Part of our mission at Oregon Public Broadcasting is to use our service to enable our viewers and listeners to engage more fully with their local communities and the wider world.
Morgan Holm, OPB vice president of News & Public Affairs, discusses the concept of civic engagement and how he perceives OPB's role in creating new avenues and tools for deeper community engagement.
How do you define civic engagement?
MH: Civic engagement is simply taking an active role in the community. It means being informed about what's going on in the life of the place in which you live, and being able and willing to offer opinions and help toward improving that place. It also means living responsibly, or in other words, just being a good citizen.
From a historical perspective, how does civic engagement today compare to say 20 years ago?
MH: The spirit of civic engagement in Oregon has remained strong over the past couple of decades in the face of significant changes in society. Even though people have greater demands on their time due to work and family commitments, many Oregonians are still willing to invest time and energy in opportunities to contribute to public life. For some that means attending hearings or writing a letter to the newspaper or an elected official. There does seem to be less attention overall to civics education in school now, however, and that may affect future generations' ability and willingness to act as citizens. To be effectively engaged as a citizen requires understanding things like how federal, state and local governments work, how and why tax revenues are collected and spent, and how a person can influence decisions about those things. There are still many and varied opportunities for engagement, but fewer opportunities to learn how to use those opportunities.
How does the rise of technology play a part in civic engagement? Does it help or hinder? How?
MH: On balance, I would say technology has opened many new avenues for civic engagement. From blogs to audio and video available on Web sites, both the amount of information and the number of places to talk about public policy have exploded. The dangers include being overwhelmed by the technology or the opportunity, and not being able to sort out what is truly factual and useful from material that is either uninformed or needlessly polarizing. More than ever, people who have strong political points of view or those who have expertise in particular areas of public life are able to find other citizens who share their interests and want to talk about subjects of common concern. Technology has enabled those conversations in unprecedented ways. But people still need to exercise good judgment about the amount of time and resources they devote to their civic responsibilities and where they decide to allocate their personal resources to be effective. A few sound choices are going to be more effective, in the long run, than participating in every chat, blog or discussion group that comes along.
What role is public media currently playing as a conduit for civic engagement?
MH: Well, this is an area where public media could probably improve. The sensibility exists in most public media organizations, in my experience. There are many civic-minded people working in public media and looking for opportunities to expand use of the public media for civic engagement. But that hasn't turned into very many actual projects or partnerships that I'm aware of. I recently attended the Citizens Media Summit, sponsored by J-Lab, and was surprised to be one of the few broadcasters present and pretty much the only person from public media in the crowd. This is an area that will no doubt rise higher on the agenda at many public stations in the future, and it is an area that offers many possibilities when it comes to connecting with our communities and providing real and virtual spaces for community members to connect with each other.
Some say that the younger generation is less inclined than earlier generations to engage with former touchstones of citizenship such as voting and following news about public affairs. Do you think these shifts are actually taking place? How might new media formats or online experiences better link young people to credible information and satisfying participation opportunities?
MH: I don't think it is fair to say that younger people today are less engaged, at least compared to younger generations in the late 20th century. It is simply a fact of life that as people get older and their family and work responsibilities even out over time, they become more engaged in civic life. So, if a young family isn't as engaged right now, that doesn't mean they aren't interested. It might just mean they are weighing their priorities carefully. There is evidence to suggest that Generation X, Generation Y and the Millennium generation is very interested in current affairs; they are just seeking out and consuming information in different ways than previous generations. Instead of reading newspapers, they're getting RSS feeds on their own homepages, for example. The biggest trend I see is that younger generations are much more skilled at determining what information they want to be exposed to and because of that they might be missing out on both the benefits of experienced editorial judgment that respected news organizations bring to their publications and broadcasts each day and on serendipitous news experiences that could be enlightening and enjoyable.
Might the online experiences of young people today (in such frameworks as myspace) be considered as civic engagement? Could these experiences be somehow translated into broader engagement with civic life, politics, public life?
MH: I don't think social networking sites like myspace fit the definition of civic engagement. There certainly are communities of interest interacting with each other in those online environments, but they are not aimed at community benefit, which is integral to the civic engagement concept. However, the skills and desire necessary for such interactions are similar to those needed for engagement in public life, so I think there is reason for optimism when you consider how active many people are in these social networks. That could easily be translated to participation in aspects of public life, but it will take initiative by public bodies and the media to build those bridges and make those opportunities available.
Life is hectic and people are busy - how can citizens become more active in community processes when their time is limited?
MH: If only there was an easy answer! Well, the foundation is education. Involvement should proceed from a well-informed citizenry. So, I would say the first step is identifying trusted sources of information and making a habit of following those regularly. The next step would be to select just one or two issues or areas where a person hopes to make a difference and then concentrate on those. That may mean volunteering a little time each month or going to a public meeting or writing a letter. The point is that doing something is better than doing nothing at all.
What are some current examples of OPB programs that engage the community in a meaningful way? What stories are there that demonstrate that OPB is already positioned as a conduit for community engagement?
MH: Well, we don't have any that do a particularly good job (on the radio side). We've been focused on news broadcasting for so long that we are just now analyzing how we could do a better job at engaging the community. We've opened up some new ways to comment on our programming on our Web site, but we need to do more to live up to our responsibility as a public broadcaster. The kind of news coverage we do already draws Oregonians who are concerned about the quality of life in the state and how changes in public policy affect them personally as well as their environment. Our next challenge is to help build connections in the audience between those who have similar interests and then help connect those folks with the ones making decisions. We're upgrading technology and changing the way we think about what we do to accomplish those goals.
OPB reaches a lot of people in Oregon. What role can we play in engaging our listeners and viewers and web users to encourage them to become more civically involved?
MH: One of the best ways we can serve our audience is by creating spaces for civic engagement. Since we do have such a wide reach in the state, we could be a primary vehicle to not only inform people about the issues facing them, but to provide them with virtual, and in some cases even real, spaces in which to engage with one another. Fewer and fewer media organizations reach such a diverse audience as public broadcasting. And it is consistent with OPB's mission to seek out and create opportunities for people to join and build communities of interest. We're exploring how new technology coupled with our existing broadcast resources can be harnessed to do just that. For example, we are developing a new OPB program that will combine an online public space with a radio program that promotes discussion about local and regional issues. This will offer our audience a significant new opportunity for civic engagement. Watch for more details early in 2007.
Morgan Holm is currently vice president of News & Public Affairs at Oregon Public Broadcasting. He has been a news director, assignment editor, producer and reporter in his 16 years at OPB. Morgan oversees OPB's local news operation, acts as executive producer of local radio and television news/public affairs programming and manages local news content for OPB's Web site.
