🏘️ 🌐 Your town’s online group matters more than you think

In the absence of professional journalism—in so-called news deserts across the country—critical information systems are left to the algorithmic biases of a few social media giants. Dig further, though, and you’ll find block club newsletters, school newspapers, library workshops, public access broadcasts, grassroots community teach-ins, and barbersh... See more

But it also seems clear that reinforcing local community structures should not be the only approach. So many towns and neighborhoods in the United States are effectively mini-one-party states. With the demographic sorting that has taken place over the last 40 years, focusing our attention primarily on local politics and participation in local decis... See more

peer networks that they built while living in the rice paddies are now flourishing in communities all around the world. Some of these networks are deliberately choreographed by a group of activists or social entrepreneurs or government agencies; some of them are spontaneously forming in industries—like journalism—in which the larger institutions ar

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