Public Media 2.0:
Mission-Driven Impact Assessment
Jessica Clark
Center for Social Media, American University
www.futureofpublicmedia.net
for the PublicMediaCamp, October 2009

Public media 2.0:
‣ Central goal: to form “publics”—
groups of people who use media to
tackle shared issues
‣ Central question: how do you know
a public has formed?

New user habits:
‣ Choice
‣ Curation
‣ Conversation
‣ Creation
‣ Collaboration

Metrics in chaos:
‣ Commercial services struggling
(Nielsen People Meter)
‣ Social media metrics still stabilizing
(Twitter search)
‣ Pubcasting stations baffled:
“Very few stations define success with concrete metrics.
Most examples are anecdotal.”—Embracing Digital: A
Review of Public Media Efforts Across the United
States, 2009

Working assumptions
!
‣ Mission matters
Measure outcomes, not activity
‣ There is no
master metric
See Fledgling’s impact dimensions
‣ Media projects
don’t operate
in isolation
Acknowledge the larger ecosystem

Impact dimensions 2.0:
‣ Trust
‣ Accessibility
‣ Diversity
‣ Civic engagement
‣ User empowerment

‣ NOTE: create visual that
demonstrates national network and
new collaborative roles for stations
www.futureofpublicmedia.net