"Beyond Broadcast: Reinventing Public Media in a Participatory Culture" is the big "wired" event of the weekend at Harvard... and on the Internet. You can go, even if you can't go... See http://www.beyondbroadcast.net

Co-sponsors include

• The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School
  
• Public Radio Exchange
• Center for Social Media
• NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program
• The Project for Open Source Media
• Center for Citizen Media

"We will explore the thesis that traditional public media [~] public broadcasting, cable access television, etc [~] face a unique opportunity," the event website says, "to embrace new participatory web-based media models [~] podcasting, video blogs, social software, etc [~] and create a stronger and more vital public service."

Those of us who can't get to Massachusetts Avenue in person can take a virtual Red Line to the converence webcast: http://harmony.law.harvard.edu/beyondbroadcast.sdp

In fact, even if you're in Cambridge, virtual is the way to go: Registrations already outnumber the physical space available.

More ways to participate online:

• There's also a "question tool" at http://www.beyondbroadcast.net/questions
  
• Of course the conference has a weblog, at http://www.beyondbroadcast.net/blog/
• And it has a Wiki to help keep track of the schedule, here: http://beyondbroadcast.net/wiki/index.php?title=Schedule
• Finally, the conference organizers are encouraging bloggers to write or take pictures and tag their contributions using http://del.icio.us and http://Flickr.com, online tools that will share their "folksonomy" tags with the universe. (The tag should be either "the future of public media," according to a Berkman newsletter, or "beyondbroadcast," according to the website. Just because it's at Harvard doesn't mean it has to be consistent. Use both if you want.)

Some of my favorite people will be there, but I'll be in Knoxville grading final news stories and websites. But maybe I'll get back to Massachusetts for events with the unlikely names BarCamp (thanks J!) or MediaGiraffe.

6:44:23 PM  #