The New York Times graciously hosted the first meeting of the all-city class “Tech, Media and Democracy.” About 100 students from five campuses enrolled in the course — Columbia Journalism School, Cornell Tech, The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, The New School, and NYU. Broadly, over the next fifteen weeks we’ll cover
- New investigative tools to build our understanding of technology, media and social issues;
- The current structures, mechanisms and designs of our information ecosystem platforms and their impact on informed society outcomes;
- How media, propaganda and misinformation impact knowledge and participation in the functions of democracy, such as elections and the census;
- How the voices of vulnerable populations of people- such as minorities, immigrants and the poor- fare in our information and media landscape; and
- The decline of local journalism, its effect on the health of communities and what can be done to repair it.
The opening session featured Marc Lacey, National Editor, and Nick Rockwell, Chief Technology Officer of the Times. Lacey commented that “tech, media and democracy is what we do full time.”
The Brown Institute is honored to be involved in Columbia’s contribution to this course and with luck some of the projects that are produced will find their way into Magic Grants for 2019-2020.