My name is Colin Rhinesmith. I am a doctoral student and Information in Society Fellow at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Adjunct Research Fellow with the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative.

In the fall of 2007, I began my M.A. thesis at Emerson College to explore the intersection of cable access television and web-based community access media with a particular focus on public access TV and its potential within a participatory Internet culture. The writings and media produced for this blog (prior to December 2008) feature much of my research during this process.

More recently, I have decided to re-start this blog as part of my dissertation research to examine how individuals and groups adopt information and communication technology in geographic communities to alleviate social and economic inequality. I am particularly interested in understanding how community-based organizations, such as public libraries and community media centers, are mobilizing local assets to build capacity through the use of digital media and technology.

This is my personal blog. The views expressed on this blog are my own. I am not getting paid to write this blog, nor am I speaking on behalf of my employer in any way. Any discussion of things related to my work, or to events I might publicize here, or to themes that also relate to my professional life, is incidental and something I would be doing regardless of my professional circumstances.

(page last updated March 3, 2012)

“Community Media in Transition: Writings on Community, Communication, and Culture in the Digital Age” is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.