Jeremy Harmer wrote:
> But there are many people would want their info to go out to the wider
> community for comment without the need for anyone wishing to comment to
> have to register to do so - for example a researcher after any input
> they can get.
>
> How has anyone who has tacked this, er, tackled it?
We are just about to try. This is part of an international
e-consultation research project (www.e-consultation.org). There is an a
organization in Dublin, an association of voluntary sector groups, that
wants to collect citizens' stories of what they understand by 'active
citizenship', to help them prepare a submission to the task force on
active citizenship that the government will be setting up shortly. It is
not a debate, so there will be no discussion, just the collection of
stories.
So we are setting up a blog site where anyone can submit text, upload a
picture, or a sound clip. There will also be a telephone number which
will record what people have to say, convert it to an MP3 and upload it
to the site. We haven't yet got SMS text message posting working.
Unless we get a lot of blog spam, we will just delete off-topic messages
whenever we find them. But part of our research is to work out what
posting policies should be used in public consultation, so we may try
modifying the policy from time to time, and see how it affects the
quality and quantity of postings. The design principles start from
theories of deliberative democracy, which prioritise openness,
participation and engagement. If it is too bland and boring, no-one will
post, so we will fail. But if it is too aggressive, few people will
post, so we would fail then as well.
--
Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Belfast, School of
Management and Economics, Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland (UK)
Tel. +44 28 9097 3643 FAX: +44 28 9097 5156
mailto:[log in to unmask]
http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/
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