Using the Media, Internet and Debates to Inform Voters: A Series of Blogs
Bill Dutton of the Quello Center, and Tracy Westen, founder of The Democracy Network and founder and CEO of The Center for Governmental Studies, have posted a series of blogs that take a critical look at the way in which the GOP primary debates have been handled by Fox News and Facebook. Reflecting on the challenges of televised and Internet orchestrated debates, they come up with suggestions combining the media to improve the ways in which voters can obtain information about the issue positions, personalities, and endorsements of candidates.
In the run up to the GOP primary debate broadcast by Fox News and Facebook, Bill Dutton posted a critical blog, entitled ‘Stop the Televised Debates and Shift to the Internet’. See: http://billdutton.me/2015/07/23/stop-the-televised-debates-and-shift-to-the-internet/
In response to Bill’s blog, Tracy Westen provided an alternative vision of a more voter-centric debate scheme. His blog is entitled ‘Envision Voters Staging Their Own Candidate Debates: a Comment from Tracy Westen on the Televised Debates for the Republican Party’. http://billdutton.me/2015/07/25/envision-voters-staging-their-own-candidate-debates-a-comment-from-tracy-westen-on-the-televised-debates-for-the-republican-party/
After critiquing the first Fox News-Facebook debate, Tracy and Bill focused on the reasons why debates have failed to use the Internet more effectively. Their post, ‘A Dirty Dozen: 12 Reasons Candidates and Networks Fail to Move Presidential Debates Online’, addresses key problems, and argues that some of these reasons will make progress quite difficult unless a new scheme can be developed. See: http://billdutton.me/2015/07/31/a-dirty-dozen-12-reasons-candidates-and-networks-fail-to-move-presidential-debates-online-by-tracy-westen-and-bill-dutton/
Tracy Westen’s post followed with ‘More Challenges to Informing Voters Online: Lessons Learned’ http://billdutton.me/2015/08/01/more-challenges-to-informing-voters-online-lessons-learned-by-tracy-westen/
These were followed by a blog entitled ‘Grading the Fox News-Facebook GOP Presidential Debate Spectacle’, which provided criteria for grading the debates, which lead Bill and Tracy to give a D+ to the Fox News-Facebook debate. http://billdutton.me/2015/08/09/grading-the-fox-news-facebook-gop-debate-spectacle-by-bill-dutton-and-tracy-westen/
The final post looked a ways to move ahead and improve on the way in which the media can used the Internet and social media to provide a better platform for informing voters. Entitled ‘A New Approach to Presidential Debates’, Tracy and Bill outlined the steps involved in creating a wider range of information about all the candidates and key issues in elections. See: http://billdutton.me/2015/08/12/multimedia-convergence-a-new-approach-to-presidential-debates-by-tracy-westen-and-bill-dutton/
Tother these blogs provide a great discussion of what’s possible and beneficial, and key hurdles that need to be overcome, based in large part on practical experience over the years. I’d encourage the two of you to take it to another level with a paper, presentation, op-ed piece, conference session(s), and/or expanded online discussion with others active and interested in this subject.
What I’d most like to see, of course, is something along the lines of what you propose actually become an evolving platform for healthy, constructive debate that truly informs and involves citizens.