Last Friday, I participated in a policy roundtable on “Leveraging Community Colleges for Minority Student STEM Engagement” organized by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and hosted at Microsoft’s Policy Office in Washington, D.C. This roundtable meeting launched a Joint Center initiative on a topic in which libraries of all types are becoming increasingly involved. A broad range of stakeholders was represented at the roundtable, from the National Alliance of Black School Educators, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, and the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, to Verizon, TechNet, and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

For many years, national policy makers have lamented the low number of students who focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields—and the consequent risk to our economic and technological competitiveness. Minority students, in particular, are underrepresented in STEM fields.

White House advisor Thomas Kalil discussed how the Obama Administration has placed a major focus of its educational initiatives on community colleges, as evidenced through the Advanced Graduation Initiative and the first-ever White House Summit on Community Colleges. In addition, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and federal officials from several other agencies explained the urgent national need to increase the number of students in STEM fields.

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Read more at District Dispatch.

Michael Copps’ decade of service as a member of the Federal Communications Commission will forever be remembered as a time when average Americans had a real voice in the regulation of one of the country’s most powerful industries.  Through it all, whether he was looking at new media or old media, Commissioner Copps consistently raised his own voice and dedicated his good offices to the proposition that the people come first and that technological advancements in communication should, above all else, advance opportunities for everyone to be heard in the public square.

Speaking at a forum at Howard University on the effective use of social media, political communications experts urged college students and other young voters to transform their Facebook and Twitter contacts into powerful political networks in advance of the 2012 elections.

The non-partisan forum on Wednesday was convened by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Media and Technology Institute, in partnership with Howard's School of Communications, NAACP, National Action Network, Voto Latino, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Hip Hop Caucus, IMPACT, Politic365 and BET Networks.  "African Americans in particular are over-represented on sites like Twitter," said political commentator Jamal Simmons. "Transforming the contacts to good works can make a significant impact if this year is anything like the last election when African Americans played a critical role in getting this president elected."

Social media can be effective tools for anyone, according to conservative commentator Lenny McAllister. He cited the success that the Tea Party has had with social media, saying, "These are not 22-year-old conservatives that are using Facebook and Twitter. These are your grandparents!"

"As the 2012 election season gets underway, this is the first in a series of events by the Joint Center to highlight the role of social media in civic engagement," said Dr. Nicol Turner-Lee, Vice President and Director of the Joint Center Media and Technology Institute. "We want to energize African Americans and other people of color, especially young and potential voters who are comfortable with the technology and can lead the way to broader adoption."

Read more at politicsincolor.com.

It was previously available at The Sacramento Bee.

Imagine a world where people use social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus for more than idle banter about the latest NBA drama or Sunday’s episode of the Housewives of Atlanta. Increasingly, people are doing just that; using the land of social media as a forum to push a political candidate or cause they believe in.

That phenomenon led the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies to gather leading social media and political experts at Howard University this week for a panel entitled “What’s Your Cause? Social Media Use in the 2012 Election.”

In many ways African-Americans are a sleeping giant in the social media landscape.

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This is only the first in a series of events the Joint Center will use to highlight the increasing role of social media in civic engagement. Dr. Nicol Turner-Lee, vice president and director of the Joint Center Media and Technology Institute said, “We want to energize African-Americans and other people of color, especially young voters and potential voters who have demonstrated that they are comfortable with the technology and can lead the way to broader adoption.”

Read more at BET.

When it comes to the state of our deliberative democracy, here’s one thing we do know: There’s never been a time when citizens have had more informational inputs at their disposal. But here’s something we don’t know: Whether citizens have access to the right sort of information — or know how to take action based upon that information — to make informed decisions about their communities and society. What steps can be taken to make sure they do?

That was the audacious mission undertaken by the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, a blue-ribbon panel formed by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the nonpartisan Aspen Institute. In 2009, the Knight Commission released a report “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age” that included 15 recommendations to better meet community information needs.

Following the release of the report, the Knight Foundation and the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program commissioned a series of white papers to put more meat on the bones of those recommendations. During this same period, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) also conducted an investigation into “the future of media and information needs of citizens and communities,” which culminated in [June] with a mammoth 465-page report. The report provided a comprehensive assessment of the health of the nation’s current information marketplace and concluded that while the overall information ecosystem looked encouraging, there were gaps of concern at the local level.  Importantly, however, the agency also noted that “Government is not the main player in this drama, and the First Amendment circumscribes government action to improve local news.”

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In terms of access to information, Blair Levin, Former Executive Director of the Omnibus Broadband Initiative at the FCC, outlined steps to move toward “Universal Broadband” while Jon Gant of the University of Illinois and Nicol Turner-Lee of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies outlined “Six Strategies for More Open and Participatory Government” in their report on the importance of greater government transparency.

Read more at Forbes.

Speaking at a forum at Howard University on the effective use of social media, political communications experts urged college students and other young voters to transform their Facebook and Twitter contacts into powerful political networks in advance of the 2012 elections.

The non-partisan forum on Wednesday was convened by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Media and Technology Institute, in partnership with Howard's School of Communications, NAACP, National Action Network, Voto Latino, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Hip Hop Caucus, IMPACT, Politic365 and BET Networks. "African Americans in particular are over-represented on sites like Twitter," said political commentator Jamal Simmons. "Transforming the contacts to good works can make a significant impact if this year is anything like the last election when African Americans played a critical role in getting this president elected."

Read more at Yahoo! News.

Politic365 recently went on record with Dr. Nicol Turner-Lee, Vice President and Director of the Media and Technology Institute of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and Harold Crumpton, Chair of the NAACP National Board’s Media, Telecom and Broadband Taskforce and former Missouri Public Service Commissioner, to discuss the important issue of wireless taxation and its potential impact on marginalized communities.

Politic365 recently went on record with Dr. Nicol Turner-Lee, Vice President and Director of the Media and Technology Institute of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and Harold Crumpton, Chair of the NAACP National Board’s Media, Telecom and Broadband Taskforce and former Missouri Public Service Commissioner, to discuss the important issue of wireless taxation and its potential impact on marginalized communities.

Read more at Politic365.

Speaking at a forum at Howard University on the effective use of social media, leading experts on socioeconomics and political communications urged college students and other young voters to transform their Facebook and Twitter contacts into powerful political networks in advance of the 2012 elections.

The non-partisan forum on Wednesday was convened by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Media and Technology Institute, in partnership with Howard’s School of Communications , NAACP, National Action Network, Voto Latino, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Hip Hop Caucus and leading media outlets that target African Americans.
 
“African Americans in particular are over-represented on sites like Twitter,” said political commentator Jamal Simmons of The Raben Group. “Transforming the contacts to good works can make a significant impact if this year is anything like the last election when African Americans played a critical role in getting this president elected,” he added.

As the 2012 election approaches, hear how you can use your Facebook and Twitter networks to get involved. Hear experts, social activists, and celebrities discuss how they use social media for cause-related action and use that knowledge to be a part of history.

Featuring Free, radio personality and former host of BET's 106 and Park.

No registration required! For more information, see the event flyer.