Frontline Launches Digital Media Season

BOSTON: PBS’s acclaimed Frontline strand is launching a multiplatform initiative to explore the effects of digital media on everyday life, with a series of online reports leading up to a TV broadcast in the winter of 2010, all funded by a $1 million grant from the Verizon Foundation.

The year-long project, Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier, includes online video reports, user-submitted stories, a national TV broadcast and companion educational outreach initiatives. Issues to be examined include the Internet’s effect on education, how social media has changed the way individuals interact, and online safety and privacy. Alongside the online video reports and user-generated content will be a producers’ blog, embeddable video and other sharable content, and a schedule of live online events with expert guests. 

"The sweeping magnitude and speed with which digital media has permeated nearly every facet of our culture prompts us to take a long, hard look at the implications," says Frontline‘s executive producer, David Fanning. "The Verizon Foundation’s commitment to exploring these issues has been very encouraging. An initiative of this scope would not have been possible without the Foundation’s generous financial support."