[Air-L] Visualizing the democratic divide online?

[Steven Clift]

(Please cc: clift at e-democracy.org with any replies)

I've been working to present data from PewInternet.org's Civic Engagement
in the Digital Age report in ways that help people see the relative
importance of raising new voices.

Here is a draft infographic concept:

     http://bit.ly/ecivicgapinfographic

I run E-Democracy (world's first election info project from 1994) and our
BeNeighbors.org effort. It is working to create the world's most
representative local online civic engagement network. We actually go door
to door in lower income, highly diverse, high immigrant neighborhoods to
sign people for neighborhood-based online participation.

We see our work more and more strongly in an R+D with a purpose role. Go
deeper and deeper and share knowledge wider and wider.

FYI - This is my "inclusion" summary from the Pew report:
http://bit.ly/pewcivic  and  round table discussions we've been having
http://bit.ly/digicivic

Two questions:

* How would you improve the first chart?

(Besides displaying online-only and off-line only civic communicators
within the chart)

* What other recent surveys provide additional insights into gaps in civic
engagement online and offline?

Our view is the the civic tech/open government movement must do more to
raise new voices and work to make engagement more representative in order
for it to have a positive social/civic benefit. It must close the gaps left
by .org e-advocacy, media, and .com social networking and neighbor
connecting models. If it further or disproportionately empowers those who
already so up, what good is it? By visualizing the gaps as well as hopeful
slices, we can better prioritize our use of scarce resources of online
civic engagement.

Thanks.
Steven Clift
Executive Director
E-Democracy.org