When you scream in cyberspace can anyone hear you in Washington, D.C.? Free, participatory culture is a bubbling, productive realm of invention and discovery, but its biggest successes have largely been in the construction and distribution of open source software alternatives (e.g., Linux) to commercial products. Can participatory (i.e., non-broadcast), public media be invented that inspire and facilitate new forms of democratic participation and the reinvigoration of civic society? In this project group we address this question through a process of invention and experimentation.