TMI: heavy lit review

Onto a book co-edited by Lance Bennett, who I also asked to be my faculty advisor this summer. He is, among many other things, the director of the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement at the University of Washington.

4) Bennett, Lance, and Entman, Robert, editors. "Mediated Politics: Communication in the Future of Democracy." 2001.
How do you interest people in political information? In William Gamson's chapter "Promoting Political Engagement," the three components of the collective action frame are:

• injustice
• identity
• agency

Taking action is not the same thing as learning about issues, but the motivation to do something (whether it is writing a letter to your representative or going to a website) could be similar. In the case of this website idea, I don't see how injustice or agency (believing it's possible to change policies) would fit in. Identity might have a role, though, because the website could allow you to explore your own positions/ideas and develop a fuller political identity. "Oh, I believe this because of these reasons [that I couldn't articulate before coming here]." Are there other, stronger reasons why someone would want to visit the site? Infotainment? Research resource for journalists and students? Partnerships with other, more established organizations such as think tanks (and serving as a convenience portal to more in-depth information or deliberative dialogues)? Settling bar bets? Others?

Shaping the idea: what this thing doesn't look like

Today, I look at an early book on online politics:

3) Davis, Richard. "The Web of Politics: The Internet's Impact on the American Political System." 1999.
The book's introduction by Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute starts out with a doozie:

"Passive individuals who today consume news inadvertently or intermittently are unlikely to change into policy wonks no matter how convenient the Net makes it to access information or play a direct role as policy actor [italics added]."

True enough. However, I don't think that the goal of the website should be to change people into policy wonks. People should be able to access multi-partisan viewpoints quickly, though, and I don't know of a way to do that now. Wikipedia? Google? Try to look up the key issues in the abortion debate, and see how long it takes you to get the gist. Too much information, too little structure (or at least not a conducive structure for comparing and evaluating). The goal of this website is to lower the barrier for quick reference and understanding, and also serve as a portal into deliberation. Secondary goals include self-education among those creating content.

Here's another quote from the introduction: "Deliberation and cyberdemocracy are not easily compatible." I agree with this, but I also want to note that this website will not attempt to expand political powers to the citizen. I'm not a huge fan of the referendum/initiative process as it is being used today anyway, and I sure wouldn't want it to expand (not that I think people are seriously suggesting implementing e-democracy.

Some of the book's topics are dated, but Davis' central thesis is worth looking at:

"The Internet is destined to become dominated by the same actors in American politics who currently utilize other mediums."

Despite all the hoopla about bloggers today, that thesis remains largely true. News organizations and various political interests (govmt, candidates, think tanks) put out the vast majority of information out there. I think that there is also truth in Friedman's idea of superempowered individuals / organizations in his recent books The Lexus and the Olive Tree and The World is Flat. Internet 2.0 applications that emphasis social networking and dynamic content are growing rapidly, and there's no reason why there couldn't be a version of Slashdot or Flickr or MySpace that focuses on political issues. One of the main questions that I need to look at is who else is trying (or has tried) to do this already.

Davis conveniently breaks down the ideas for Internet political participation into three categories:

1. citizen information
2. interaction between citizens and government
3. policy making

I reiterate: this website will not deal with options 2 and 3. I don't anticipate radical changes in how citizens behave or in the U.S. political structure. I think Davis is really talking to all those that really believed in a revolution in 1999, when the hype bubble was nearing its peak.

Finally, I take from Davis' book some must-haves for the website: trustworthiness, flame control, and low tech literacy threshold for participation.

To the Other Most Liberal City: there's no debate

I confirmed today that I'm headed for the 2006 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation in that great liberal bastion, San Francisco. When Prof. Mark Long, my faculty advisor for this summer research, heard that I was thinking of going, his words of advice were to take what I hear there with a grain of salt (more like with a salzbergwerk).

I'm actually pretty excited about going there. The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) and the Deliberative Democracy Consortium (DCC) sound like the type of organizations that have done some thinking on the potential of online deliberation. The conference itself has a full day workshop devoted to online deliberation tools that I will unfortunately miss, and the DCC has a working group devoted to online deliberation that is starting a blog with a broader, but similar focus to this blog.

I should also mention that John Gastil, a UW Communications professor, is involved with both of these groups, and will be a featured panelist at the conference. Coincidentally, John and I played tennis a few years back without knowing that we would be interested in similar topics, and I recently contacted him as I was looking for a faculty advisor. Small world.

Steve Smith strikes again: running in circles

After a jaunt over to the campus libraries and hanging out in the JA and JK stacks, I am now armed with five books that have Something to Say.

2) Macedo, S., et al. "Democracy at Risk: How Political Choices Undermine Citizen Participation and What We Can Do About It" Brookings Institution Press, 2005.
The American Political Science Association (APSA) formed a task group that created this text. Here are the high points, vis-a-vis creation of a policy website:

• Steve Smith, my former professor and the first faculty member I talked to about this idea, contributed to this book (okay, probably not a high point, but interesting for me to see who is active in these fields)
• "Civic engagement is any activity, individual or collective, devoted to influencing the collective life of the polity." (e.g, voting, campaigning, protesting, lobbying, volunteering, educating)
• Today "there is a crisis of [quantity/quality/equality of] civic engagement"
• "Political activity is increasingly uninformed, fragmented, and polarized"
• Maximizing civic engagement is not necessarily good, but given the current state, the U.S. could use more/better/more equal participation
• Equality of political knowledge: Carpini and Keete showed that there are gaps between groups: men+ women-, white+ black-, higher income+ lower income-, older+ younger-.
  
• Concept of "healthy partisan competition" (that spurs engagement, esp. if at a local level) vs "destructive polarization." Question: what would the website need to contain to encourage the former instead of the latter? Maybe by its nature of presenting multiple perspectives and an interactive interface
• Note to self: see the Minnesota E-Democracy website
  
• The increasing stratification and polarization associated with residential segregation may be partially addressed online (my conclusion, not the authors')
• The website might be a useful resource or tool for local community groups or non-profits trying to directly increase deliberative dialogues (again, my own thought as I'm reading the book)
• The website might also be a useful tool to increase accountability and governance, if it achieves a high profile (my own thought)
• Citizen participation should be less costly and more interesting (i.e., don't have unrealistic assumptions about increasing the burden on citizens). My conclusion would be that a website needs to be integrated with other efforts, rather than out there as a separate effort that dilutes the field even further.

I'm not convinced by the book's arguments that my proposed website's focus on increasing political knowledge will make a difference in civic engagement. Sure, increased political knowledge is associated with increased participation, but that doesn't imply a direct, one-way causal relationship. That gets me thinking to the ultimate goal of the website: just to increase political knowledge and interest, or to go beyond that? How could you measure the difference before and after the website goes live?

Beyond that, what is the market that I'm trying to reach? If I'm trying to get to those with less existing knowledge, then the profile of the typical internet user (white male) doesn't bode well for success on the equality front.

Finally, what if the website increases political knowledge or interest for groups of people that are more likely to use the information to "win" debates rather than to broaden political discussions. Bringing this website online might only empower the most active, partisan people who are interested enough to go to the website (and drive away those more representative of or underrepresented in the general population).

The vision: so what's this thing gonna look like?

Without having thought it completely through, it's a little early to start speculating on what this website would look like. The whole point of this summer's independent research is to approach this idea methodically: scan the literature, talk with those who have thought about online civic engagement, assess the potential market, and form a detailed plan.

However, when I try to explain the idea to others, I always come back to the same analogy: a voter's pamphlet that gives you the "quick and dirty" view of the issues at stake; the pros and cons and the supporters of each; the essence of the arguments. When I want to know more about a policy issue (and I often do as an MPA student and resident of Left Coast), I don't want to wade through policy reports, or even the executive summary of policy reports. I also don't want to Google or L-N the issue, even though I could probably find what I wanted to know in about fifteen minutes of hunting. Wouldn't it be nice to go to one place, and know that you are going to see concise, non-partisan phrasing of multiple viewpoints?

Better yet, what if the website was entertaining, interactive, and offered links to source materials for those that wanted to learn more? What if the website also partnered with existing organizations that specialized in continuing the interaction through deliberative dialogues, either online or at a local level? What if the online community that generated the content also gained from the experience of distilling multiple perspectives into neutral language?

That would be the type of place I would want to go back to, and perhaps even participate in.

Can you trust the other surfers? Don't even think about it

Some thoughts on an article related to online civic engagement in the U.S.:

1) Uslaner, Eric. "Trust, Civic Engagement, and the Internet" Political Communication, Vol. 21 No.2, pp.223-242.
Apparently participation in civic groups (service organizations, formal social groups) has been declining since the 1960s. Uslaner says that we are becoming "increasingly balkanized," which is reminiscent of David Brook's "On Paradise Drive" description of fragmented and isolated pockets of like-minded people. Uslaner rebuffs the idea that technology, such as TV and the Internet, is the cause of this reduction in our collective social capital. His best quote is:

"The Internet also lets us connect with people with shared interests whom we otherwise would not meet. The Internet is the great leveller of class and race barriers, which have proven to be strong disincentives to effective participation in American society (Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995)."

Uslaner's central thesis appears to be that the Internet neither builds nor destroys social capital. Based on two surveys of Internet users in 1998 and 2000, Uslaner concludes that:

• General use of the Internet is connected neither to trust nor to sociability
• The typical profile of the heavy Internet surfer is a young male libertarian
• Most people don’t go online looking to build a sense of community or to destroy it.

So what are the take-home messages of this article with respect to building an online source of political policy information? When online (generally speaking), don't assume that people will have a difference sense of trust than in the real world. If you are trying to build trust, do the same sort of things that you would do in other media. Nothing earth-shattering today.

Democratizing public policy: it's not just for the wonks

What would happen if a community of curious citizens created a fun way to learn about the full range of perspectives on public policy issues? Is there a way for a community to present public policy views succinctly, accurately, and in an interesting way? I'm a bit surprised there aren't any websites that do this already...

As an MPA student at the Evans School of Public Affairs, I am researching the need for and feasibility of creating a website that tries to democratize public policy issues. If such a website is both needed and feasible, then what are some characteristics that would make it successful?

In the coming days, starting with this summer's independent research, I hope to document what I learn - from other others' experiences, ideas, and (sadly) textbooks/articles.

If you are also interested in exploring this topic, please send me a note.