We think of Civic Media as any non-partisan, non-ideological use of a medium or group of media that invites and enables ALL members of a community to participate in a) defining and resolving systemic problems of concern to the entire community and b) discovering and realizing new opportunities that will benefit the community as a whole. Unlike other conceptions of civic media, ours centers on uses of existing mainstream or commercial media as vehicles in realizing the above conception. The MIT Civic Media Center, for instance, is silent on the roles that America's mainstream media could or should be playing to advance social and political change. Its former Director, Ethan Zuckerman - at 1:57 of this clip - defines Civic Media as "media that people make and disseminate as a way of trying to make social or political change." All well and good. But the MIT Civic Media Center does not look to mainstream commercial media as possible facilitators of social and political change.
ChicagoWRKS, as described at our Medium post about solving violence in Chicago, is our generic name for the great game of voter-driven representative democracy as played in rule-governed, media-based competitions for best solutions to a given problem. ChicagoWRKS invites and enables all members of a community to participate in examining, improving and finally voting on solutions that are developed by competing small teams of talented problem solvers. Solutions developed by these teams undergo extensive vetting and public discussion over a period of months. The process of public discussion and community voting is facilitated and regulated by a combination of citywide telecasts and text voting similar to that which has been perfected on reality TV shows like American Idol and The Voice. Winning solutions, having earned the support of citizens and public officials alike, can either been implemented on the spot or, when appropriate, can be submitted to elected officials for their final consideration and possible implementation.
ChicagoWRKS is also our non-proprietary brand name for a reality TV show whose audience is a community of any size: local, state, national or international. The WRKS concept is scalable to work for other cities and for states and the nation itself. The name is public domain. There can be a LAWRKS, an IllinoisWRKS, a USATV and on. The concept name is public domain. Chicago Civic Media produces ChicagoWRKS shows on its own, while welcoming other producers to use the WRKS brand name. To stimulate the growth of civic media nationwide, many but not all ChicagoWRKS rules and procedures are available to anyone who wants to use them. We've given away everything but the Secret Sauce that makes Chicago Civic Media productions uniquely responsive to the needs and strengths of a given community.
While it's occurring in all cities and all states, this division most visible at the national level. Call it what you will – fake news, elite media, or a handful of billionaires usurping control of American politics – America’s political media, and the electorate as well, have been split into warring camps, left and right, pro-Trump and anti-Trump. This divisive process preceded the election of president Trump by decades. It began with the advent of network TV in the 1960's and the rise of televised election-time political attack ads that now, underwritten by the billions of dollars coming from the so-called political donor class, skew and determine election outcomes at all levels of government. In the process, Americans in our view have not only lost access as a people to the deliberative processes but have also been denied access to the information they need in order to make informed political decisions. American democracy, in our view, is now an oligarchy and is moving towards some form of autocracy or anarchy.
But guess what: that perspective is merely our view! Other perspectives on the state of American politics and political discourse may be more insightful than ours. Our job, as we see it, is to make room for all perspectives that carry weight with the American people. And it is to do so with media programming and formats that inform and empower the American people and their elected representatives to define and solve problems (and maximize opportunities) that best meet the needs of all three communities, local, state and national, of which every American is a member.
It's hardly surprising that the one issue that unites Americans today is voter dismay and disgust with the nation’s political media. What to our minds is astonishing is the fact (so far as we know) that the nation's most intelligent political observers have taken to complaining bitterly about our broken political media without giving so much as a thought to the possibility of creating a better political media. For these observers, the hyperpolarization America's political media, and of politics itself, appears to be as fixed and unalterable as the rising or setting of the sun.
The first step towards restoring a degree of unity and functionality to America's dysfunctional politics is the outright rejection of this limiting, attack-ad, citizen-disempowering mindset.
Chicago Civic Media took note of this polarizing mindset and rejected it several decades ago. It did so on the strength of our awareness of the experience, expertise and wisdom that ordinary citizens, when informed and empowered, can bring bear in the drive to secure the best futures of all three communities - local, state and natoinal - of which every American is a member. in an informed voice in the political and government decisions that affect their lives.
Since then, we’ve developed an array of multimedia, problem-solving political discourse formats capable of operating at local, state, national and (more recently) international levels. Our most powerful format uses the power of network TV (always supported by other media) to connect all members of a community.
Local. This brief Medium post introduces the Great Game as a rule-governed, voter-driven reality TV show focused on solving violence in Chicago. Learn more about ChicagoWRKS here.
State. In the state of Illinois, for instance, citizens and politicians can play Great Game Illinois in order to resolve the state’s debilitating financial crisis. Two posts of ours - here and here - show demonstrate the need in Illinois for citizen-participatory forms of government to break the impasse that has rendered its politics dysfunctional in the minds of virtually all observers.
National. Americans and their leaders could play USAWRKS to create a health care system, an immigration policy or a drug policy that best serves the American people. USAWRKS creates a level playing field for supporters and opponents alike of a given administration; it fully respects the authority and powers of the nation's leaders. To learn a lot more about it, see America's Choice, our 2006 proposal for politically-themed reality TV.
International. Ethan Sewall's 30-page 2017 "FIXIT (or GlobalWRKS) Model of Global Governance" submission to the Stockholm-based Global Challenges competition shows how the global community of nations can develop and implement best solutions to shared problems like Global Warming.