[Air-L] Visualizing the democratic divide online?

[Steven Clift]

One correction - I missed the word website in ...

I run E-Democracy (world's first election info WEBSITE from 1994) ...


On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 9:42 AM, Steven Clift <slc at publicus.net> wrote:

> (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
>