Latest Notebook Entries

On February 15, 2012, the Center for Digital Information convened representatives of more than forty-five leading policy research organizations, foundations, government agencies and the White House. The packed roundtable discussed how the field is adapting its information production and dissemination practices to keep pace with a rapidly evolving digital environment. The event was developed in partnership with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Read more

A look at several interactive information projects produced by the Center for Digital Information in partnership with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation research grantees Read more

The CDI Dashboard is an interactive look at the ongoing digital information revolution. Use the dashboard to track key data trends, follow central storylines, and explore innovative examples of the changing form of information in an evolving digital age. Read more

This post previewed a session convened by the Center for Digital Information at the Council on Foundations annual conference in Los Angeles on April 30, 2012. Communication scholars and internet experts joined philanthropy executives to discuss disruptive changes in the technology and media landscape, and how foundations can remain effective participants in an increasingly digital public arena. Read more

An interactive chart based on 27 Pew Research Center polls from 1993 to 2011 shows that television as a primary news source for the public has dropped from a high of 88% to a current level of 66%; and newspapers from a high of 63% to 31% currently. Meantime, the internet has risen steadily, passing radio in 2003, newspapers in 2008, and continuing to close the gap with television. Read more

Building on posts by AP's Jonathan Stray and NYU's Clay Shirky, we look at just how digital the "digital public sphere" really is, using data from the Pew Research Center on Americans' use of various media for news about national and international issues. Read more

A dispatch from the Communications Network annual conference in Boston, following a plenary by "Filter Bubble" author Eli Pariser Read more

A 12-month $387,621 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication will establish and pilot CDI's programs to integrate digital innovation with the policy research field. Read more

Some quick thoughts on The Economist's article comparing the societal impact of IBM and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Read more

Data and information are not synonyms. Data only have the potential to inform. They are half the equation. It is communication that transforms data into information, and in a digital age the communication landscape has been fundamentally altered. This requires using new mechanisms born natively in interactive media to effectively turn data into meaningful information. (This is an update of a post from August 2010) Read more

Data Gatherers themselves should use digital-native techniques in the first telling of the stories in their data. In addition to injecting subject matter expertise into the online discussion of complex issues, it will create the welcome byproduct of better, cleaner data to support subsequent interactive development. Read more

A February 26 New York Times interactive package on natural gas wells provides a fresh example of the emerging information forms that are unique to digital media. This post offers an overview of the package and argues that more non-journalism organizations should emulate this innovative approach in their dissemination strategies. Read more

A comment following a webinar hosted by the Communications Network on the state of foundation annual reports. My interest is in the move to make digital versions of these documents and what shape those efforts are taking. Read more

This presentation was given to a set of foundation communication professionals, academics and policy research executives on October 22, 2010. It lays out the case for a Center for Digital Information to assist policy organizations in using new media to better communicate their original information and data on issues of public importance. It followed a presentation by Lee Rainie of the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project. Read more

This draft roadmap contrasts a digital distribution model of communication that dominates many public policy organizations' activities with a modern digital information playbook -- interactive, mobile and unmediated. Read more

New skill development, capacity building, innovation and creativity in digital rendering are needed wherever information is created, not just in newsrooms, and particularly within organizations that are increasingly direct information providers on issues of vital public importance. Read more

Data and information are not synonyms. Data only have the potential to inform. They are half the equation. It is communication that transforms data into information, and in a digital age the communication landscape has been fundamentally altered. This requires using new mechanisms born natively in interactive media to effectively turn data into meaningful information. Read more

CDI spoke with the Communications Network about how over the past 15 years, we have spent a great deal of time thinking about how to disseminate content, but now it is time to fundamentally rethink the nature of that content -- considering forms that weren't possible before the advent of the Internet. Read more

Jeff Stanger responds to New York Times columnist David Brooks's column on books-vs.-Internet. In order for important information to remain prestigious, it must adopt a new interactive language, not simply clone itself as PDF versions of static documents. Read more

CDI wrote this response to a June 22, 2010 article on mashable.com by Vadim Lavrusik, "Newspapers Are Still Dying, But the News Is Not Going Anywhere" Read more

In the I-Couldn't-Agree-More category, Gabriela Fitz, Co-Director of IssueLab, makes a strong case that research products need to be viewed as "communications," rather than as "reports." Read more

A survey of Internet experts by the Pew Internet Project found that a large majority expect fundamental changes over the next decade in the "rendering of knowledge" as a result of new technology. However, in the first fifteen years of widespread use of the Internet, policy research organizations haven't changed the static modes they use to communicate their findings. CDI was created to help rethink how these organizations render their knowledge in interactive media. Read more

Director Jeff Stanger discusses the path to starting the Center for Digital Information, how policy research organizations' online habits have changed little in the first fifteen years of widespread use of the Web, and the importance for organizations to rethink their mechanisms for communicating research findings in a digital society. Read more

CDI reports the findings of a pilot study measuring the extent to which research organizations engage in "digital information" — using the unique interactive capabilities of digital media to communicate findings. The content analysis results were striking: 98% of policy research online is static text and PDFs, and only 2% uses interactive methods unique to the Internet. Read more

An important distinction between "digital distribution" and "digital information" underpins CDI's approach. Digital distribution is characterized by transmitting reports, articles, and white papers as static text and PDFs. By contrast, digital information means to communicate natively in new media, using the unique interactive capabilities of the technology. Unfortunately, the policy research field still engages almost entirely in digital distribution. Read more

Interactivity and behavior distinguish digital media from earlier dissemination vehicles, creating enormous opportunities for information providers. Yet there remains a wide "digital information gap" between the large amount of policy research and data created and the small proportion that seizes these opportunities. Policy researchers use digital media almost exclusively to distribute, not to engage and inform through interactivity. Read more