Locast: civic media

Mobile street reporting & participatory journalism platform

Mobile experience, Geo-social networks, Civic media
Porto Alegre (BR) / MIT, September - November 2009

Locast Civic Media is an integrated platform that combines mobile and web applications to enable users authoring mobile media both individually and collectively, disseminating content and creating local conversations. Locast provides tools to involve individuals in local and community-oriented activities such as civic engagement, participatory journalism and citizen ethnographies.

Brief / Concept

In recent years, we observed how mobile devices are contributing to the expansion and enrichment of the public sphere. Mobile communication can strengthen the civic bonds through the empowerment of individuals, the creation of ad-hoc networks and the proliferation of information. In particular, video-capture capabilities and the combination with always-on connectivity, social networks and location-based services are increasingly used to foster civic media practices.

Locast Civic Media is an integrated mobile and web platform that provides tools to involve individuals in local and community-oriented activities such as civic engagement, participatory journalism and citizen ethnographies. Key-points of the project are:

Hyper-local media and conversations
Individual & Collaborative reporting
Open publishing community, accountability and self-regulation
Collaborative editing and open-production tools
Content dissemination and social networking

Design Process

A workshop was organized and mantained with students of Media & Journalism at PUCRS university (Porto Alegre). From September to middle November 2009, the workshop was arranged on a blog involving the students in the background research and investigations related to civic media topics. In November, the project was deployed in Porto Alegre (BR) - where 25 students and 11 professional journalists (ZeroHora) participated in the reporting of events, facts and other elements related to the urban context. In the two weeks of tests, around 350 videos were uploaded on the Locast C.M. website - covering a large set of civic practices.