Working towards the goal of increasing government transparency and improving their technology to better serve their citizens, the City of Jackson, Mississippi, has partnered with Swagit Productions LLC, the leading hands-free streaming media company for government agencies, to stream their public meetings online. Going forward, residents (and non-residents) of Jackson can have a front-row seat from the comfort of their own home to watch government decisions being made that could directly affect them.

Jackson is utilizing Swagit’s Extensible Automated Streaming Engine

[EASE] system, a “hands-free” webcasting solution that handles all video stream functions without adding additional workload to Jackson’s city employees. Meetings are first streamed live online as they occur, then the recorded meeting is indexed and archived by Swagit. Reference materials which were created prior to or during the meeting are linked to the video through Swagit’s document management integration system, and then the recording is posted to Jackson’s website.

Previously, public city meetings – such as the City Council, Zoning Meetings, Education Youth Ad-Hoc and Budget Hearings – had to be viewed in person, or later read about through a meeting transcript or media reporting. By capitalizing on current streaming media technology, Jackson will increase public interaction with the city by greatly improving the accessibility of these important meetings.

Swagit streamed meetings, both live and archived, are playable by any device capable of streaming video, including smart phones and tablets. And while accessing the video, viewers are able to stop, start, rewind, and pause to read documents or for later viewing – allowing citizens fully understand the proceeding and possibly even have an improved experience than were they to view the meeting in person.

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About Swagit
Swagit Productions, LLC is a leading video production company specializing in providing hand-free streaming media solutions to government agencies. Swagit pioneered Hands-Free Video Streaming® fully automated service plan. This eliminates 100% of the labor required in producing professional and easily accessible streaming videos for meetings and newscasts. For more information about Swagit, please visit: http://www.swagit.com or call 1-800-573-3160.