On February 24 a bevy of media experts, activists, producers and policy-makers will be gathering at at the second "Beyond Broadcast" conference. I attended last year’s excellent "Beyond Broadcast" event, where I met Pathfinder Linden and Rodica MillionsofUs among many other folks. The purpose of this year’s conference is to :
explore the means, the message, and the meaning of the
post-midterm, pre-presidential YouTube moment. Broadcast media have
long played a powerful role in shaping political culture and mediating
citizen engagement in the democratic process, and the conference will
examine how participatory culture is putting the tools of media
creation and critique in the hands of citizens themselves.
Don’t know if I’ll make it to MIT, but I can participate anyway since they will be holding parallel meetings in-world at Berkman Island (teleport SLURL). Last year the "participation" was mostly via streaming video and questions submitted via IM. This year they are hoping for something much more multi-verse and ambitious:
[W]e’re taking it a step further, and hope to engage people in an
experiment of virtual participation. We invite both real life and
Second Life conference attendees to collaborate in working groups in
the virtual space. Some topics under consideration include: the
role/advantage of education in the metaverse and understanding how
participatory culture is changing commercial and political concepts of
marketing. Please help us brainstorm and add possible topics.
Sounds like quite a task, depending on the familiarity conference attendees have with SL beforehand. Should be interesting to see.