Photo courtesy of Andrew DeVigal

By Bailey Hoskins-Orr | Senior Program Associate, The Listening Post Collective

When the Listening Post Collective and Information Futures Lab launched the Civic Information Index one year ago today, we sought to highlight the broader context in which journalism operates and underscore the role it can play in keeping communities engaged, informed and resilient. As the Journalism + Design Lab puts it in their newly-released Community News Roles framework, not everyone may be a journalist, but “anyone can act journalistically in ways that contribute to the flow of reliable news and information where they live.”

In his Engaged Journalism course at the University of Oregon, Andrew DeVigal is teaching students to do just that. Breaking from traditional top-down pedagogy, the course invites students to conduct deep community listening and produce collaborative ecosystem reports mapping civic information needs around the state. In this experiential classroom, the Civic Information Index is not just a desk research tool, but a key framework around which students practice journalism. According to DeVigal, the Index validates (and sometimes challenges) students’ assumptions about Oregon communities and offers them a helpful starting point to investigate structural barriers and opportunities, surface community feedback, and engage local partners in co-creating recommendations and solutions. 

“[The Index] reframes journalism as part of civic infrastructure. That shift is crucial for how we train journalists and how we collaborate with communities. We’re not just documenting local concerns, we’re helping students and, slowly, community partners co-design civic information systems”

Our latest in a series of case studies documenting usage of the Civic Information Index is a call to action for journalists, educators, and anyone working to support the next generation of civic media leaders. Read the full case study here.