The leading U.S. think tank on African-American affairs is launching an institute to study the impact of media and new communication technologies on minority and socially disadvantaged communities. Along with notable communications and media leaders, officials from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies announced Thursday that the Washington-based think tank has established the Joint Center Media and Technology Institute.

          Officials say the Media and Technology Institute is a “center for research on how minority Americans use media, how existing communications policies affect them and how emerging interactive forms of media can expand opportunity for them and their communities.” Michael K. Powell, a former Federal Communications Commission chairman and the son of retired General Colin Powell, will chair the institute’s national advisory committee.

“For many young people living in underserved communities, the stakes are enormously high. This Institute will examine these new trends and build the evidentiary record for the development of relevant policies, programs and initiatives,” says Ralph Everett, president and CEO of the Joint Center. “New communications technologies are having an enormous and immediate impact on the way we live, the way we work, the way we learn and the way we participate in the political process.”

          Joining Everett at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to mark the institute’s launch were William E. Kennard, a former Federal Communications Commission chairman; Larry Irving, a former administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA); and Retha Hill, the director of the New Media Innovation Lab at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

          Over the next few months, the Joint Center will announce the selection of a vice president to serve as the institute’s director and to lead a team of senior fellows to pursue research projects. Startup funding for the institute is provided by Comcast Corporation, Verizon Communications, the CTIA-The Wireless Association, Microsoft Corporation, and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. Irving, who is credited with having created the term “digital divide” during his Clinton administration tenure, will serve as a senior fellow at the institute.