What’s of interest? Libraries are a locus for civic change
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With the rise of each new form of media, communities have figured out a way to make it their own, unique, local form of expression, from broadsides to the broadcast to Bluesky. Utilizing the tools at hand, humans will always localize their own media environments to shape their perception of the world around them. And personal media creation can be powerful — research shows the more people get involved with the news process at a local level, the more likely they are to trust civic information more broadly.
Yet the concentration of media ownership and power has decisively swung in the direction of private equity ownership and walled garden platformization. In less than 20 years, 3,200 print newspapers have vanished. Integration of quality information is built on trust and connection, and as we work toward another, better world, we must invest in public information spaces, both physical and digital. We must collaborate to build meaningful local media landscapes outside of the status quo, to emphasize the connection and trust that should be at the core of information-seeking behaviors.
A particularly generative way to rebuild this focus on and service to local initiative is through libraries: There are an estimated 124,903 libraries in the United States, of which about 14% are public. We need to invest in underexplored partnerships between civic media makers and libraries as a clear place of change. While not all libraries are of equal size (many have barely one staff member), they all exist to provide vetted, quality information to their communities.
Where is it?: Libraries are a locus for civic change
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