RJI Futures Lab and Demonstration Center
To move journalism forward, researchers, students and other innovators need a place to brainstorm and experiment. They need a place that offers both the freedom to think big and the resources to turn their big ideas into practical products and processes.
Once completed in 2008, RJI’s Futures Lab will be that place — a real-world testing venue for new journalism and advertising methods and technologies. The lab will provide an environment where students, faculty and visitors can prototype journalism innovations for delivery to media audiences. The most promising prototypes will be used in the Missouri School of Journalism’s real-world print, broadcast and online media, where practicing journalists can help determine what works and what doesn’t and offer tips for fine-tuning.
Closely linked to the Futures Lab, both geographically and conceptually, the Demonstration Center will experiment with the use of emerging technologies in journalism and advertising. Faculty, students and visiting researchers will engage in “skunk works” projects, experimenting with new hardware and software to see how media professionals might use them.
Both the Futures Lab and Demonstration Center will routinely open their activities and experiments to visits from media professionals and citizens. They will make findings available to both technology and media organizations as a service to industry and the public.