Idea Lab

Great Citizen Media Projects That Use Radio, Audio and Mobile

by Prabhas Pokharel
2009 Knight News Challenge Winner

Over at the Mobile Media Toolkit, we recently have been looking at voice- and radio-based citizen media projects that incorporate mobile phones. In an Idea Lab post last fall, I collected a series of examples that primarily used the voice functionality of mobile phones; however, this new set of projects integrate voice and radio with data-based services like SMS and web. Below are some of the projects we think you should know about.Projects to WatchVoices of Youth in Nepal is a free text message channel that enables people to interact with a weekly radio program. The radio announcers pick a...

• July 6, 2010
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The (Unrealized) Potential of Mobile Phones in Citizen Media

by Prabhas Pokharel
2009 Knight News Challenge Winner

I had the pleasure of attending the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit in Santiago, Chile earlier this month. The summit brought together bloggers, activists, and thinkers working to advance citizen media all around the world. While the discussions that took place were informative, most presentations and panels fell short in recognizing the role mobile phones have played and exploring the potential mobile phones can play in citizen media. I'd like to highlight some of the potential for mobiles in citizen media that were not adequately discussed.The Potential of Mobiles in Citizen MediaMobile phones have already played a significant role in advancing citizen...

• May 21, 2010
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Pew Report Shows Mobile News Use Spreading in U.S.

by Prabhas Pokharel
2009 Knight News Challenge Winner

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) released a important new report this week, Understanding the Participatory News Consumer. It presents many insights on how Americans stay informed, and highlights the fact that many of us are already accessing news on our mobile phones. For those considering producing news for mobile phones, or debating whether or not to venture in the news-on-the-go space, here are the key points from the extensive report. Mobile News Spreads A quarter of all American adults are reading news content on their mobile phones. This is only likely to grow, and hopefully...

• March 3, 2010
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How Mobile Voices Enables Day Laborers to Tell Their Stories

by Prabhas Pokharel
2009 Knight News Challenge Winner

This is the second of two articles about Mobile Voices, a project based in Southern California. The first post can be found here. Voces Móviles / Mobile Voices, a Los Angeles-based citizen media project, a collaboration between the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California (ASC) and the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA). Mobile Voices describes itself as "a platform for immigrant workers in Los Angeles to create stories about their lives and communities directly from cell phones. [The project] helps people with limited computer access gain greater participation in the digital public sphere."...

• February 25, 2010
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How Mobile Voices Developed a Citizen Media Platform

by Prabhas Pokharel
2009 Knight News Challenge Winner

For the last eighteen months, three programmers have been working on Mobile Voices. I talked to Sasha Constanza-Chock, one of the developers of the project, about the process that went into building the Mobile Voices platform. I asked why Mobile Voices built a custom platform for the project, why they chose to use multimedia messaging for content delivery, and the lessons they have learned about using MMS.

• January 26, 2010
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How Talking into a Mobile Phone Can Help Change Lives

by Prabhas Pokharel
2009 Knight News Challenge Winner

The pre-cursors to mobile phones were two-way radios, also called Walkie-Talkies, that transmitted voice signals. The first generation of mobile phone networks were similar in that they also only supported voice communications. Second generation networks, and a happy accident, gave us SMS, and third generation networks provide even more advanced mobile data services. Most mobile phone applications now use these newer channels of communication -- SMS and data. But even though we sometimes forget, voice is still a major part of mobile phone communications. And when it comes to performing social work, voice communication is actually the most important feature...

• September 3, 2009
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