Community Information Needs in a Broadband Media Age

Book & DVD. This book explores community information needs in a broadband media age. In most ways today’s media landscape is more vibrant than ever, offering faster and cheaper distribution networks, fewer barriers to entry, and more ways to consume information. Choice abounds. Local TV stations, newspapers and a flood of innovative web start-ups are now using a dazzling array of digital tools to improve the way they gather and disseminate the news, not just nationally or internationally, but block by block. The digital tools that have helped topple governments abroad are providing Americans powerful new ways to consume, share and even report the news. Yet, in part because of the digital revolution, serious problems have arisen, as well. This is likely to lead to the kinds of problems, that are, not surprisingly, associated with a lack of accountability, more government waste, more local corruption, less effective schools, and other serious community problems.