Idea Lab

The Role of Citizen Media in Ensuring Fair Elections

by David Ardia
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Yesterday, I read an article in the New York Times describing the fears some voters in Duval County, Florida have that their early votes will be lost and never counted. I found the article deeply disturbing. It wasn't because it surprised me that people fear their votes won't be counted (that fear has some precedent in Duval County, where 26,000 ballots were discarded in the 2000 election), but because it brought into focus for me the apprehensive feelings I've been having about the upcoming election. I have this nagging feeling that something . . . well, terrible . ....

• October 30, 2008
• 1 comment

Virtual Voting: Finding Our Audience Where They Roam

by Liz Nord
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Now that we are several months into the project, we thought we had conquered, or at least tackled, most forms of new media. Our Street Teamers’ work appears regularly on mobile video carriers, a mobile wap site, several websites, and on-air via MTV’s broadcast networks.

Then, a few weeks back, I was approached by an MTV colleague about a whole new area of distribution that, I have to admit, I had hardly considered before: THE VIRTUAL WORLD. I’m talking about something right outta web 3.0: a 3-D, interactive, virtual reality experience where one can have a “second life” via their avatar persona—a walking, talking, digital version of their better selves--online.

• July 18, 2008
• No comments

MTV/Knight Choose or Lose Street Team '08 - Leaning Local

by Ian V. Rowe
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

The premise of our MTV/Knight Choose or Lose Street Team '08 is that the path to civic participation and becoming a voter is different for everyone, particularly among today's youth. Frequently, young people disconnect the issues that concern them most, from the act of voting - on the premise that their individual vote won't make a difference, or that the news media nor the political candidates NEVER speak about the issues THEY care about most. The job of each Street Team '08 member is to determine what is important to youth in their states, and get young people engaged in...

• April 22, 2008
• No comments

Super Tuesday Wrapup: the MTV/Knight Choose or Lose Street Team '08 & the live mobile to web experiment

by Ian V. Rowe
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Super Tuesday was an historic day with incredible youth turnout at the polls (doubling, tripling and even quadrupling turnout from 2000 & 2004!) and so we were making our own history at MTV covering the youth vote in a whole new way - in this case, capitalizing on a new achievement in mobile technology, delivering real-time high-quality Internet-ready audio and video reporting from the campaign trail.

• February 17, 2008
• No comments

Political Blogs Engage; Steve Jobs Doesn't

by J.D. Lasica
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

I had a contrarian reaction to Steve Jobs' keynote at Macworld Expo last week. Sitting in the convention center, tapping away at my laptop once again, I couldn't help but think that some of the magic of Apple had left the room. Jobs, now on the board of Disney, has been slowly morphing into a creature of Hollywood, more interested in doing deals that let consumers view streaming blockbuster movies than in helping to revolutionize Web video for users to take the next great leap forward. It wasn't a sell-out -- Apple answers to its shareholders, after all -- but...

• January 22, 2008
• 6 comments

10Questions Offers a 'Netroots' Presidential Debate

by Steven Clift
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

On my Democracies Online blog I shared my dismay about the so-called online candidate debates thus far this election cycle. With E-Democracy.Org we hosted the first online candidate debate back in 1994, so I am looking for innovations that involve the public in determining the questions and would be satisfied without real candidate rebuttals online. E-Debates have a long way to go, but 10Questions.com is a huge step in the right direction. 10Questions, with scores of netroots and some media sponsors as led by TechPresident, allows you to upload you video question to various video services. You simply tag your...

• October 19, 2007
• No comments