Framework 1: Seeing the Layers of Civic Life

Here are key insights into the layers and dimensions of a community's life. They are drawn from The Harwood Institute's work.

Insight 1

At least five distinct layers of civic life exist in a community.

1. Official
The layer of official politics and institutions in a community. People in the community engage this layer through such places as city council meetings and public hearings.

2. Quasi-Official
The layer made up of organizations and people who are involved with citizen associations, local municipal leagues, advocacy groups and other groups.

3. Third Places
The layer of civic conversations and spaces where people gather to talk and do things together. Third places include churches and synagogues, community socials, barber shops, diners, child care centers.

4. Incidental
The layer of civic life where people interact informally on sidewalks, at the market, in backyards. Here people bump into one another.

5. Private
The layer that occurs in the privacy of people's homes.

>> Watch Out <<

When journalists venture into civic life, often they gravitate to the "official" and "private" layers. Then when they want more sources, they expand the number of people within those layers.

Even when seeking sources beyond the "official" and "private" layers, journalists tend to tap into the "quasi-official" layer. But leaders in this layer (and even many citizens) often do not accurately reflect the voices and perspectives within a community. Increasingly, "quasi-official" groups are facing the same complaints of being as disconnected from citizens as are "official" institutions.

Insight 2

Each layer of civic life works in its own way.

When entering various layers journalists will see:

1. People are attracted to different layers.
Some people feel very comfortable in a "third place" and yet seldom enter a "quasi-official" or "official" space. Journalists must not assume that by dropping into certain civic layers they are capturing the full dimensions of civic life.

2. The purpose and nature of civic conversations differ from layer to layer.
Conversations in "official" settings tend to be framed narrowly, focusing on technical policy or regulatory questions. Often they are polarized by the most strident voices. In "third places," journalists will find conversations that move in be- tween gossip, community concerns and people bouncing their ideas and thoughts off one another.

3. "Unspoken rules" shape civic spaces.
Journalists need to judge carefully how particular civic spaces and conversations work before plunging in, asking questions and taking notes. To the right are some examples of unspoken rules and the challenges they present.

What it means to enter civic spaces:

• Figure out the pace of questions so as not to change the nature of a civic space.

• Figure out the natural conversation of the civic space. Only when there is a sense that enough trust has been established should journalists attempt to expand the conversation.

• Listen for how people talk in the space. For instance, the interactions within a space may be driven by a variety of factors, such as emotions, language, jokes, storytelling.

• Wait to ask questions and take notes until you, as a journalist, first build a relationship with people in a civic space.

Insight 3

The health of different civic layers varies in a community.

Some layers of civic life are healthy and robust while others are in decline, squeezed out by community development patterns, the increased pace of life, social fears and isolation. Here are a couple of points to keep in mind when seeking to understand the health of civic layers:

1. There can be weaknesses within a layer.
For instance, even though civic spaces may be identified in the third layer, the actual number may be few, offering journalists limited ways to tap into the civic life of an area or topic.

2. There can be gaps in between layers.
The connections between different civic layers are important because, in a healthy civic life, information and insights travel from one layer to another, which is how a community informs itself and makes decisions. In a less healthy civic life, the lack of connections between layers will make it more difficult for journalists to follow how a public concern develops, how people speak about and relate to the concern, and how journalists can provide coverage that draws on people's sense of context.

What it means when civic layers are weak:

• Keep digging deeper to discover more civic spaces, such as ones in someone's home or backyard.

• Find other ways to bring people together for conversations - by asking a civic or faith-based group to invite people to a meeting, or by asking someone to invite neighbors in for coffee.

• Identify when gaps exist in between civic layers in an area/topic and listen for what it means. Usually when gaps exist, issues, concerns and facts can lose their meaning and relevance as they move from one layer to the next.

  For example, people want their schools to provide a sound and safe learning environment. The school board and superintendent offer a plan that, on the surface, does not seem to address those concerns. In what ways does it, if at all? And how can journalists approach a story in ways that help people see the connections - rather than to write about the plan's missing pieces or that some in the community "slam" the plan?

"Every time you do one of these civic mapping sessions where you talk about the community, you can just see light bulbs going off in reporters' heads," says Jack Keith, Team Leader at the Tacoma News Tribune.

Keith described a rescue mission that feeds the homeless right in the middle of downtown. "Downtown has made no bones about saying it's an embarrassment and wanting to move the mission out. We've been writing that story for about a year and have never written about a similar mission about a block away. Only when we did the civic mapping-when we started saying, 'OK, there's this mission. Is there somebody else around who feeds the homeless?'-did we discover that there was, indeed, another place, the Nativity House, that did similar things. Nativity House realized they were pretty anonymous to the city as well as the newspaper."

The paper put the story on the front page. "That's the kind of thing that I'm just so pleased with because we're finding stories that are just, like, right under our nose, but because we are in ruts we don't see them."