The stories we tell and how we tell them have a huge impact on the life of our community. How we learn and tell about triumphs and disasters, problems and solutions, barriers and breakthroughs affects how we feel about our community, and how and whether we get involved.

Do the stories citizens hear and tell give us insight and wisdom about how our community works and how we can solve problems? Or do they create noise and confusion, fear and apathy, feeding a desire to build walls instead of connections? When stories of community life are told with an eye to engaging citizens, solving problems and building wisdom, a rich and vibrant social structure grows. But some people say our communities are being eroded by existing media and communication systems not telling the stories we need. We hear more about the burglary that the block watch. We read more about gang bangers than Boy Scouts. Most stories point to problems, then just fade away. "Social capital" is a community's most important asset. It is the institutions, relationships, networks and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a society's social infrastructure. It grows when trust, social support, and the common values of citizens grow and develop. Most often, this happens when people work together to address common problems — to start a food bank, get a traffic light installed, build a child care center or create a neighborhood block watch.

The Puget Sound region has a fairly high level of social capital. More than 80 percent of adults regularly volunteer and/or give money to important community causes. That's a key element in the region's "livability." In addition:

• We have a handful of enlightened local government officials, as well as community and neighborhood advocates, who recognize the potential for new communication technology to revitalize citizen engagement.
• The region has a number of media leaders who already are experimenting with new ways to engage citizens. In the case of a Bremerton newspaper, it has also increased readership.
• Public-private "networking" experiments in Seattle (Seattle Community Network) and Snohomish County (SnoNet) are trying to face head-on some of the tough issues related to universal access, bridging the "digital divide" between information haves and have-nots, and making the technology serve community values.
• Public libraries in many of our communities are providing access and training in new communication technology.
• Communications and software corporations are demonstrating what's possible in terms of the ways technology can improve the quality of life.
• We have a vibrant and experienced network of artists, writers, and video producers, already beginning to explore civic uses for new technology.

Despite our regions' many strengths there is still work to be done. Our communitie's communication system is ripe with possibilities for building social capital.

Even if the new technologies did not exist, there is much that can be done to tell the stories of our community better. New technologies simply make it more possible for improved communication to happen — if that is part of our intention.

As this report shows, our region's existing communication system's effectiveness is reduced by several factors: News media cultures promote adversarial relationships. Bottom-line mentalities prevail in all sectors. The struggle for resources is unending. Short-term thinking is the norm. Organizations don't cultivate communication skills. The complex processes inherent in public life are difficult to see. So citizens feel powerless to do anything about the most critical issues they face because they don't get the information they need.

We began the Good News/Good Deeds project with the belief that Puget Sound-area citizens are not getting sufficient information about grassroots community-building and citizen problem-solving from their local news media. Our research explored existing relationships between not-for-profit organizations and news outlets, and whether emerging information technologies could help to bridge communications gaps.

The explosion of high-tech culture in the Puget Sound area is creating new potential and unique opportunity for the region to demonstrate how community information systems can be organized and managed in new ways. This environment is creating openings for citizens to solve problems in new ways by connecting with each other and with elected officials more efficiently. It also presents possibilities for powerful new forms of interactive media that can inform and involve citizens, track civic issues, and provide for differing perspectives. Such media would allow for more inclusive approaches to creating our area's civic future.

The first section of the report, on not-for-profit organizations, or what we call "the community sector," shows how voluntary grassroots organizations are often the engines of community building and problem-solving. Yet, because most are not good communicators, they are not understood adequately by news media nor, therefore, by the citizens they serve and seek to engage. Nonetheless, Seattle has a history of strong community-based not-for-profits exploring and practicing creative approaches to arts, sustainability, health, housing, and other issues. Why not apply that same creativity to communications around these issues?

This report explores the question:
What can not-for-profits do to strengthen communications and build community?

The second section, on the news media, shows how coverage of local issues has deteriorated because of a loss of local ownership, absence of FCC requirements for public-service broadcasting, and increased focus on bottom-line profits. Still, some promising experiments in "civic journalism" and a history of creative uses of media (such as civic discussion programs, CityFair's celebration of citizens' bright ideas, and the "spacebridge" which allowed Seattle citizens to talk with Soviet citizens in the early '80s) suggest that news media are eager to stay relevant and compete with the new media.

This report explores the question:
Can the news media step forward and take new leadership in the important community conversations?

The third section, on the new media and communications technology, suggests that the will and the creativity could be present among those in area high-tech businesses to coalesce around creating virtual "commons" for democratic dialogues. Not-for-profits and news media have content, skills and techniques through which this can happen, in partnership with people in the high-tech industry. At the same time, many of the region's "techno-millionaires" are retiring early and beginning their own foundations and philanthropic efforts. Could they spur a reinvention of our communication systems so that citizens are better served and democracy can flourish?

This report explores the question:
Can new technology go beyond information and commerce, to helping citizens build community and generate new knowledge and wisdom?

Finally the report concludes with a set of recommendations for each of the target sectors, a bibliography, and a glossary.

Good News/Good Deeds is a "virtual organization," created for the purpose of conducting research, analyzing its results, and getting it out for public consumption.

The project's mission has been accomplished: to explore how new information technologies, along with improving relations among traditional media, new media, and nonprofits, can help citizens be more effective and powerful. The potential is enormous. Whether it will be actualized is up to all of us.

Our hope is that you will put these findings to work to strengthen your own communication and enrich the community.

Jan Gray, Stephen Silha, Marion Woyvodich

Good News/Good Deeds principal researchers
Seattle, Washington
April 1999

We, the principals of Good News/Good Deeds, are three local residents with a combined 60 years of experience in news media and 39 years experience with not-for-profit organizations.