Episode 95: Participatory Civic Media with Cathy Cohen and Jen Humke

This week Henry and Colin are joined by Cathy Cohen, a distinguished professor at the University of Chicago and Jen Humke, a senior program officer at the MacArthur Foundation to discuss Participatory Civic Media. Cohen discusses her work with The Black Youth Project and GenForward, projects that are focused on building independent institutions and influencing media institutions, respectively. These projects are supported by Humke through the MacArthur Foundation. We discuss the work introduced by the guests as they focus on engaging youth of color, predominantly Black youth in how they are represented and the way they represent themselves within digital media. Participatory civic media allow marginalized groups who have not had a voice in media, particularly in the political sphere, to now have one. We then consider the danger in focusing on voice more than power. More and more people may find their voice through a growing democratic digital media landscape, but that does not mean they are sharing in the power. How do we enact a power shift to give an equal playing field to all voices?

A full transcript of this episode will be available soon!

Here are some of the references from this episode, for those who want to dig a little deeper:

Cathy Cohen is the David and Mary Winton Green Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. She is also the creator of The Black Youth Project and the GenForward Survey.

Cohen is the author of Democracy Remixed: Black Youth and the Future of American Politics and The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics. She is also a co-editor of Women Transforming Politics: An Alternative Reader.

Jen Humke is the Senior Program Officer for the Journalism and Media program at the MacArthur Foundation. Her grantmaking work focuses on participatory civic media.

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Henry Jenkins, What Is Civic Media?

Black Youth Project
genForward Survey

Civic Imagination Project
Atlas of the Civic Imagination

Civic Media Fellowship

Danielle Allen on Reconciliation

From Voice to Influence: Understanding Citizenship in the Digital Age

Robin Kelly, Freedom Dreams

Alissa Richardson: Bearing Witness While Black: African-Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest Journalism

Megan Stielstra

Color of Change

Define American