Preliminary program as of June 20, 2006 / subject to chang e. The speakers, conveners, and session topics are tentative and are subject to change without notice. Check this page (http://www.mediagiraffe.org/wiki/index.php/Program_changes) for updates.

 Thursday, June 29, 2006

TRACK THREE – Politics  and the Internet

4 p.m. – 9 p.m.	Conference check-in, Campus Center Concourse level
6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.	Reception for all conference attendees
7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.	Buy-your-owner dinner, cafeteria style, in the Blue Wall, with Friday’s agenda update  from track leaders Christopher Grotke/Lise LePage; Aldon Hynes, Norman Sims, Rob Williams ,  Steve Garfield and others.

Friday, June 30, 2006

7:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m.	Conference check-in, Campus Center Concourse level
7:00 a.m.-8 a.m.	Continental breakfast for summit participants  (Campus Center lower concourse)
8 a.m.- 9:15 a.m. GENERAL SESSION CC Reading Room	Report from Thursday’s summit:   “Setting the scene: What’s the future of the web and news?” CONVENERS:  Dale Peskin, The Media Center at API; Lee Rainie, the Pew Project on Internet & Society; Tom Rosenstiel, Project on Excellence in Journalism. A news-industry  futurist, , an Internet demographics researcher and a key observer and facilitator of online multimedia news trends forecast the next year and the next decades for the Fourth Estate. How should media executives, citizen journalists, political strategists / public officials, educators and technologist prepare and collaborate?
9:15 a.m.-9:30 a.m.	Media Café break
9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. TRACK THREE CC Reading Room	Politics – “The Internet as an Organizing Tool” MODERATOR: Ralph Whitehead, Univ. of Mass.; DISCUSSANTS:  Josh Silver, FreePress.NET; Chellie Pingree, CommonCause; Aldon Hynes, Ned Lamont Senate campaign; Richard Viguerie, ConservativeHQ.com In 2004, the Internet took the main stage as a political organizing tool for U.S. political strategists. Learn what’s going on behind the scenes to make the 2008 presidential race an order of magnitude closer to “digital democracy” – and what role citizens will play.
10:45 a.m.-11:00 a.m.	Media Café break
11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. TRACK  THREE CC Reading Room	Politics – “The Internet as a Government-to-Citizen Tool” CONVENERS: Stephen Clift, Democracies Online Newswire;  Conor Kenny, CongressPedia.org; Rafael DeGennaro, ReadTheBill.org; Craig Sandler, IssueSource.org/State House News Service; Ed Fouhy, StateLine.org . In the last few years, just about every U.S. community of any size has put up a website posting meeting notices, accepting tax payments, describing key issues and, sometimes, pushing political agendas. Learn how government should be using the net to deepen citizen involvement in governing – and how citizens can take the upper hand.
Noon-1:15 p.m. CC 165-169	SPECIAL EVENT – “Is it time to build the New England Common?” CONVENER: Christopher Lydon, Open Source Radio. Does New England need a virtual meeting place for discussion and action on politics, culture, environment and living?  Could the Massachusetts governor’s race be a catalyst to establish one? An idea session. More info: http://www.mediagiraffe.org/wiki/index.php/Newengland
12:15 p.m.-12:30 p.m.	Media Café break
12:30 p.m.-2:00 p.m. CC  CC Auditorium	Buffet lunch (CC Auditorium or Campus Center Ballroom)  “Is Media Performance Democracy’s Critical Issue?” SPEAKER: Tom Stites, Center for Public Integrity;  INTRODUCED BY: Chris Peck, Memphis Commercial Appeal. Thirty years ago, if your policy message was on the three networks, The New York Times or the Washington Post, it spread quickly across America. We are now in an era of micr0-media – blogs, email, dozens of networks and cable channels, multimedia chaos and creativity.  Political strategists who disagree on issues often agree that media structure and performance is now their No. 2 issue.  Has the state of our media become the most important threat to participatory democracy? Why?
2:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m. TRACK THREE CC  CC Auditorium	Politics –– “Anonymity and identity: Journalists/bloggers sources and whistleblowers” CONVENER: Shava Nerad, Tor Coalition.  DISCUSSANTS:  Steve Clift, Democracies Online Newswire, Derek Anderson, VillageSoup.COM. Join a reporter who became a technologist and now helps protect political dissidents who need anonymity in a debates over anonymity vs. identity.   News websites, and local online community sites debate whether to allow anonymous comments. Is anonymity ever justified?  Who’s responsible? Is anonymous posting ever journalism?  What is the impact on sources, on news gathers, on whistleblowers, as the government seeks the ability to track search queries?
3:30 p.m.-4:15 p.m.	Media Café and free ice cream social, courtesy of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, Inc.
4:15 p.m.-5:30 p.m. TRACK THREE CC165-169	Politics: “The Internet As An Advocacy Tool – Case Studies” CONVENER: Rosalyn Lemiuex, MoveOn.org (, Karen “Jo” Lee, CitizenSpeak.org ,  Frederick Clarkson, Talk2Action.org  and Steve Anderson, CoaNews.org Costly direct mail was once the only effective way for public policy non-profits to reach the faithful. The Internet is now the most efficient advocacy, motivational, and fund-raising tool in the NGO arsenal. How is the Internet changing public policy formulation? Who’s winning? Who’s losing?
5:30 p.m.-5:45 p.m.	Media Café  -- networking / discussion
5:45 p.m.-6:30 p.m.	Campus Center Reading Room – reception and hor d’oeuvres for all attendees. (Spill out into CC Concourse) / “War Stories from the Citizen Media Front” and “Sharing Best Practices.”
6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. DINNER   7::30 p.m.-8:15 p.m. SPEECH       8:15 p.m.-9:30 p.m. DISCUSSION	Dinner and discussion, CC Auditorium,  Campus Center      SPEAKER: Dr. Rob Williams, president, Action Coalition for Media Education; professor, Champlain College, Burlington, Vermont:  “Why Doesn’t Johnny Care? How Media Can Bring Young Adults Back Into The Public Sphere?”   Young adults have abandoned the news as presented in traditional forms. Newspaper and TV users are aging. But they are heavy media consumers.  What will put public affairs back into their diet? And why does it matter?  DISCUSSANTS: Andrea Frantz, Wilkes University; Melissa Krodman, Project Think Different; Mark Lopez, CIRCLE .
9:30 p.m.-11:00 p.m. Campus Center    CC Auditorium	Media Café Extra: “War Stories – Avoiding Other’s Mistakes” An informal session for all participants able to share “war stories” from the trenches of citizen journalism. What has been your worst experience? Share your nightmares and tales of woe over beer, wine or whatever.

Saturday, July 1, 2006 

7:30  a.m.-8:30 a.m.	Continental breakfast for summit participants ( Campus Center Lower Level Concourse)
8:30 a.m.-9:45 a.m. TRACK THREE CC-165-169	Politics: “Political Blogs: Free Speech or Campaigning?” CONVENERS: Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash; Richard Howe, LowellDems.org; Steve Brant, Trimtab/HuffingtonPost blogger; Steve Fox, WashingtonPost.com The 1970s-era campaign-finance reform may become irrelevant as blogs and websites funded by partisan political groups become a primary source of campaign spin and faux news.  Can laws be written to regulate the financing of partisan websites that won’t infringe on free speech? Are they needed?
10:00 a.m.-11:15 a.m. (same rooms as earlier sessions)	Media Café collaboration and Track meet-ups for “next step” ideas:   Topic ideas:   POLITICS:  Pitching the big tent TECHNOLOGY:  Making adoption easy CITIZEN MEDIA:  Inviting participation EDUCATION:  Making media cool
11:15 a.m.-12:45 p.m. CLOSING SESSION AND BOX LUNCHES  CC Room 101	“What Did We Learn/What’s Next” -- Reports from track managers or designees “Speak to the Group” – Moderated  open microphone session   Closing Talk: “Keeping Participatory Democracy Alive: Talking Across The Divides Of Media, Politics, Education And Technology.” CONVENERS: Norman Sims, UMass Amherst and  principal investigator, Media Giraffe Project;  Bill Densmore, director/editor.
12:45 p.m.	Conference Ends
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Independent meet-ups and outdoor bootcamps	POST-CONFERENCE MEET-UPS:   Independent groups with membership at the conference hold planning or strategy sessions in rooms provided at no additional charge by the Media Giraffe Project and UMass Amherst.   MUSEUMS 10 – at WikiPedia  /   ACTIVITIES/TRIPS:  (LINK: Amherst area)   INDIVIDUAL LINKS:   Hiking: Mount Toby, the Norwottuck Trail Rafting on the Deerfield River (Charlemont, Mass.) Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book  Art  (Amherst, Mass.) Historic Deerfield or Yankee Candle (South Deerfield, Mass.) Amherst College Mead Art Museum (Amherst) Amherst College Museum of Natural History Smith College Museum of Art (Northampton) National Yiddish Book Center (South Amherst) Emily Dickens House Museum (Amherst) Official NBA Basketball Hall of Fame (Springfield, Mass.) Mass. Museum of Contemporary Art (North Adams, Mass.)
Saturday evening	Events in the Five College Area: Tanglewood (BSO-Lenox, Mass. –Garrison Keillor / Prairie Home Companion Live, 5:45 p.m., Sat., July 1)