Reinventing Media as a Public Service
Reinventing media as a public service
Guiding question: What would media look like if its primary purpose were to help people understand their world, make informed decisions, and improve their communities?
Purpose
Develop a practical framework for independent, accountable media that connects public knowledge with public participation.
The discussion should address who owns media, how it is financed, whose experiences it represents, and how creators can earn a sustainable living while serving the public.
Topics of discussion
| Topic | Questions to explore |
|---|---|
| What should media help people do? | What information do people need to make decisions about health, livelihoods, rights, and their communities? How should communities help set editorial priorities? |
| Ownership and independence | What could cooperative, community-owned, nonprofit, and publicly supported media contribute? What safeguards would protect editorial decisions from owners, funders, advertisers, and political pressure? |
| Financing the public service | How can reporting remain accessible while paying creators fairly? What combination of memberships, subscriptions, grants, public funding, licensing, and shared services could support the work? |
| From isolated outlets to connected media | How can independent producers share reporting, expertise, production resources, and distribution? What agreements would protect attribution, editorial independence, and creator ownership? |
| Trust through accountable practice | How should outlets verify information, disclose conflicts, correct mistakes, and explain uncertainty? How can audiences challenge coverage and receive a meaningful response? |
| Communities as participants | How can residents identify questions, contribute knowledge, and help evaluate coverage? What support would enable participation across languages, abilities, and income levels? |
| From coverage to public usefulness | How can a story connect people with relevant knowledge, services, solutions, and opportunities to participate? How do journalists maintain scrutiny when covering projects they consider promising? |
Practical demonstrations
Invite practitioners to show an actual operating model: its ownership structure, editorial process, funding, creator compensation, and community involvement. Ask each to explain a difficult tradeoff, a failure, and what others would need to reproduce the model.
Include perspectives from an independent journalist, a cooperative or community media operator, a public-interest technology practitioner, and a community member whose information needs are poorly served.
Working-session challenge
Choose one public issue—such as housing, preventive health, or community energy—and design a small connected-media pilot.
Participants should identify:
- The community and its unanswered questions.
- The reporting and expertise required.
- The participating producers and distribution partners.
- The ownership, funding, and editorial safeguards.
- The first useful service or publication.
- A responsible lead and a 90-day review date.
Intended outcome
A draft public-service media charter and one clearly defined pilot.
Measures of progress could include public questions answered, information gaps addressed, corrections resolved, participating creators paid, and evidence that people found the coverage useful.
- Personal and digital democracy
Guiding question: What would it take for people to have meaningful control over the decisions, institutions, and technologies that shape their lives?
Here, personal democracy means having agency in daily life: the ability to understand choices, participate in decisions, organize with others, and challenge unfair treatment. Digital democracy extends those questions to data, platforms, algorithms, and online participation.
Purpose
Explore how democratic participation can become an everyday practice across communities, workplaces, public services, and digital environments.
The event should connect individual rights with collective decision-making—and examine how participation gains real authority.
Topics of discussion
| Topic | Questions to explore |
|---|---|
| Democracy in everyday life | Where do people experience decisions being made without them? What meaningful influence could they have over housing, workplaces, schools, healthcare, and local services? |
| Personal data and meaningful choice | What information should organizations collect, and for what purposes? How can people understand, refuse, or challenge uses of their data without losing access to essential services? |
| Who governs digital spaces? | Who sets platform rules, recommends information, and determines visibility? What should transparent moderation, independent oversight, and accessible appeals look like? |
| AI and accountable decisions | When should people know that an automated system is influencing a decision? How can they obtain an explanation, correct inaccurate information, and request human review? |
| Participation with real authority | How can participatory budgeting, citizens’ assemblies, community councils, and digital deliberation influence actual decisions? Who must respond, and how will implementation be tracked? |
| Access, inclusion, and safety | How can participation work for people with limited connectivity, disabilities, language barriers, or little available time? What offline routes and protections against harassment are needed? |
| Ownership and democratic infrastructure | What roles could cooperatives, community networks, open-source tools, and public-interest digital services play? Who would finance, maintain, and govern them over time? |
Practical demonstrations
Ask practitioners to show a complete participation process: how an issue entered discussion, who participated, how a decision was reached, who held authority, and what happened afterward.
Include community organizers, accessibility advocates, privacy and digital-rights practitioners, public-service representatives, and people directly affected by the systems being discussed.
Working-session challenge
Choose one decision people currently struggle to influence. Design a participation process around it.
Participants should identify:
- The decision and the institution responsible.
- The people affected, including those usually excluded.
- The information participants need.
- The online and offline participation routes.
- The authority participants will hold.
- The response, appeal, and implementation process.
- A responsible lead and a 90-day review date.
Intended outcome
A practical participation agreement and one pilot tied to a real decision.
Measures of progress could include who participated, whose contributions influenced the outcome, how quickly institutions responded, whether appeals were resolved, and whether agreed decisions were implemented.
A shared Mobilized event structure
Use a two-hour online working-session format. Select three priority topics for each opening event; develop the remaining topics through subsequent programs.
| Time | Activity | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 10 minutes | Opening question and public experience | Establish the need through a concrete situation. |
| 15 minutes | Map the existing system | Identify ownership, incentives, decision-makers, and consequences. |
| 25 minutes | Practitioner demonstrations | Examine working approaches, costs, limitations, and lessons. |
| 25 minutes | Moderated discussion | Explore three priority topics and their difficult tradeoffs. |
| 35 minutes | Collaborative action lab | Define one feasible pilot with responsibilities and milestones. |
| 10 minutes | Commitments and next review | Confirm who will do what and when progress will be assessed. |
Before each event, collect public questions and short practitioner submissions. During the session, keep a visible record of unanswered questions, proposed solutions, and commitments.
Afterward, Mobilized can turn the work into connected programming: findings and scrutiny through The Wire; collaborators through The Connections and The Network; opportunities and requests through The Exchange; and demonstrations, interviews, and recordings through Mobilized Media.
The connection between the events is practical: public-service media helps people understand the choices before them; personal and digital democracy helps them influence those choices.
Connected health: designing systems that support lifelong well-being
Guiding question: What would a health system look like if prevention, medical care, community support, and healthy living conditions worked together around people’s needs?
For this event, connected health means connecting people, services, knowledge, and resources across a community. Digital tools would support that connection alongside trusted relationships and accessible care.
Purpose
Develop a practical framework for helping people stay well, receive coordinated care when needed, and participate in decisions about their health.
The discussion should examine how healthcare connects with food, housing, education, transportation, environmental conditions, and economic security—and who takes responsibility when those connections break down.
Topics of discussion
| Topic | Questions to explore |
|---|---|
| Prevention as a system priority | How should communities identify and address preventable health risks? What funding, staffing, and public policies would support prevention throughout life? |
| Connecting health with daily living conditions | How can health services work with housing providers, food organizations, schools, employers, and environmental agencies? Who coordinates action when a person’s needs cross several systems? |
| Coordinated care around the person | How can primary care, specialists, mental health services, hospitals, pharmacies, and home care work together? Who ensures that referrals and follow-up actually happen? |
| Financing health and well-being | What payment arrangements could support prevention, continuity, and appropriate treatment? How should programs demonstrate public benefit without excluding people with complex or expensive needs? |
| Technology that serves people | Where could shared records, telehealth, and remote support improve access? How should consent, privacy, accessibility, and human oversight work—and what alternatives should remain available offline? |
| Reliable information as health infrastructure | How can people distinguish trustworthy evidence from misleading claims? How can clinicians, researchers, community organizations, and independent media explain uncertainty and correct misinformation? |
| Community voice and equitable access | How should residents help define priorities and evaluate services? What would make participation and care accessible across income levels, languages, abilities, and geographic locations? |
| Supporting the people who provide care | What would give clinicians, nurses, community health workers, and family caregivers the time, resources, compensation, and decision-making authority they need? How can coordination avoid becoming another administrative burden? |
Practical demonstrations
Ask practitioners to show how their systems operate through an actual person’s journey: entering the service, identifying needs, making decisions, receiving support, and following up.
Two established models worth examining are:
- Southcentral Foundation’s Nuka System of Care, Alaska: an Alaska Native-owned and managed system that combines community influence with teams supporting physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Discussion focus: how ownership and relationships shape care. Southcentral Foundation
- Buurtzorg, Netherlands: a community nursing model organized around small, self-managing teams that connect care with a person’s family, neighborhood, and other professionals. Discussion focus: how professional autonomy and local coordination work together. Buurtzorg International
Ask each presenter to explain funding, staffing, evidence of results, limitations, and what another community would need to adapt the approach.
People to bring into the discussion
Include patients and family caregivers alongside primary care clinicians, nurses, community health workers, mental health practitioners, public health officials, and representatives from housing, food, transportation, and environmental organizations.
Include someone who understands financing and someone responsible for implementing decisions. People who struggle to access services should help define the problem and evaluate the proposed response.
Working-session challenge
Choose one community and one practical coordination problem.
For example: helping older residents connect primary care, home support, transportation, nutritious meals, and opportunities for social connection.
Participants should identify:
- The residents involved and the priorities they define.
- Existing services, missing support, and access barriers.
- A named person or team responsible for coordination.
- How referrals, follow-up, and information sharing would work.
- Staffing, funding, and support for caregivers.
- The first improvement achievable within 90 days.
- A responsible lead and a public progress-review date.
The pilot should build on services already available while making the missing connections concrete.
Intended outcome
A community-defined connected-health framework and one feasible 90-day pilot.
The framework should explain what residents can expect, who is responsible, how decisions are made, how the work is financed, and how people can raise concerns.
Early measures could include completed referrals, waiting times, unmet support needs, patient understanding, caregiver experience, and staff workload. Longer-term evaluation should examine health outcomes, equitable access, and total costs.
Suggested event structure
Use a two-hour online working session. Select three priority discussion topics for the opening event and develop the others through subsequent programs.
| Time | Activity | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 10 minutes | A resident’s or caregiver’s experience | Establish the problem through daily life. |
| 15 minutes | Map the existing system | Identify services, decision-makers, funding, and missing connections. |
| 25 minutes | Practitioner demonstrations | Examine operating models, evidence, costs, and limitations. |
| 25 minutes | Moderated discussion | Explore three priority topics and their tradeoffs. |
| 35 minutes | Collaborative action lab | Design one pilot with responsibilities and milestones. |
| 10 minutes | Commitments and next review | Confirm who will do what and when progress will be assessed. |
Mobilized follow-through
Turn the session into an ongoing public resource: report findings through The Wire, document practitioner demonstrations through Mobilized Media, and connect collaborators and requests for support through The Connections, The Network, and The Exchange.
The event’s central test is practical: can people leave with a clearer path to support, and can participating organizations commit to making that path work?
These four events can extend Mobilized’s connected-systems series. Each would examine how a system works, who controls it, what alternatives offer, and what a community could realistically implement.
Use the discussion topics as a menu: select three priorities for each opening event, then develop the others through follow-up programs.
- Connected food: production, distribution, and precision fermentation
Guiding question: How can communities secure nutritious, affordable food while supporting producers, restoring ecosystems, and making useful innovations accessible?
Purpose
Design a food system that connects farming, food science, processing, storage, distribution, public purchasing, and community needs.
Precision fermentation belongs within that discussion. It uses microorganisms to produce specific ingredients, including proteins, enzymes, and vitamins. Its contribution should be evaluated alongside other production methods. FAO
Topics of discussion
| Topic | Questions to explore |
|---|---|
| Production that supports living systems | How can food production protect soil, water, biodiversity, and livelihoods? Which approaches suit different climates, cultures, and scales? |
| Understanding precision fermentation | What ingredients can it produce, and how does the process work? What determines production costs, commercial viability, and infrastructure requirements? |
| Ownership and a fair transition | Who owns the organisms, patents, facilities, and distribution channels? How could farmers, workers, and cooperatives participate in new production opportunities? |
| Connecting producers with people | Where are the gaps in processing, refrigeration, storage, transport, and retail access? Could shared infrastructure and regional food hubs address them? |
| Nutrition, safety, and public trust | How should nutritional value, food safety, allergens, labeling, and cultural acceptance be assessed? Who independently evaluates product claims? |
| Affordability and reliable demand | How could schools, hospitals, and other public institutions support dependable markets? What purchasing arrangements would protect producer livelihoods and public affordability? |
| Measuring the complete resource picture | What land, energy, water, feedstocks, and processing inputs does each approach require? How do results change with location, energy supply, and production scale? |
| Preventing loss and recovering value | How can better planning, storage, packaging, redistribution, and safe use of by-products reduce losses across the system? |
Operating examples to examine
- Organic Valley, United States: a farmer-owned cooperative. Examine how collective ownership supports processing, market access, and coordination among producers. Farmer-Owned Since 1988
- The EVERY Company, United States: produces egg proteins through precision fermentation. Examine the production process, commercial arrangements, intellectual property, and evidence behind resource and cost claims. EVERY
People to bring into the discussion
Farmers, agricultural workers, food scientists, fermentation practitioners, cooperative operators, distributors, public purchasing officials, nutrition researchers, and residents experiencing food insecurity.
Working-session challenge
Design a regional food partnership connecting producers, shared processing and storage, and a dependable buyer such as a school or hospital.
Include a precision-fermentation feasibility track examining a specific ingredient, potential buyers, costs, resource requirements, and the applicable regulatory pathway.
Participants should identify:
- The community’s food needs and existing production capacity.
- Missing infrastructure and potential partners.
- Ownership, payment, and purchasing arrangements.
- Opportunities for farmers and workers.
- A distribution pilot and a separate fermentation feasibility milestone.
- A responsible lead and a 90-day review date.
Intended outcome
A regional food-system map and one practical pilot.
Benefits to test include dependable producer income, improved food access, reduced losses, and affordable meals. Track delivery reliability, producer payments, food prices, participation, and resource use.
- Community energy: locally owned, produced, and distributed renewable power
Guiding question: How can communities build reliable renewable energy systems that give residents meaningful ownership, influence, and economic benefit?
Purpose
Develop a practical pathway connecting energy efficiency, renewable generation, storage, distribution, financing, and democratic governance.
Map ownership at every stage: generation equipment, storage, electricity supply, and the physical distribution network. These can involve different organizations and arrangements.
Topics of discussion
| Topic | Questions to explore |
|---|---|
| Start with community needs | What energy services do homes, businesses, and public facilities need? Where could efficiency, building improvements, and demand management reduce system requirements? |
| Ownership with meaningful control | What would cooperative, municipal, Indigenous, or other community ownership look like? How would members elect leaders, review finances, and resolve disagreements? |
| Choosing the generation mix | Which combinations of solar, wind, suitable hydropower, renewable heating, and storage fit local conditions? How would seasonal and daily variations be managed? |
| Distribution and grid relationships | Who owns and operates the wires? What arrangements are needed for connection, metering, energy sharing, electricity sales, and network maintenance? |
| Financing and fair participation | How can renters and households with limited savings participate? How should investment costs, financial risks, bills, and community revenues be allocated? |
| Reliability and emergency resilience | What equipment and operating arrangements would support critical services during outages? Who maintains the system and coordinates restoration? |
| Local livelihoods and capabilities | What installation, maintenance, engineering, administration, and training opportunities could the system support? How can workers participate in its development? |
| Environmental accountability | How should projects address land use, biodiversity, mineral sourcing, equipment life, and eventual recovery or recycling? How will total impacts be measured? |
Operating examples to examine
- Ecopower, Belgium: a renewable-energy cooperative that combines citizen investment with electricity supply to members. Examine governance, participation, and its relationship with the distribution network. Ecopower
- Kauaʻi Island Utility Cooperative, Hawaiʻi: a member-owned utility governed by an elected board, with both renewable and conventional generation. Examine community control of a utility during its renewable-energy transition. kiuc.coop
People to bring into the discussion
Residents, energy cooperatives, municipal utilities, electrical engineers, grid operators, housing organizations, finance practitioners, Indigenous representatives, and workforce-training providers.
Working-session challenge
Develop a feasibility brief for a community-owned renewable project serving a public building, housing development, or neighborhood.
Participants should identify:
- Energy demand, efficiency opportunities, and critical services.
- Suitable generation, storage, and connection options.
- Asset ownership and operational responsibilities.
- Financing and access for households with limited resources.
- Expected costs, benefits, and uncertainties.
- A responsible lead and a 90-day feasibility milestone.
Intended outcome
A community energy ownership and feasibility plan.
Benefits to test include household affordability, local income, democratic influence, reliability, and emissions reductions. Track projected and actual costs separately, alongside participation, generation, maintenance, and service performance.
- Connected production: whole-system design and circular manufacturing
Guiding question: How can products, factories, supply chains, and business models be designed together to meet people’s needs with fewer resources and less pollution?
Purpose
Redesign the complete production system: the need being served, product design, materials, energy, manufacturing, distribution, use, maintenance, and recovery.
Whole-system design examines how those decisions affect one another. Circular design emphasizes preventing waste, keeping products and materials useful, and regenerating natural systems. Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Topics of discussion
| Topic | Questions to explore |
|---|---|
| Begin with the service people need | What useful function must the system provide? Could better design, sharing, maintenance, or refurbishment meet that need with fewer new products? |
| Design for long service | How can products be durable, repairable, adaptable, and easy to disassemble? What parts, documentation, and software support must remain available? |
| Connect factory decisions | How do material choices affect energy, water, machinery, logistics, and recovery? Which changes improve the performance of the complete system? |
| Share resources across organizations | Where could companies exchange useful heat, water, materials, equipment, or logistics capacity? What agreements would make those relationships dependable? |
| Keep materials safe and useful | How can technical materials retain quality across repeated uses? How should biological materials return safely to natural systems, and harmful substances be removed? |
| Make circular business models workable | When do repair, resale, remanufacturing, leasing, or service contracts make economic sense? How can customers understand total costs and retain meaningful choice? |
| Purchasing, standards, and market access | How could public and business purchasing support repairable and remanufactured products? What quality standards and warranties would buyers need? |
| Workers and credible measurement | What skills and working conditions would the transition require? How can organizations demonstrate absolute reductions in extraction, waste, and pollution as production changes? |
Operating examples to examine
- Kalundborg Symbiosis, Denmark: companies exchange water, energy, and materials across industrial operations. Examine the infrastructure, contracts, and coordination that enable those exchanges. Kalundborg Symbiose
- Fairphone, Netherlands: provides repair guidance and replacement components for its devices. Examine how product design connects with parts availability, repair services, and customer behavior. Fix it yourself
People to bring into the discussion
Product designers, engineers, manufacturers, repair businesses, material scientists, industrial workers, procurement officials, logistics operators, and recovery specialists.
Working-session challenge
Choose a recurring purchase—such as office furniture, electronic equipment, or building components—and redesign its complete service cycle.
Participants should identify:
- The function required and the current replacement cycle.
- Material, energy, water, and waste flows.
- Design changes that enable longer use and repair.
- Collection, refurbishment, and recovery partners.
- Ownership, warranties, and financial arrangements.
- A responsible lead and a 90-day demonstration.
Intended outcome
A product-and-material flow map and a circular purchasing or production pilot.
Benefits to test include longer product life, lower total ownership costs, skilled employment, and reduced resource demand. Measure actual reuse, repair, material recovery, energy consumption, and customer experience.
- Transportation as a public service
Guiding question: How can transportation help everyone reach work, education, healthcare, food, and community life safely, reliably, and affordably?
Purpose
Design transportation around access to daily needs.
The event should connect public transport, walking, cycling, accessible services, land use, public funding, and workforce conditions into a coherent public-service framework.
Topics of discussion
| Topic | Questions to explore |
|---|---|
| Measure access to opportunity | Which essential destinations can people reach, at what times, and at what cost? Whose journeys are poorly served or impossible? |
| Build a connected network | How should buses, rail, walking, cycling, and shared services connect? Where would better frequency, coordinated schedules, or safer transfers make the greatest difference? |
| Universal access and personal safety | What would make the complete journey usable for disabled people, older residents, children, and caregivers? How should harassment, unsafe crossings, and inaccessible stops be addressed? |
| Serve rural and outer communities | Which combinations of scheduled routes, community transport, and demand-responsive services fit different places? How can people book and pay without a smartphone? |
| Finance the service sustainably | How should fares, public budgets, and contributions from beneficiaries support operations? How should affordability be balanced with frequency, staffing, maintenance, and expansion? |
| Governance and public accountability | Who sets service standards and makes route decisions? How should public operators and contracted providers report performance and respond to riders? |
| Connect transport with land use | How can housing, schools, clinics, and shops be located where people can reach them? How should transport investment address displacement and unequal access? |
| Clean operations and fair work | How should fleet choices, energy supply, maintenance, and infrastructure be evaluated together? What staffing, training, pay, and working conditions support dependable service? |
Operating examples to examine
- Vienna, Austria: Wiener Linien connects underground, tram, and bus services, with tickets covering travel across the network. Examine integration, service planning, and the passenger’s complete journey. Wiener Linien
- Luxembourg: domestic public buses, trams, and second-class trains are fare-free. Examine how removing fares fits alongside funding, capacity, coverage, and service quality. Luxembourg
People to bring into the discussion
Riders, disability advocates, transport workers, public operators, community transport providers, planners, employers, schools, healthcare organizations, and public finance officials.
Working-session challenge
Choose one underserved journey—for example, a shift worker reaching a hospital or an older resident attending medical appointments.
Participants should identify:
- The complete journey and the barriers encountered.
- Service hours, waiting times, transfers, and accessibility needs.
- Route, scheduling, street, or booking improvements.
- Operating responsibilities and dependable funding.
- Rider involvement and a clear feedback process.
- A responsible lead and a 90-day service or planning milestone.
Intended outcome
A public-service mobility agreement and one targeted improvement pilot.
Benefits to test include dependable access, lower travel burdens, safer journeys, and better working conditions. Track door-to-door journey time, missed connections, affordability, accessibility, service reliability, and rider experience.
Shared Mobilized event structure
Use the same two-hour working-session format for all four events.
| Time | Activity | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 10 minutes | A resident’s or worker’s experience | Establish the practical need. |
| 15 minutes | Map the existing system | Identify ownership, incentives, resources, and missing connections. |
| 25 minutes | Practitioner demonstrations | Examine operating models, costs, evidence, and limitations. |
| 25 minutes | Moderated discussion | Explore three priority topics and their tradeoffs. |
| 35 minutes | Collaborative action lab | Define a feasible pilot with responsibilities and milestones. |
| 10 minutes | Commitments and review date | Confirm who will do what and how progress will be assessed. |
Ask every practitioner to address the same questions: What works? What does it cost? Who benefits? What has failed? What conditions make the approach transferable?
Mobilized can carry the work forward through reporting in The Wire, demonstrations through Mobilized Media, and collaboration opportunities through The Connections, The Network, and The Exchange. A 90-day follow-up would examine completed commitments, remaining barriers, and what other communities can learn.