MediaBerkman

Listen to Dan Gillmor’s Citizens Media Series event, Engaging with the News”. Held at the Berkman Center, this informal discussion explores how people are using new media technologies to become citizen journalists.

“In a world of democratized media, we dont have to settle anymore for the newspaper that a carrier drops in the driveway or the 5 oclock news broadcast. Even the traditional media are offering new choices, including podcasts and outbound links, but this is only a starting point. We can, and should, assemble our own news reports from the vast data streams. We can use tools to help navigate our way through the masses of information, but the human component remains crucial. Recommendation systems and other emergent notions can help answer the question of who and what is trustworthy in a world where anyone can publish.”

Dan Gillmor is the founder & director of the Center for Citizen Media, author of We the Media and a Berkman Center fellow.

Download the MP3 (time: 1:50:26)

April 19, 2006

Yochai Benkler, Professor of Law at Yale University, explores the effects of laws that regulate information production and exchange on the distribution of control over information flows, knowledge, and culture in the digital environment.

Professor Benkler discusses these and other topics from his new book, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. The Wealth of Networks is a comprehensive social theory of the Internet and the networked information economy. In it, Professor Benkler describes how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural production are changingand shows that the way information and knowledge are made available can either limit or enlarge the ways people can create and express themselves.

Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford Law School has written about Yochai Benklers book, The Wealth of Networks. He says, This is by far the most important and powerful book written in the fields that matter most to me in the last ten years. Read it, Professor Lessig says. Understand it. You are not serious about these issues on either side of these debates unless you have read this book.

Yochai Benklers lecture was presented on April 18, 2006 at Harvard Law School, hosted by The Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Produced by Colin Rhinesmith.

Download the MP3 (time: 41:22)

Attribution: Music from this episode of AudioBerkman was sampled and remixed using a track from Antony Raijekov titled Be Brave (Dub-TripHop RMX).

William McGeveran, Jackie Harlow, and Professor William W. Fisher III present a progress report on their year-long research project about Educational Uses of Content in the Digital Age, funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.

The project considers (1) the ways in which digitization alters the use of content by teachers and scholars in their educational mission; (2) what obstacles (legal, technical, or institutional) prevent the full potential of digital learning; and (3) what reforms might improve the situation. Professor Fisher is the lead investigator. Berkman Fellow William McGeveran and Berkman student fellow Jackie Harlow are coordinating the project.

Download the MP3 (time: 1:04:07)

This past Tuesday, Berkman’s Digital Media in Asia Speaker Series hosted an event featuring Jesse Parker on Investment in Digital Media in China. Jesse Parker is the Founder and Managing General Partner of Dragonvest Partners a fund that invests in talented Chinese entrepreneurs. He has over 25 years experience in the technology business sector and the Greater China marketplace. Hear his unique perspective on how technological change has impacted China, his knowledge about the growth of digital media industries in China, and his strategy for how or why he invests in Chinese digital media companies.

If you’d like to receive weekly email announcements of Berkman Center events and webcasts, please email rsvp (AT) cyber.law.harvard.edu.

Download the MP3 (time: 1:30:11)

Zephyr Teachout examines the Internet’s transformative role in Eastern European politics. She explains, “Around the same time I was working on the Dean Campaign, Maidan.net, a Ukranian website, was building a powerful citizen media network that would be part of changing their country forever.”

Produced by Benjamen Walker and drawing on interviews with political activists from the Ukraine and Estonia, the podcast emerged from Berkman’s annual Internet & Politics conference, held last year at the Oxford Internet Institute and sponsored by eBay and the Omidyar Network. The event brought together academics, activists and policy-makers with a view to identifying new and exciting developments which challenge existing models of e-participation, while highlighting areas where policy and practice in Eastern Europe could be informed by and inform — research and experience from other parts of the world.

Having made our way from North America to Europe, we are hoping to continue the conversations later this year in South Asia — in nothing less than the world’s largest democracy. More on that as it happens…

Download the MP3 (time: 13:39)

David Weinberger, Berkman fellow, author, and blogger, talks about some of the ideas he’s exploring in a new book he’s writing on knowledge. He says, “The comedian Jon Stewart has become a trusted journalist. Wikipedia is in many instances more reliable and up-to-date than traditional encyclopedias. Web sites let social networks put together their own front pages, ignoring the efforts of the highly trained members of newspaper editorial boards. So, what is up with knowledge?”

“It’s by no means the end of days for knowledge,” he says, “but it’s no longer limited by the physical ways we’ve had to manage it in the past.” Further, he says, as a culture we are hard at work on building an infrastructure of meaning and understanding.

Produced by Colin Rhinesmith.

Download the MP3 (time: 12:07)

Attribution: Music from this edition of AudioBerkman was sampled and remixed by Colin Rhinesmith using the following tracks: pt. 3 (instrumental) & Shag’s secret by cdk, Remember The Name (inki’s essence instrumental) by inki & Dream-off by C.Portable.

It’s Day Two at F2C 2006, here at the AFI Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland. Yesterday, Daniell Krawczyk and Colin Rhinesmith conducted interviews with a number of exciting participants and attendees, including Joe Van Eaton, Tim Wu, Cynthia De Lorenzi, and Doc Searls.

This morning, Colin sat down with Dewayne Hendricks, currently CEO, of Dandin Group, Inc. to speak with him about the challenges facing municipal broadband networks, as Congress debates legislation involving our Freedom to Connect.

“Dandin Group offers a comprehensiverange of products and services, including research and product development, for wireless communications via the Internet. He also has been an active member of the Federal Communications Commission Technological Advisory Council (FCC/TAC) for the past eight years.” - Freedom to Connect

Click here to listen.

Produced by Colin Rhinesmith.

AudioBerkman producer Colin Rhinesmith speaks with Esme Vos, founder of Muniwireless.com, following a late morning panel titled, “Muni Tsunami” featuring Jim Baller of Baller Herbst Law Group, Ron Sege, CEO of Tropos, and David Isenberg, Berkman Fellow and co-organizer of Freedom to Connect 2006. Colin asked Esme to talk more about Muniwireless.com and other grassroots wi-fi groups working to raise awareness about the issue of Net Neutrality.

Click here to listen.

Produced by Colin Rhinesmith.

“U.S. Representative Rick Boucher, serving his twelfth term representing Virginias Ninth Congressional District, is at the forefront of federal information technology policy making. He has a long history of involvement in and a deep knowledge of advanced telecommunications and information technology matters. He also extensively examines the intersection of technologies and copyright law, authoring legislative measures to promote technological innovation and the rights of consumers while ensuring that creators of intellectual property are fairly compensated. Congressman Boucher originated the Congressional Internet Caucus in 1996. This bipartisan caucus has grown to more than 170 members of the U.S. House and Senate.” - Freedom To Connect.

Listen to Rep. Boucher, who spoke during a Tuesday morning session at F2C 2006, discuss how the new House Telecom bill would impact Video Franchising and Network Neutrality.

“That’s Entertainment”, a conversation with Cynthia de Lorenzi, Washington Bureau for ISP Advocacy, at F2C 2006.

“Entertainment.” That’s how Cynthia de Lorenzi, former CEO of Patriot.net (a recently acquired ISP) framed the fight between Cable and the Teleco’s. She explained that while the folks at the F2C conference understand what’s at stake, it’s not making much sense to most people. We caught up with her during a break in the action to ask her to expand on this notion, that its all really a struggle over entertainment, and if we could frame things in these terms, we might be better able to reach the average joe.

Listen to Daniell Krawczyk’s interview with Cynthia De Lorenzi.

Produced by Colin Rhinesmith.