#23: A Summertime Sunday Comic
Visually exploring the concept of digital public spaces
Greetings! It’s August already, and most of North America is feeling the summer heat. Some of us are lucky enough to escape to cabins or beach bungalows in this Covid Summer. Lounging around, or maybe working on the computer while trying to keep an eye on the kids: what better moment to think about the intersection of physical and digital space?
This week: What is digital public space, anyway? A light comic strip by our resident cartoonist Josh, as inspired by the Sunday Funnies.
We hope you enjoyed that brief comic adapted from co-director Eli Pariser’s TED Talk, “What obligation do social media platforms have to the greater good?”
Let’s catch up with a mini showcase of the projects we have been working on lately. First, there’s the Library Design Sprint we did with Brooklyn Public Library.
Along with NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge, The Social Science Research Council, and The Knight Foundation, we also continue to host The Shift, a series of panel discussions about how Covid-19 is shaping society.
And we’re working with the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology on Terra Incognita, a study mapping how the pandemic is affecting the digital public spaces of New York City.
Finally, if you haven’t taken our survey yet, we would still like to hear your opinions about where we should go from here.
We have a lot of exciting projects and (digital) events in the works and can’t wait to share them with you soon. In the meantime: we’d love to hear what you’re thinking about and working on. Drop us a line at civicsignals@gmail.com and we’ll feature a sample platter of projects next week.
That’s all for now!
Stay cool and stay safe,
The Civic Signals Team
Written and illustrated by Josh Kramer
Civic Signals is a partnership between the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas, Austin and the National Conference on Citizenship, and was incubated by New America. Please share this newsletter with your friends!