Collaborative online news production:

Introducing Open Park - an open source collaborative one-stop place for news media professionals, users and watchers.
Learn about, debate and shape the future of news, alone or collaboratively, in OP – a new project from the MIT Center for Future Civic Media.
Read more in About OP

Active Collaborative News Projects

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Summer Project – Check it out!

The Russian Diaspora & US-Russian Relations

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev invited US President Barack Obama to a Summit on US-Russian relations in Moscow in July. What are the thoughts of Boston’s many Russian dissidents and intellectuals? What should Obama’s Russia policy be like? What is the future of US-Russia relations? Check our roundtable discussion!

US-Russia Summit Roundtable Webcast

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OP's Main Case Study:

The US Exotic Dance Industry & Media Ethics

Exotic dancers, both male and female, in the US nightclub industry is a group of professionals that offers a perfect media ethics case study to report on a community that is continuously being covered in biased and manipulated ways by the media. By covering it collaboratively, we can do a more balanced, better job.

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"Side Dish" Project:

Latin/Spanish-Speaking Chefs & Cooks in US Upscale Restaurants

The Spanish-speaking and other Latin immigrants who make up a very large percentage of the chefs and cooks in mostly high end restaurants in the US, regardless of cuisine, is a group of professionals who are often underpaid and unrecognized, even though they make up the backbone of the U.S. restaurant industry. How many cases are there of such abuses? Where are these professional cooks? In which cities? In which restaurants? Why don’t they speak up? This is an investigative story par excellence.

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International Project:

Russia's African Communities

This multimedia documentary project in collaboration with a Moscow-based photojournalist covers the lives and issues of African migrants in Moscow and other cities throughout Russia. Coverage opportunities include a comparison between reporting on African-American’ and African-Russian communities.

http://pa.photoshelter.com/gallery-show/G0000OVKVONhF..Y

Quotable Contributors

"I'm a free speech extremist"
Pr. Henry Jenkins, DeFlorz Professor of Humanities and Founder and Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT

"The Titanic sank because competitors refused to listen to each other."
Adjunct Professor David P. Reed of the Media Lab's Viral Communications program speaking on free speech, activism and shared information systems to the MIT Media Lab's IAP class 'Call for Action" in January 2009.