Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure
People / organizations involved:
Ethan Zuckerman
,
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Locations:
Amherst, United States of America
The Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure is a new research center based at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, connecting the School for Public Policy, the Department of Communication, and the College of Information and Computer Sciences. The Initiative studies the civic and social role of internet platforms, and advocates for approaches to digital infrastructures that treat platforms and supporting technologies as public spaces and public goods, not purely as profit-making ventures. iDPI looks to move beyond “fixing” existing internet infrastructures like Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter and asks what we might build if we constructed digital spaces for the public good instead. We believe that social media and other essential digital tools can have much more positive social and civic effects if designed with those goals in mind, much as public television and radio have complemented commercial broadcasting and helped reach civic and educational goals the commercial market has failed to achieve.
Duration: ongoing