THE MEDIA GIRAFFE PROJECT
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

STANDARD INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

FOR MEDIA GIRAFFE PROSPECTIVE NOMINEES
(Revised Feb. 6, 2006)

 

 

As you prepare for a Media Giraffe Project interview, we ask that you answer the questions below for inclusion in our public database. You'll do so by posting your answers to a web form. The questions are provided below so that, if you wish, you may prepare your answers offline and then cut and paste them to the web form. We will provide you with a one-time password to post your answers so that they are secure and cannot be altered by others after you've posted them. You MAY embed simple HTML within your answers, if you wish to provide hypertext links to relevant information.

Thank you for helping with our research. Your answers will be publicly available online from http://www.mediagiraffe.org/profiles/questions.php.

-------------------------------------

Bill Densmore, director/editor / The Media Giraffe Project

Journalism Program / Department of Communication  / 108 Bartlett Hall

Univ. of Massachusetts-Amherst / Amherst MA 01003

OFF: 413-577-4370 / densmore@journ.umass.edu / http://www.mediagiraffe.org

 

 

  1. Provide your name, title, affiliation, address/location, email and website contact, phone.

 

  1. Please briefly describe your professional and educational background, including where you spent your early years -- and any early influences that have motivated you personally or professionally.

 

  1. Provide information about your group or project, such as who owns it or funds it, how long it's existed, its purpose and intended audience or user base. Provide some metrics of usage, a sense of scale. Is it all web? Is there a print, broadcast or other-media component?

 

  1. Is the project mostly about DOING something directly (a direct service for the public), or about HELPING others to do something, or about TEACHING or LOBBYING in an educational or political sense? Describe as appropriate.

 

  1. What are you doing and why are you doing it? We are especially interested in your PERSONAL MOTIVATION and sense of MISSION, as well as the overall project motivation. We would like to really focus on understanding motivation. How do you convey a sense of mission to others around you? Can you describe examples?

 

  1. Technology is rapidly changing the economic underpinnings of commercial, non-profit and public-policy media groups. Help us understand how you keep the doors open. What is the business model? Is your revenue from sales, donations, or a combination? Does your project rely upon volunteers? Is the business model sustainable long term? Is it changing? How do you forsee the financing of information changing in a connected world?

 

  1. Please talk about your sense of innovation and entrepreneurship -- especially in comparison to other things you have done or other competitors/collaborators. Who or what is similar to what you are doing?

 

  1. Tell us how you are teaching others to do what you are doing. We want to know if your project is REPLICABLE. Is it usable by the general public? How are others able to contribute? In what ways might your efforts be useful in teaching high-school or college students to become smarter media consumers and creators?

 

  1. What aspects of personal, professional or financial RISK are there to what you are doing? Please be specific. How do you cope with those risks? Will it get easier?

 

  1. In what sense is what you are doing fostering participatory democracy or community? What do those words ad ideas mean to you? What specifically do you achieve in this arena? Is that important to you, and/or to your project?

 

  1. Do you have views about what is right -- or wrong -- with our media, our democracy, our journalism? How do we preserve the best and fix the worst? Who is best-positioned -- or most responsible -- for taking action?

  1. Do you have any suggestions for how to merge and act upon the collective wisdom of media, education, public-policy and technical innovators to foster participatory democracy and community? Who else do you recommend we look at as examples of above-the-crowd behavior or efforts which foster participatory democracy or community in new or innovative ways? Feel free to provide HTML links to relevant websites.