civic media impact: opening statement by erhardt graeff

Boston Civic Media ConsortiumImpact and AssessmentApril 7, 2016

Erhardt GraeffMIT Center for Civic Media@erhardt

Civic Media Impact1



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What is impact?

• Change

• Changing Laws, Markets, Norms, Code

• Learning, Gaining Self-Efficacy, Affecting Emotions

• Community-building, Movement-building

• Evidence

• Impressions, Statistics, Products, Stories

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Why is this important to me?

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Why is this important to us?

Defining successIf we are to define a field of Civic Media, we must be able to define when interventions succeed

Empirically driving design toward what mattersCivic media’s deep connection to media and technology makes our research accountable for future design, and even theories must be tested

Communicating results and value to fundersThey are also a stakeholder with an explicit goal of social impact; and right now, we are responsible for shaping how they conceive of impact

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Why is it so hard?

Research DesignFinding an appropriate question and methodology is a conversation and compromise among many stakeholders

InstrumentationAnswering the questions that really matter can demand approaches and tools that don’t currently exist

Project ImplementationResearch can complicate a project’s deployment or even its primary mission

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A note of thanks

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civic media impact: opening statement by erhardt graeff

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