Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program

The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program is an active venue for global leaders and experts from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds to exchange and gain new knowledge and insights on the societal impact of advances in digital technology and network communications. The Program also creates a multi-disciplinary space in the communications policy-making world where veteran and emerging decision-makers can explore new concepts, find personal growth and insight, and develop new networks for the betterment of the policy-making process and society.

The Program’s projects fall into one or more of three categories: communications and media policy, digital technologies and democratic values, and network technology and social change. Ongoing activities of the Communications and Society Program include annual roundtables on journalism and society (e.g., journalism and national security), communications policy in a converged world (e.g., the future of video regulation), the impact of advances in information technology (e.g., “when push comes to pull”), advances in the mailing medium, and diversity and the media. The Program also convenes the Aspen Institute Forum on Communications and Society, in which chief executive-level leaders of business, government and the non-profit sector examine issues relating to the changing media and technology environment.

Most conferences utilize the signature Aspen Institute seminar format: approximately 25 leaders from a variety of disciplines and perspectives engaged in roundtable dialogue, moderated with the objective of driving the agenda to specific conclusions and recommendations.

Conference reports and other materials are distributed to key policymakers and opinion leaders within the United States and around the world. They are also available to the public at large through the World Wide Web at [http://www.aspeninstitute.org/c&s http://www.aspeninstitute.org/c&s] .

Aspen Institute Forum on Communications and Society

Each year, among the projects the Program convenes, is a Forum on Communications and Society, held in Aspen, Colorado. Beginning in 2007 this “FOCAS” was expanded from a single invitation-only roundtable into a policy festival that includes three roundtables among invited participants but also allows observers to subscribe to the event.

The purpose of FOCAS 2007 is to develop recommendations for leaders in media, government and other societal institutions to promote positive social and democratic values through the various communications media without undue governmental regulation.

In its inaugural year, 2007, the FOCAS theme is "Media and Values," where participants will explore how the new technological and behavioral environments are changing the way that media—old and new—will serve customers, users, communities, and the broader social good. FOCAS 2007 will convene three distinct roundtables of 20-25 invited leaders on the topics of: “New Media, Timeless Values: Content Issues;” “Media Policy and Community Values;” and “Media and Property Values: Intellectual Property in the Digital Age.”