstration of globe-straddling communication technologies like Skype, this forum connects to citizen journalists and activists around the world, some of whom frequently test the limits of governmental authority.

Government Transparency and Collaborative Journalism

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT

What new ways of gathering and presenting information are evolving from the nexus of government openness and digital connectedness?

The Future of Civic Engagement in a Broadband"Enabled World

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:00:00 GMT

03/01/2010 4:00 PM Wong AuditoriumEugene J. Huang, Government Operations Director, National Broadband Task Force, Federal Communications CommissionDescription: The digital revolution that brought us Facebook, Twitter and YouTube could help revive participatory democracy in the U.S., says Eugene J. Huang. He unveils the FCC's plan for providing broadband access to every American, and describes how its recommendations could spur more open government and greater civic engagement. Huang is leading an FCC taskforce developing a plan to provide every American with high quality broadband internet capability. Mandated by the Recovery Act, $7.6 billion will soon flow to deploy infrastructure throughout the U.S., by cable, wireless, or satellite; to ensure affordable access for all; and to address a group of national priorities. Huang describes the process of fact"gathering, analysis and recommendation development as the "most open and transparent" in the FCC's history, involving public workshops, and the use of social media and blogs to encourage citizen input. This process in many ways has come to shape the larger goals of the broadband plan. As Huang says, at the end of months of data collection and public discussion, "we came to an obvious conclusionthat civic engagement is the lifeblood of our democracy," and that the broadband plan should play a major role in creating a more informed and engaged citizenry. Vast numbers of Americans are already online, talking, debating and viewing -- an astonishing 120 million people watch more than 10 billion videos monthly. So Huang, his taskforce, and citizen participants began envisioning ways that universal, high"speed digital communication and interactivity could work for the public sector. They ended up with five recommendations: building a more open and transparent government, by making all government and judicial records freely available online, and streaming government meetings and hearings; helping public media such as PBS and NPR expand beyond their broadcast models in providing news content, and removing copyright obstacles to sharing historic materials, ultimately leading to a national digital archive; deploying social media in all government agencies; recruiting technological innovators into government, engaging citizen experts from the private sector and starting an innovation corps; and bringing the election process into the digital age, eliminating mistakes in voter registration, standardizing the process across states, and enabling military personnel overseas to cast ballots electronically. While these measures will require a commitment across all levels of government, Huang feels sure they will lead to a transformation that can "renew democracy in a broadband enabled 21st century." About the Speaker(s): Eugene J. Huang is helping to craft the "national purposes" section of the National Broadband Plan, with a specific focus on the topics of government operations and civic engagement. From 2006 to 2009, Huang served at the US Department of the Treasury. He covered a wide range of international economic and finance issues with a special responsibility for U.S. bilateral relations with China. Previously, Huang was a Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University. From 2002 to 2006, he served the Commonwealth of Virginia as the Secretary of Technology and previously as the Deputy Secretary of Technology. Huang was responsible for managing the state's award winning information technology reform initiative, fostered the development of advanced broadband communications, and facilitated the growth of emerging technology industries throughout Virginia. Huang graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, with a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School, a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, and a M.S. in Telecommunications Engineering. He received a Thouron Award from the University of Pennsylvania and studied at St. John's College, Oxford University, where he received a M.Phil., with distinction, in Economic History. Huang is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Center for Future Civic Media

The Future of Government"Citizen Engagement

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:00:00 GMT

03/01/2010 4:45 PM Wong AuditoriumJerry Mechling, Lecturer in Public Policy, Kennedy School; Nick Grossman, Director of Civic Works, The Open Planning Project; Laurel Ruma, Editor, O'Reilly Media; John Wonderlich, Policy Director, Sunlight Fndtn; Chris Csikszentmihalyi, Director, Center for Future Civic Media; Research ScientistDescription: As the U.S. moves toward universal broadband access, look for increased government openness, new opportunities for civic engagement, and some dangers along the way, say these panelists. While Chris Csikszentmihalyi acknowledges the civic potential of broadband, he does not believe it will be a simple matter for geographic communities to aggregate information and make collective decisions. The amount of data is growing, he says, but "even sophisticated people's understanding is not growing." He cites online crime mapping, which posts reports from police departments, but avoids white collar crime. "Are you offering information or facile statistics that look like red lining...?" He applauds online citizen journalism, but worries that legal protections applied to traditional media are not being extended to digital journalists. "We could have national broadband and things could go south quickly in terms of what kind of speech we can have." "Government needs to play catch up," says Laurel Ruma, when it comes to utilizing digital technology. It's time to move away from the "social web," where we "vote on silly things on Facebook," to a civic web. This means that "digital natives who work until 7 p.m. and don't have time to get to public meetings... go online" to watch and comment on streamed videos of government meetings. This kind of technology can make citizen actions more effective, and government programs more cost"efficient. She believes open government applications should be available not just on computers and smart phones, which many people cannot afford, but in less expensive, freely available forms, such as information displays at city bus stops. "A rush of new information" flows from open government directives, says John Wonderlich, which "has a broad systemic effect through society." New public data empowers all of "us to be better researchers, lobbyists, and journalists." Information that used to come with a price tag is now free. But since we are at an early stage in open and participatory government "where best practices are unclear," Wonderlich foresees a balancing act between laws dictating government's responsibilities, and guidelines to encourage certain behaviors. He also believes that public perceptions about government transparency may be based on false or outdated assumptions; data posted online may be inaccurate, so we "need to grow better cultural expectations." Nick Grossman finds it exciting that "government services are potentially a gatewayto civic engagement." It's not "just about politics and government, but about the city and how we use it," he says. He likes being able to deploy his smart phone for real"time information on public transportation, and to provide feedback to operators, so he's "now having a conversation with those people." One risk of a rapid expansion of open government via broadband, believes Grossman, is that government will "try to do too much," building tools and providing services itself that might better come from the private sector. The flip side, he adds, is moving "too incrementally" and running the risk of spending too much money "in something that doesn't work well enough." About the Speaker(s): Jerry Mechling focuses on the impacts of information and digital technologies on individual, organizational, and societal issues. He consults on these and other topics with public and private organizations locally and internationally. Most recently he was author of Eight Imperatives for Leaders in a Networked World and is presently finishing Leadership for a Cross"Boundary World. A Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and four"time winner of the Federal 100 Award, he was formerly a Fellow of the Institute of Politics, served as an aide to the Mayor and Assistant Administrator of the New York City Environmental Protection Administration, and served as Director of the Office of Management and Budget for the City of Boston. He received his B.A. in physical sciences from Harvard College and his M.P.A. and Ph.D. in economics and public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton.Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Center for Future Civic Media

Soapbox Event at Federal Hall (some explicit language used)

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:10:05 GMT

Warning, this video contains some explicit language
PIA LINDMAN: SOAPBOX EVENT Reinventing Forms of Free Speech __________________________________________________________________________________________________ Location of first event: Federal Hall National Memorial 26 Wall Street, New York City Date: April 5, 2008 Time: 2:00-5:00 PM __________________________________________________________________________________________________ SOAPBOX; Used for traditional `soapbox style' posts, where people stand up and give their opinions on a topic, sometimes in quite emphatic terms. Such talk frequently leads to other people getting on their own soapboxes to engage in discussion and debate. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ In Soapbox Event, Lindman pares down the structure of democracy to the elemental forms of free speech: human bodies, live voices, and space. This performance investigates the construction and breakdown of collective structures, and how they influence individual expression in democratic decision-making. The event highlights the relationship of embodied speech to the bare life of an individual, in the context of increasingly mediated communication. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ Soapbox Event is a participatory performance created by Pia Lindman. Participants are given one soapbox each, which entitles them to one minute of free speech. They may form coalitions and stack their boxes together to obtain greater spatial presence and talk time. The spokesperson of a coalition may speak for as many minutes as there are stacked boxes. As the event evolves, boxes begin to express changing rhetorical configurations in sculptural forms. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ The site -- formerly New York City Hall and Customs House, currently Federal Hall National Memorial -- epitomizes freedom of speech in America. In this place, newspaperman John Peter Zenger was tried for seditious libel against the Royal Governor; with his 1735 acquittal winning a major victory for the free press in America; George Washington delivered his inaugural presidential speech from the balcony in 1790; and Yayoi Kusama held her Naked Event on the steps in 1969. We are pleased to present Soapbox Event amid this splendid tradition of speech acts. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ GROUND RULES FOR THE SOAPBOX EVENT - each participant will be given one soapbox - with the soapbox, each participant is also given one minute of free speech - participants may form coalitions - the soapboxes of the members of a coalition can be stacked together to create a higher speech podium - a representative of a coalition may speak as many minutes as there are stacked boxes (members in the coalition) We will not be using microphones or any amplifiers. Obtaining greater height serves to elevate a speaker and have their voice project better into the space. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ LECTURES AND WORKSHOPS In preparatory lectures and workshops Pia Lindman discusses ideas embedded in the Soapbox Event, such as public space, political performance, democracy and freedom of speech. Her focus is on how democracy and free speech are embodied and performed in contemporary cultures. Workshops are the playground for future Soapbox Events. The workshops are improvisational and their structure depends on the mixture of people attending. The main objective is to learn useful strategies and invent rules for the coming events - and to have fun. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ CREDITS Soapbox Event at Federal Hall National Memorial was curated by Sandra Skurvida and was made possible, in part, by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council with the generous support of the September 11th Fund.

MIT Communications Forum: What's New at the MIT Center for Future Civic Media?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Based on this roster of speakers, the MIT Center for Future Civic Media exists in a constant state of productive ferment, if not adrenaline rush.

Race, Politics and American Media

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

10/08/2009
5:00 PM

Juan Williams, News analyst, NPR; J. Phillip Thompson, Associate Professor of Urban Politics, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT; David Thorburn, MIT Professor of Literature, MacVicar Faculty Fellow

Description: The collapse of print and other traditional news and the rise of celebrity culture have contributed to the sharp decline of in"depth stories involving race and society, say these two speakers, in a discussion that's replete with personal anecdote.

Juan Williams sets out detailing his childhood dreams to break into the newspaper business. He read all the New York papers for baseball coverage, "and noticed no people of color telling their stories The absence struck me." From prep school through college, Williams found internships at progressively larger papers, which had at most a handful of black reporters, and often denied those the right to bylines. But the turmoil of the '60s, recalls Williams, led to a wave of more militant black journalists who demanded respect and greater attention to their own communities.

In spite of some gains, Williams does not see signs of great progress over the years. President Obama's election may have led to more African"American commentators, but Williams is the only regular person of color on Washington's Sunday morning talk shows, which he describes as "conversations among elite white males." Nor are there African"American anchors: "It always comes down to, 'Is the audience going to relate to a black male as lead dog?'"

Williams deplores the "pandering" that big media institutions engage in with people of color. An executive at a black cable network, rejecting the idea of a news show, told Williams that the black men "who would identify with you like to watch sports and pornography" Magazines like Ebony,Jet, and Essence focus on the "fabulously rich singer or superstar," and avoid discussing the nation's social and economic crises. There's "no investment of money, or placing journalists in a position to tell you critical stories to find the political power players who have their fingers on the levers causing distress in lower income communities. It doesn't exist."

J. Phillip Thompson believes that the waning of local newspapers like New York's Amsterdam News marks the end of one of the last resources communities of color have to learn about issues affecting them. As a former public housing manager in New York, he knows the importance of reporters scrutinizing the words and actions of politicians. Now "I'll read about a shooting in a mainstream newspaper. But the voice of community and debates I heard all the time I don't read about."

He traces a class divide in black America today that's different from previous incarnations. For instance, black officials representing majority black districts "don't want issues, don't want people excited." Elected leadership, he says, is not focused on addressing "fundamental problems like jobs, the fact that people can't pay mortgages, raise families. Instead of dealing with that, officials move onto other issues like Skip Gates being arrested off of his porch. That's unfortunate, but it's just not a vital issue in black America."

About the Speaker(s): Juan Williams appears regularly on the newsmagazines Morning Edition and Day to Day. He is also a contributing political analyst for the Fox News Channel and a regular panelist on Fox News Sunday. He has also appeared on numerous television programs, including Nightline, Washington Week in Review, Oprah, CNN's Crossfire, and Capitol Gang Sunday. From 2000"2001, Williams hosted NPR's national call"in show Talk of the Nation.

Williams is the author of the biography Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, and the nonfiction bestseller Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954"1965, the companion volume to the television series. This Far by Faith: Stories from the African American Religious Experience appeared in February 2003. This book was the basis for a six"part public broadcasting TV documentary that aired in June 2003. Phillip Thompson is an urban planner and political scientist. Before entering academic life, Phil worked as Deputy General Manager of the New York Housing Authority and as Director of the Mayor's Office of Housing Coordination. Thompson's latest book is Double Trouble: Black Mayors, Black Communities, and the Struggle for a Deep Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2005), and he has a recent article in The New Labor Forum entitled "What Are Labor's True Colors?" David Thorburn has published widely on literary and cultural subjects and is currently completing a cultural history of American television, called Story Machine. He received his A.B. degree from Princeton, his M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford and taught at Yale for 10 years before joining MIT in 1976. He has edited collections of essays on romanticism, and on John Updike, as well as a widely used anthology of fiction, Initiation. He is a former Director of the Film and Media Studies Program and of the Cultural Studies Project.

Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Communications Forum

Challenges in Nation Building

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

09/29/2009 2:30 PM 10"250President José Ramos"Horta, President, East Timor, 1996 Nobel Peace Prize LaureateDescription: At times humorous and defiant, JoséRamos"Horta describes nurturing the 21st century's first sovereign state through its formative years. The journey of East Timor from brutal Indonesian rule to fragile self"governance has involved Ramos"Horta in conflict and debate from the halls of the U.N. to the smallest villages of this tiny Southeast Asian island. He describes the scene in 2002, after two years of UN"supervised transition, when Indonesia handed off a nation it had governed by force for decades: "A human calamity -- close to 200 thousand people lost their lives." Another 200 thousand were forcibly displaced into West Timor. As it departed "in anger and frustration," Indonesia's military orchestrated the destruction of the nation's cities, roads, schools and clinics. "The economy was at a standstill," says Ramos"Horta. "We received barely a sketch of a state, a skeleton." The challenge of rebuilding East Timor is all the more daunting given "the psychological"emotional trauma of 24 years of violence." There are bitter disputes involving how to conduct a national process of reconciliation. Western ambassadors recently called on Ramos"Horta, "representatives of two countries most notoriousfor providing weapons and the red carpet treatment to the dictatorship of Indonesia." They advocated establishing an international tribunal to pursue crimes against humanity during Indonesian rule. Says Ramos"Horta, "Had I been in a bad mood, I would have said, 'Excuse me, the two of you are lecturing me on human rights and justice?'" Despite warnings from the U.N. that "lack of justice encourages impunity," he believes East Timor must travel its own path toward reconciliation. If East Timor set up such a tribunal, "Who would it start with -- Indonesia or the U.S., which provided weapons to Suharto, or Australia, or all of them at once?" He states, "If you pursue justice at any cost without being sensitive to the challenges and complexities on the ground, you undermine the incipient nation, democracy and justice." Today, when Ramos"Horta travels in the countryside, people don't want to discuss security and unity. Recounts Ramos"Horta, "They joke with me: 'Mr. President, we really like your road to peace, but we prefer a road to our village.'" He's now focused on providing his people with such essentials as clean water and electricity, and shoring up the nation's fragile social and economic institutions. "Let's put all the past behind us. Look after the victims, the wounded, in their minds, bodies and souls, build a country that is deserving of so much sacrifice. Chasing the ghosts of the past leads us nowhere," says Ramos"Horta. About the Speaker(s): José Manuel Ramos"Horta took office as the second President of East Timor (since independence from Indonesia) on May 20, 2007. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 with fellow East Timorese Bishop Ximenes Belo for "sustained efforts to hinder the oppression of a small people. " As a founder and former member of the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (FRETILIN), Ramos"Horta served as the exiled spokesman for the East Timorese resistance during the years of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor (1975 to 1999). After East Timor achieved independence in 2002, Ramos"Horta was appointed as the country's first Foreign Minister. He served in this position until his resignation on June 25, 2006, amidst political turmoil. In July 2006, he was officially sworn in as the second Prime Minister of East Timor. On February 11, 2008, Ramos"Horta was injured when he was shot during an assassination attempt. Ramos"Horta studied Public International Law at the Hague Academy of International Law (1983) and at Antioch University where he completed an M.A. in Peace Studies (1984). He was trained in Human Rights Law at the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg (1983). He attended Post"Graduate courses in American foreign policy at Columbia University(1983). He is a Senior Associate Member of the University of Oxford's St Antony's College (1987). Host(s): School of Architecture and Planning, Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship

U.S.-Cuba Relations: The Beginning of a Long Thaw?

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

09/23/2009 4:30 PM Wong AuditoriumJulia Sweig, Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow For Latin America Studies, Council on Foreign Relations; Wayne Smith, Senior Fellow and Director of the Cuba Program, Center for International PolicyDescription: To the dismay of these seasoned Cuba specialists, the Obama administration is not pursuing a rapid thaw in relations with the Castro regime. While there appears no speedy end to 50 years of icy antipathy toward Cuba, the speakers detect a few hopeful signs of warming in recent times. Wayne Smith has seen opportunities for a real bilateral relationship come and go. He first went to Cuba in 1958, just before the U.S. broke off diplomatic relations. He was among the first to go back in 1977 when Jimmy Carter attempted to reopen channels for discussion. Smith left the foreign service in 1982 after Reagan was elected, and had great hopes that Clinton would soften the U.S. stance following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But Cuban exiles in the U.S. succeeded in retaining a hard"line policy against Cuba. Smith says, "Here we are again: another opportunity." It's in the best interest of the U.S., says Smith, to begin "a mature relationship" with Cuba. He thinks the window is open a crack now. He knows many Cuban"Americans whose families lost property, or had relatives imprisoned, and "50 years later have come around to say, it's time to begin talking." We may be entering "an interesting period of change" following a half century of "abnormal, unnatural relations," says Julia Sweig. A few years ago, on the heels of Fidel Castro's illness, Cuba initiated a "significant reform agenda." In a record"short (34 minute) inaugural speech, Castro's appointed successor, brother Raul, "implied awareness of the intense unhappiness on the island," announcing proposed internal travel freedoms, and discussing agrarian and currency reform. "He sounded often more like Margaret Thatcher than Karl Marx," says Sweig. But this fledgling effort to expand opportunities for Cubans was derailed in 2008 by three devastating hurricanes, the collapse of world commodity and financial markets, and Fidel Castro's recovery (he's "notoriously allergic to the market," Sweig says). There is some reason for optimism beyond Cuba. Sweig perceives a major shift in public opinion among Cuban"Americans, especially the young cohort that helped vote in Obama. There's a prevailing sense that the embargo has failed, and that America should completely lift its travel ban. And the Obama administration has indicated a slight softening toward Cuba, permitting family remittances, and signaling that it might allow American telecom companies to do business in Cuba. Sweig believes "this glacial, almost like walking through peanut butter pace of change that we have in bilateral relations suits each government just fine." She concludes with a genuine bright spot: the September '09 Havana concert by Colombian musician Juanes, which demonstrated that the U.S. and Cuba can have meaningful contact with each other "without governments getting in the way." About the Speaker(s): Julia E. Sweig is the author of Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2009), and Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti"American Century,/i> (PublicAffairs, 2006), as well as numerous publications on Latin America and American foreign policy. She has directed several Council on Foreign Relations reports on Latin America. Sweig's Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground (Harvard University Press, 2002) received the American Historical Association's Herbert Feis Award for best book of the year by an independent scholar. Sweig serves on the International Advisory Board of the Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI), on the editorial board of Foreign Affairs Latinoam_rica, and from 1999"2008, served as a consultant on Latin American affairs for The Aspen Institute's Congressional Program. She frequently provides commentary for the major television, radio, and print media, speaking in both English and Spanish. She holds a B.A. from the University of California and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Wayne Smith is also a visiting professor of Latin American Studies and Director of the University of Havana exchange Program at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He is a former Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. During his twenty"five years with the State Department (1957"82), he served as executive secretary of President Kennedy's Latin American Task Force and chief of mission at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. In addition, he served in Argentina, Brazil and the Soviet Union. Smith's most recent book is The Russians Aren't Coming: New Soviet Policy in Latin America (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992), of which he is the editor. His other works include Portrait of Cuba (Turner Publishing, 1991); Toward Resolution: The Falklands/Malvinas Dispute (Lynne Rienner, 1991), again as an editor; and The Closest of Enemies: A Personal and Diplomatic Account of the Castro Years (W.W. Norton of New York City, 1987). He was also the co"editor, along with Esteban Morales, of Subject to Solution: Problems in Cuban"U.S. Relations (Lynne Rienner, 1988), which won the Critic award in 1989 as one of the best academic books reviewed that year. He received his university education at La Universidad de las Americas in Mexico City from which he holds a B.A. and an M.A. (summa cum laude), at Columbia University in New York City, from which he holds another M.A., and at George Washington University in Washington D.C., where he received a third M.A. and a Ph.D. In 1990, Smith received the Henry L. Cain Most Distinguished Alumnus award from La Universidad de las Americas. Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Center for International Studies

Toward India 2020: Challenges and Opportunities

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

09/09/2009 11:00 AM Bartos theaterDr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Indian Planning CommissionDescription: People sometimes ask Montek Singh Ahluwalia questions loaded with "aspirational objectives," such as when India will "get rid of poverty." Few are as well equipped to respond as Ahluwalia, one of the architects of India's breathtaking economic transformation. The current income of an average Indian citizen is about 1/15th that of a U.S. citizen. Ahluwalia envisions increasing India's per capita income ten fold. He sees this as a matter of "simple arithmetic." To achieve this advance, India must sustain GDP growth of 9% a year (which corresponds to a 7%/year growth in personal income) -- for 32 years. By 2040, India's 1.5 billion people could be living more like Americans. "Regrettably, I won't be around to see it," says Ahluwalia. By 2020, though, assuming such sustained economic growth, he would be around to witness "more modest results." Indians would double their annual income to $6,600, and the nation would be able to "provide a basic level of services to the vast majority of its population," essentially leaving behind its problems of poverty. This kind of growth, "an extremely worthwhile objective" for India, would also leave its mark on the rest of the world. It would inspire other emerging economies, for one thing. It would also shift the balance of power in global trade, with the combined economies of India and China taking on the U.S. So can India really achieve this kind of relentless economic progress? Ahluwalia's not sure, but invokes the successes of Japan, Korea and China, and sees reasons for optimism. Over the past eight years, India's averaged a 7.2% GDP growth rate, and looks likely to land on its feet after the current worldwide recession. On the other hand, the nation's vibrant democracy (420 million voted in the most recent elections) can make agreement on economic policy and its implementation difficult. Ahluwalia is "not complaining," but acknowledges that this kind of participative society "means we're taking longer to get done what needs to be done." He sees institutional strengths that will enable India to push its development agenda forward: a sense of confidence pervades Indian society; past reforms have "unleashed tremendous energy in the private sector;" the economy has opened up to greater domestic and foreign markets; and in spite of changes in government, the general economic policies continue to evolve. Ahluwalia acknowledges that defeating poverty may not address everyone's goals for success. The true objective for India, he believes, is "inclusive growth," an equitable and constructive distribution of economic gains via market forces, government and public means. About the Speaker(s): Montek Singh Ahluwalia has also served as a member of the Indian Planning Commission and member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. He had previously held positions as Finance Secretary, Ministry of Finance; Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs; Commerce Secretary; Special Secretary to the Prime Minister; and Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance. Ahluwalia became the first Director of the Independent Evaluation Office, International Monetary Fund (IMF) on July 9, 2001. On June 16, 2004, he was appointed as Deputy Chairman of the Indian Planning Commission and was reappointed to the post in June 2009 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In 2007, Ahluwalia became a member of the Group of Thirty, an international body of the world's most senior and influential economists. He earned his B.A. (Hons) degree in New Delhi and his M.A. and M. Phil. degrees from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. His published work includes papers in professional journals and contributions to books. Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Global MIT

Learning to See in the Dark: The Roots of Ethical Resistance

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 04:00:00 GMT

04/24/2009 6:00 PM Simmons HallCarol Gilligan, University Professor, New York University School of LawDescription: In this complex narrative documenting paradigm shifts in developmental thinking, Carol Gilligan defines the very capacity of our human nature-to have a voice and to communicate-as the grounds of both love and democratic citizenship. Dissecting the roots of healthy ethical resistance, Gilligan weaves together developmental psychology, neurobiology, ethics, and politics in ethical and moral decisions. Gilligan provides an overview of the evolution of her research and thinking about gender as they relate to ethics. She recounts in her early research that she was initially blind to gender issues. These issues became strikingly clear to her after completing one study with men about their moral dilemmas relating to the Vietnam War and the draft, versus a group of women faced with the moral choice to continue to terminate a pregnancy. Though this experience she realized that all previous studies of moral and psychological development had been based on men only. This insight set off a body of research and publication that focuses on the traditional gender splits of thought verses emotion, self verses relationships and mind verses body, and the harm to both genders to operate soley within these separate and restrictive arenas. From gender, Gilligan goes onto to study patriarchy, and looks into the societal issues on how the masculine qualities of thought, self and body have been elevated while emotion, relationships and body have been devalued, causing the psychological community to conclude that patriarchy is the natural state. Reflecting with great relief that "we now have a map," she looks at current political landscape offers insights into the election of Barack Obama and what it says about how our political landscape is changing. "We are born with a voice and into relationship, and if those capacities are encouraged, not traumatized, then we are able to register within ourselves the feeling of what happens, and that's the grounds, the growing consensus, for ethical action, to be in touch in that sense". About the Speaker(s): Carol Gilligan is an ethicist and psychologist currently appointed as a University Professor at the New York University. She received an A.B. in English literature from Swarthmore College, a masters degree in clinical psychology from Radcliffe College and a Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University. Her landmark book, In A Different Voice (1982) is described by Harvard University Press as "the little book that started a revolution." Following In A Different Voice, she initiated the Harvard Project on Women's Psychology and Girls' Development and co"authored or edited 5 books with her students: Mapping the Moral Domain (1988), Making Connections (1990), Women, Girls, and Psychotherapy: Reframing Resistance (1991), Meeting at the Crossroads: Women's Psychology and Girls' Development, (1992) and Between Voice and Silence: Women and Girls, Race and Relationships (1995). She received a Senior Research Scholar award from the Spencer Foundation, a Grawemeyer Award for her contributions to education, a Heinz Award for her contributions to understanding the human condition and was named by Time Magazine as one of the 25 most influential Americans. Her more recent publications include The Birth of Pleasure: a New Map of Love (2002), Kyra: A Novel (2008), and, with David A. J. Richards, The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future (2009). Host(s): Dean for Student Life, The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values

Distributed Leadership in the Obama Campaign

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 04:00:00 GMT

03/19/2009 E51"395Marshall Ganz, Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of GovernmentDescription: The Obama campaign owes its victory not to a single charismatic candidate, but to the efforts of a disciplined and motivated organization whose roots go back to landmark movements of the 1960s. Marshall Ganz, who cut his teeth on civil rights work and with Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers, describes how the principles and practices he learned around organizing and leadership played out in the most recent presidential election. For Ganz, our time represents the end of "40 years of wandering in the desert," the end of "the politics of disappointment." We've arrived at an extraordinary moment of rapid change -- a time of both possibility and uncertainty -- with commensurate challenges to political leaders. But Ganz's take, after years with progressive movements, is that leadership involves "taking responsibility to enable others to achieve purpose in the face of uncertainty." Leaders recruit, motivate and develop others, constructing a community around common interests, and building capacity from within the community. And unlike businesses, which tend to rely on rigid hierarchies, and systems and procedures, effective volunteer"based organizations must engage and enable lots of people to become innovators, adaptive in the face of uncertainty. This kind of "civic capital" is precisely what the Obama campaign cultivated and invested in, says Ganz. Thousands of people acquired the skills and practiced "the arts of leadership necessary to self govern in democracy." Some unique conditions made this campaign so successful, including Obama's story of hope, which drew on a persuasive personal narrative. There was also the campaign's strategy of developing grassroots capacity to win caucuses and close primaries; its use of the Internet to attract an army of small"scale, repeat contributors; and its capacity for "continual learning" about what was and was not working. In the summer of 2007, Ganz served as counselor in LA's "Camp Obama," teaching key state organizers to share personal narratives and create compelling politics around human experience and emotion, rather than around issues. He led workshops on motivating from "a place of hopefulness," rather than of fear, and on how to build from common ground to shared political values and commitments. Obama staffers and volunteers learned how to create mutually reliant leadership teams that could act independent of the campaign HQ; and how to amass and utilize voter information both to get out the vote, and to tap additional volunteers. A "cascade of training and leadership development" led to a massive field organization that built upon itself, where volunteers continually joined and moved up the ranks, and everyone felt "they owned a piece of it." About the Speaker(s): In 1964, a year before he graduated from Harvard College, Marshall Ganz left to volunteer as a civil rights organizer in Mississippi. In 1965, he joined Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers; over the next 16 years he gained experience in union, community, issue, and political organizing and became Director of Organizing. During the 1980s, he worked with grassroots groups to develop effective organizing programs, designing innovative voter mobilization strategies for local, state, and national electoral campaigns. In 1991, Ganz returned to Harvard College and, after a 28"year leave of absence, completed his undergraduate degree in history and government. He was awarded an M.P.A. by the Kennedy School in 1993 and completed his Ph.D. in sociology in 2000. He teaches, researches, and writes on leadership, organization, and strategy in social movements, civic associations, and politics.Host(s): Sloan School of Management, MIT Leadership Center

A Few Things Learned from Craigslist

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

11/14/2008 12:00 PM NE25Craig Newmark, Founder, CraigslistDescription: In his unassuming way, Craig Newmark believes his eponymous website might just help nudge people toward greater civic engagement. While Craigslist.org "is a simple platform where people help each other out," focusing on everyday needs like getting a job or an apartment, it is also a profoundly collaborative venture, with political potential. Newmark outlines the Craigslist success story, which began as a hobby for him in the early 1990s. Newmark quickly detected the Internet's social networking possibilities, and built an email list for friends "to get the word out on cool events, arts and technology." He developed an instant fan base, with people suggesting new items to add to the list like "stuff to sell," and he soon felt encouraged to expand. His name for the site was "SF Events," but friends nixed that title, infinitely preferring their own version: "Craig's List." Says Newmark, "I had a brand already, and it was personal and quirky. I didn't know what a brand was at that point, but I learned and they were right." < br> By the end of 1997, the site was receiving one million page views per month, but was still being run on a volunteer basis. Newmark was doing software and customer service, and recognized he could not also provide strong leadership. As a self"professed nerd who "lived the Dilbert life," Newmark grasped that his hobby had grown too big to manage on his own, so in 2000, after having formally incorporated, he hired a CEO, and threw himself into customer service, corporate governance, and staying on top of technological innovations that could enhance the website. Craigslist is now approaching 13 billion page views per month. Through this explosive growth, Newmark has remained true to his business values: "We can do well as a company financially by doing good stuff for people." He has no plans to sell Craigslist. "There's nothing altruistic, noble or pious about it. We figure once we make enough money to live comfortably and provide for the futureit's more satisfying to change things." He's been involved for years "with a guy named Barack" and views himself as a "community meta organizer," using the internet to allow face to face communication on a scale of tens of millions. Some prominent interests: using social networking to spark volunteer national service; making government more transparent; shining a light on campaign financing, and helping out returning Iraq and Afghanistan vets and their families. About the Speaker(s): In 1995, Craig Newmark began his career in community organizing by starting "craigslist" as a list service to share community information on upcoming events in San Francisco with his close circle of friends. Craigslist has evolved to a community service website with over 50 million community members located in more than 576 cities in 50 different countries who are generating over 15 billion page views per month, sharing common values and information. Newmark earned a B.S. in Computer Science from Case Western Reserve University. Newmark is a vocal advocate of keeping the Internet free. He has donated $10,000 to a non"profit group, NewAssignment.Net, which plans to combine the work of amateurs and professionals to produce investigative stories on the Internet.Host(s): Sloan School of Management, MIT Center for Collective Intelligence

The Role of Civic Media in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT

10/22/2008 6:00 PM MuseumHenry Jenkins, Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California; Description: In World of Warcraft, online 'clans' form whose members, while dispersed geographically, exhibit fierce loyalty toward each other -- reminiscent, says Henry Jenkins of neighborhood bowling leagues. He wonders whether new media platforms that encourage bonding over long distances might help move Americans back toward more personal and immediate civic engagement. Forty years after Alvin Toffler noted that American society was fragmenting due to increased social mobility, digital technology permits us "to build strong friendships and carry them with us wherever we move," says Jenkins. Social ties can exist without regard to geography, but how do new kinds of social organization play into our politics, especially at the local level? And as local newspapers fold, and media outlets morph into print/online/broadcast hybrids, where will people turn for information about their communities? Jenkins and MIT's Knight Center for Future Civic Media hope to explore and test new technologies that might help invigorate public discourse and democracy within communities. Jenkins discusses with an MIT Museum audience the proliferation of media platforms deployed in the recent presidential campaign. He likes the notion of "moving democracy from special event to a lifestyle," and wonders if the on" and off"line networks built up around the Obama campaign, for instance, will survive the election and continue in other forms. "Is there a plebiscite version, a collective intelligence, where he (Obama) collects the insights of the public to go forward?" Jenkins would like new technologies to provide "a common space" to discuss civic good and community leadership. But he worries about excluding some groups. Most young people have online access, "but still face a participation gap to do with skills, knowledge, experience, a sense of entitlement or empowerment." The real trick will be connecting "the real and virtual world together so the consequences of one permeate the other." Jenkins offers some interesting examples: Global Kids, a New York group linking teen leaders online worldwide, so they work on issues face to face in their own communities, from garbage pickups to volunteer projects. They also develop awareness of larger issues such as Darfur and child prostitution. There's a new trend of "place blogging," where individuals report on events on a hyper local level. And some Facebook users found a way of shaming unregistered voter acquaintances _ a tactic with which Jenkins isn't entirely comfortable. About the Speaker(s): Henry Jenkins' books include Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide and Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. His previous books include "What Made Pistachio Nuts": Early Sound Comedy and the Vaudeville Aesthetic; Classical Hollywood Comedy; and Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. Jenkins has published articles on a diverse range of topics relating to film, television and popular culture. His most recent essays include work on Star Trek, WWF Wrestling, Nintendo Games, and Dr. Seuss. Jenkins has a Ph.D. in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin"Madison and an M.A. in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa.Host(s): Office of the Provost, MIT Museum

The Electoral College Experts Debate and Audience Dialogue

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT

10/17/2008 1:15 PM Bartos theaterArnold Barnett, PhD '73, George Eastman Professor of Management Science, MIT Sloan; Vikram Amar, Professor of Law UC Davis Law School; Dr. Alexander S. Belenky, Visiting Scholar, MIT Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals; Robert Hardaway, Professor of Law University of Denver College of Law; Alexander Keyssar, Professor of History and Social Policy, JFK School of Government, Harvard University; Paul Schumaker, Professor, Political Science, University of KansasDescription: Much like our divided country, each side of this debate strains to comprehend the perspective of the other, together reaching no consensus on the fate of the Electoral College. In what feels like a constitutional law and political science scrimmage, participants lob questions and spark exchanges. What follows is a short list of discussion themes: Judith Best wonders how a movement currently pursuing a nationwide popular vote outside of a Constitutional amendment can accomplish its goal without usurping Constitutional process. Robert Bennett responds that advocates believe they are neither overturning the Constitutional system nor encroaching on the prerogatives of federal government. Alexander Belenkyasks what benefits popular vote proponents think it will bring. Alexander Keyssar asks in return, "Why shouldn't people have the ultimate voice in deciding what their political institutions look like?" Robert Hardaway worries about implementation of the direct national election. John Fortier notes possible problems among states over differing voting standards (e.g., polling hours, or mail"in ballots). Akhil Amar adds, "Who votes and who doesn't? Is it fair if one state allows 16"year"olds and another 18"year"olds? Is it equal if one state lets you vote for three months and another lets you vote for three hours? These are real issues, but in the end don't scare me away." Is a national popular vote doomed due to inertia and the preference of political parties for the Electoral College? Bennett imagines opposition might wither if a modest version of a nationwide vote emerged. Akhil Amar believes if both parties feel "bitten in the back" by the EC system, they'll say "let's move." Vikram Amar says unlike other ideas for constitutional amendments (such as for a balanced budget or school prayer), a popular vote has "potential for traction," since it involves improving democracy. Best thinks proponents of popular election "have their priorities wrong and should go after the Senate first." Vikram Amar agrees that the Senate is anachronistic, part of the original deal "to get the Constitution done" but Akhil Amar states there are "perfectly sound reasons for wanting to change the presidency and selection mechanism that do not require rethinking the Senate." Belenky wonders if it's good for the country if we elect a president by a thin plurality who has lost the popular vote in every state. Keyssar retorts "that for any conceivable electoral system the rest of people herecan think of a disastrous counter example." Best insists that "as thinkers, we must be careful to not confuse end and means: the goal of an election is to produce a president who can govern this nation." Concludes Akhil Amar, "Many arguments invoked against popular elections are actually red herrings, which might be sufficient to persuade people to stick with what we've got now." Says Bennett, "I don't think there's any doubt, if we go to a national popular vote there might be unexpected consequences but the notion that it will be somehow fatal is an over"dramatization of a point." About the Speaker(s): Arnold Barnett is one of the nation's foremost authorities on aviation security. He uses statistical techniques to probe social and organizational issues. Barnett heads an FAA research team to investigate antiterrorist measures. He has also written at length about crime and punishment, war casualties, and the misuse of statistics in the media. The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences honored him with the 1996 President's Award for outstanding contributions to the betterment of society. In 2002, he received the President's Citation from the Flight Safety Foundation for "truly outstanding contributions on behalf of safety." Barnett holds a B.A. in Physics from Columbia College and a Ph.D.in Mathematics from MIT.Host(s): Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

How Democracy Resolves Conflict in Difficult Games

Tue, 13 May 2008 04:00:00 GMT

05/13/2008 8"404Steven Brams '62, SB '62, Professor of Politics, New York UniversityDescription: Using game theory, and with some help from the Bible, Steven Bramsargues that voting can resolve certain kinds of conflicts. He explores in detail the classic game Prisoner's Dilemma. In his version, players must choose whether or not to contribute to the renovation of a public park. In a two"person variation of the game, in which Brams posits a rich person as one player, and the public as the other, "each person has an incentive to a free ride." The dominant strategy for each, he says, is not to contribute, and let the other pay for the public good. Then Brams reframes this game,with the addition of voting. With two persons, a majority means both must vote to finance the park for the renovation to happen. One vote for financing the park won't cut it. "You go from non"cooperative to cooperative as a dominant strategy, by allowing voting to determine the outcome," says Brams. To illustrate a multiple, or N"person version of Prisoner's Dilemma, Brams turns to the Old Testament story of Moses after Mount Sinai. Upon Moses' return with the Ten Commandments, the Israelites are worshiping idols, and God threatens to destroy them. Moses asks the Israelites to choose between idolatry and the one God. Those who do not commit to the God of Israel are killed. In Brams' view, Moses took a gamble in a kind of referendum that the majority would vote his way, and "to prevent defections from the outcome, Moses deemed it necessary that those who chose (idolatry) be decimated." Says Brams, "This is a gruesome way to achieve consensus but hardly unknown in recent times." When games become voting games, cooperative outcomes take on a new status, says Brams. "The idea is, if you don't have a sufficient number, nobody pays, and everybody suffers. If you have a sufficient number, everybody paysand you get the cooperative outcome. There aren't in"between outcomes where some pay and some don't, and the ones that don't pay make out like bandits. That's what voting does -- it prevents that banditry." In countries like the U.S., when a government can "credibly commit to providing a public good that a majority supports, the solution that democracy provides is compelling." But in situations where crime or corruption is the rule -- say, in some developing nations -- there must be assurances that the cooperative outcome the majority supports will really be implemented, says Brams. About the Speaker(s): Steven Brams' most recent book is Mathematics and Democracy: Designing Better Voting and Fair"Division Procedures (Princeton University Press, 2008). He has also written The Win"Win Solution: Guaranteeing Fair Shares to Everybody, with Alan D. Taylor; Fair Division: From Cake"Cutting to Dispute Resolution, with Alan D. Taylor; and Theory of Moves. Bram has been teaching at NYU since 1969. Previously, he was an assistant professor at Syracuse University, a research associate for the Institute for Defense Analyses, and an executive trainee with the Office of the Secretary of Defense.Bram received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1966.Host(s): School of Engineering, Materials Processing Center

MIT Communications Forum: Our World Digitized — The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

In conversation with Henry Jenkins, these speakers don't so much square off as share their hopes and fears for the emergence of online democracy.

Consolidating Iraqi Democracy: The Institutional Context

Mon, 11 Apr 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Noah Feldman, Professor, New York University School of Law; and Kanan Makiya, The Sylvia K. Hassenfeld Professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Brandeis University; Founder, Iraq Memory Foundation Can constitutional democracy unfold in Iraq? Noah Feldman details a hybrid model of democracy-building currently under way in Iraq whose outcome is far from certain. Iraqi exiles, selected by the U.S. occupation force, formed a governing council to help draft a constitution. But these Iraqis were not elected representatives of the people, and Shiite leaders protested that such a constitution would not be viable. Says Feldman: "What do you do? You fake it and 'call things other than what they are." So instead of a constitution, the governing council wrote a "transitional administrative law." But Sunni Arabs steered clear of the council, and of subsequent Iraqi elections. Feldman says they were "intimidated by people who threatened to kill them." As a result, the insurgency continues and in some places, "fear that goes into making everyday decisions is comparable to that under Saddam's rule." Feldman believes that the lack of security, for which the U.S. is to blame, "threatens the emergence of a democratic structure going forward." Kanan Makiya sees a fundamental crisis of post-war Iraqi leadership leading the country to breakdown. Because the U.S. chose the governing council, they got "a beautiful but ineffectual body from the governing point of view." From the start, Iraqis had no actual say in the reconstruction of their country, which led to low morale. Then Iraq had "a magnificent moment where eight million people came out to vote, an important statement about the insurgency and about the future. But in the eyes of much of the public, that moment is being traded away by politicians." The Shiite majority must cultivate Sunni leadership, and the sense of personal victimhood most Iraqis carry with them must be replaced "by an idea of Iraq that's bigger than my own personal suffering." ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
Noah Feldman served as senior advisor on constitutional law to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and as advisor to Iraqis involved in the constitutional process there. Among his publications:What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building,(2004); After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy,(2003). His third book, Divided by God: America's Church-State Problem, will be released in fall 2005.

Feldman joined NYU from Harvard University, where he was a Junior Fellow. He received his A.B. from Harvard University, was selected as a Rhodes Scholar, received a doctorate in Islamic Thought from Oxford University and his J.D. from Yale Law School. He also served as a law clerk to Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Kanan Makiya was born in Baghdad but left Iraq to study architecture at MIT. In 1981, Makiya left his architecture practice and began to write a book about Iraq, Republic of Fear (1989), which became a best-seller after Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. His next book, The Monument (1991), was an essay on the aesthetics of power and kitsch. Both Republic of Fear and The Monument were written under the pseudonym, Samir al-Khalil. The award-winning Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising and the Arab World (1993), followed, and most recently he published The Rock: A Seventh Century Tale of Jerusalem (2002). Along with these books, Makiya has written for The Independent, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement and The Times. Host(s): School of Architecture and Planning, Department of Urban Studies and Planning Event date: 04/11/2005

Democratizing Innovation

Fri, 08 Apr 2005 04:00:00 GMT

If you have ever come up with a work-around or improvement for a balky product only to find that it performs better than the original, you are not alone.

Constructing a New Liberal Iraq

Mon, 04 Apr 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Robert E. Looney, Professor of National Security Affairs, and Associate Chairman of Instruction, Naval Postgraduate School; John Tirman, Executive Director, Center for International Studies, MIT Iraq's oil reserves are the second largest in the world, yet according to both colloquium speakers, the country's economic prospects are quite dim. They also agree that bungled U.S. reforms share some of the blame for Iraq's bleak outlook. Robert Looney believes that Washington dearly wants to "make Iraq a showcase for other countries in the Middle East, by showing how a successful market economy could improve standards of living," among other goals. But policy makers have gone at the problem the wrong way, pushing for immediate outside investment in and ownership of Iraqi assets. "If you were a freshman looking at an economics book and had to write a paper overnight, this is pretty much what you'd come up with." Instead, reforms have "created unemployment and insecurity" and led to a shadow economy riddled with corruption that seems unlikely to budge for years. Among his scenarios: Iraq might go the way of Iran, becoming a "pragmatic theocracy;" "muddle through" to become "a Nigeria of the Middle East;" or get stuck in a vicious circle, and become a "Yugoslavia with oil." John Tirman says that "economic growth after 15 years of decline is essential to winning over the Iraqi people," but the U.S. free market schemes are deepening the distrust Iraqis have in economic reforms, as they observe deals primarily transacted with outsiders. Tirman says this rapid privatization leads to more insecurity, and that if you "want to stabilize the economy, give money to people to live on and make them feel they have a future." He sees a strong likelihood of civil war, if not between Baathists and Shi'as then between Kurds and Shi'as. Host(s): School of Architecture and Planning, Department of Urban Studies and Planning Event date: 04/04/2005

Islam and the Challenge of Democracy

Mon, 12 May 2003 04:00:00 GMT

05/12/2003 11:00 AM Wong AuditoriumTom Ashbrook, Host, WBUR's "On Point"; ; Fawaz Gerges, Christiain A. Johnson Chair holder in International Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies, Sarah Lawrence College ; Khaled Abou El Fadl, Professor of Law, UCLA ; Jack Beatty, Senior Editor The Atlantic Monthly and "On Point" news analyst Description: As the period of rebuilding Iraq begins, this panel takes on the big questions of political systems and religion based value systems can Islam and democracy co-exist in the Arab world? Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Center for International StudiesTape #: 16237

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