New from the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy:
Free flowing news and information is essential to the health of democratic communities, but not all information environments are equally effective at meeting community information needs. What can a community do to measure the quality of its information environment, identify its information needs and take steps to build a more robust news and information ecosystem?
Assessing Community Information Needs: A Practical Guide is a guide for adopting civic innovation strategies to spur the development of news and information environments that address real community needs. Civic leaders, elected officials, motivated citizens, community-based organizations and others can use this guide to understand how to integrate useful practices for assessing and building engaged, informed communities—communities with the civic capacity necessary to deal successfully with today’s many economic, social, environmental and political challenges.