Dead Sea Scrolling, the new report of the 2008 Arab-U.S. Media Forum, explores the impact of new media in spanning the cultural and informational divides between the Arab and American worlds. Leading Arab and American journalists and media entrepreneurs discuss the budding transparency and openness enabled by new media and confront the harmful stereotyping in which both worlds so readily engage. Read or download.

Watch the August 10-12: Forum on Communications and Society (FOCAS): www.aspeninstitute.tv This year's annual Forum on the theme of Media and Democracy was held in Aspen, Colorado, August 10-12, 2008. The sessions were held in conjunction with the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy and explored how the new technological and behavioral environments are changing the way that media—old and new—will serve citizenry in a democracy. More.

Watch Charlie Firestone moderate the Media and the Campaign panel at the 2008 Aspen Ideas Festival. Colbert Report's Emily Lazar, journalist Howard Fineman, Atlantic editor James Bennet, Washington Post editorialist Jonathan Capehart, Newshour's Terrence Smith, Huffington Post's Arianna Huffington, and Slate's Jacob Weisberg talk about the media's role in the 2008 campaign. Video.

Civic Engagement on the Move: How mobile media can serve the public good. This report details the hallmarks of successful mobile campaigns around civic engagement and provides case studies of several successful and emerging initiatives, including several resulting from the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Mobile Media and Civic Engagement. Read or download.

M-Powering India: Mobile Communications for Inclusive Growth offers insights into how an inclusive expansion strategy in the mobile industry can propel India's development.  The report includes details on successful and low cost mobile projects in rural areas.

Civic Engagement on the Move looks at how leading edge practitioners are using mobile media to engage citizens to solve problems, bridge differences and strengthen community. Mobile media technologies provide new tools for journalists, government and nonprofit agencies, civic organizers, elected officials, activists and ordinary citizens to inform, to reach out to others and to galvanize community action on a wide range of issues.

Media and Values: Issues of Content, Community and Intellectual Property, a report of the meeting written by Richard Adler, Drew Clark and Kathleen Wallman. This report suggests how changing media affect the ability of communities to govern themselves. It also addresses people’s concepts of property for non-physical goods, includes a set of principles for copyright "fair use," and contains a number of other policy recommendations. I hope you find the insights in the report to be useful.

A Framework for a National Broadband Policy. Condensing discussions from the 2008 Conference on Communications Policy and Aspen Institute Roundtable on Spectrum Policy (AIRS) into a single report, Professor Philip Weiser of the University of Colorado at Boulder offers a series of specific and concrete policy recommendations for expanding access, affordability, and adoption of broadband in the United States.

 The Rise Of Collective Intelligence: Decentralized Co-Creation of Value as a New Paradigm of Commerce and Culture describes how collective intelligence affects business value creation and passion-based collaborative learning resulting in new user generated business and media models. The Report includes an account of "The Cloud” or utility computing.

Media, Creativity and the Public Good examines both the problems facing today's media, from indecency and violence to under-representation of marginalized groups, and proposes potential solutions to combat these issues.

 Minds on Fire: Enhancing India’s Knowledge Workforce promotes Learning 2.0 in India or open source learning made possible by the web. The report contains a proposal for Knowledge Learning Centers within Special Economic Zones in India.

Next-Generation Media: The Global Shift
examines the growth of the Internet and its effect on a rapidly changing topic: the impact of new media on politics, business, society, culture, and governments the world over. The report also sheds light on how traditional media will need to adapt to face the competition of the next generation media.

The Mobile Generation: Global Transformations at the Cellular Level 
touches on some existing cultural norms and predicts future trends forecasted by roundtable participants as a result of mobile technologies.

The Future of Video: New Approaches to Communications Regulation
Outlines a series of important issues related to the emergence of a new video marketplace based on the promise of Internet technology.

Unmassing America: Ethnic Media and the New Advertising Marketplace
Examines two key trends—the changing paradigm for advertising and the emerging multicultural media—with strategies to promote greater cooperation between advertisers and ethnic media.

Media Diversity Policy After September 11, 2001 by Charles M. Firestone (November 16, 2001)

Civic Engagement on the Move: How mobile media can serve the public good by J.D. Lasica

The New Media Environment: Paths to Understanding Keynote Address to the 2008 Arab-US Media Forum by Her Royal Highness Princess Rym Ali of Jordan (March 26, 2008)