Last week, I moaned about why I thought the CNN/YouTube Republican Presidential Debate was a little bit off. I wanted to see more substance and less circus.

This week, I invited a group of new and traditional media practitioners and analysts over to IPDI for lunch and conversation. We wanted to begin a conversation about what future technology-powered debates should look like.

You can read our memo at: http://www.ipdi.org/uploadedfiles/Future%20tech%20debates.pdf

Not a free for all

Part of our conversation centered on the role that gatekeepers play in the debate process. Most of the room coalesced around the idea that holding free-for-all style voting online to set the debate agenda and determine which questions will be asked. The room felt that some kind of gatekeeper or mediator was needed to add order and structure to the debate and keep the process fair. In other words, we thought that some control was good. We tried to think of recommendations that balanced the need for order and some control with our desire to make the debate agenda-setting process more transparent and interactive.

New model wanted

At the same time, we couldn’t ignore the fact that the great American presidential debate model is beginning to feel a little outdated, an aging device from a broadcast era. We felt that in order to engage the viewers and voters of the future, the debate model itself most adapt to changing expectations and media consumption habits.

Here are our recommendations:

1. Balance the role of the debate mediator, whether that mediator is a broadcast media company, political party, or technology company, in setting the debate agenda and selecting questions with a representative sample of the American public. This can occur in many ways. For example, one possibility is developing a focus group comprised of partisan and centrist members of the American public to help select questions and engage in providing commentary and follow-up question during the debate – online and on television.
2. Make the traditional post-debate coverage more interactive. Instead of following up with the candidates and pundits, incorporate questions, comments, and push back from the audience. Ask the candidate’s follow-up questions from an online forum or offline focus group. Incorporate comments from live bloggers or people texting into the debate.
3. Publish the debate mediator’s criteria for selecting questions and setting the debate on the Internet and allow moderated feedback from the public.
4. Use the Internet to generate substantial discussions about policy before, during, and after the debate.
   1. Before – Consider allowing each candidate’s campaign to use a portion of your website to post policy position papers or other forms of online media, and make these positions and opinions easily accessible, searchable, and comparable by the public.
   2. During – Consider incorporating different channels of live communication and publishing into your webcast or broadcast. This might include, for example, publishing an online “fact checking squad” that researches statements the candidate’s make and publishes the results online in real time. Allow campaign staffers to post evidence that supports their candidates’ statements in real time. Another idea might be to publish ongoing comments from a panel of issues experts.
   3. After – Incorporate the comments of live bloggers and online audience members into post debate commentary and interviews with the candidates. Ask on- and offline focus group members to discuss what they felt were key moments from the debate.
5. Create and post community guidelines on all debate discussion fora to generate a spirit of respect and quickly remove abusive or spam posts.
6. Use technology that is ubiquitous and uncomplicated, so that even those who are familiar with wikis or posting video will feel comfortable participating.
7. Establish anti-sabotage measures on all online fora and voting mechanisms to prevent people from gaming the system.
8. Use split screens on television broadcast so that users without high speed internet access can follow the dialogue and participate in the discussion by as many ways as possible – text message, email, phone calls, instant message etc.
9. If you want to generate substance-driven user-generated content, such as web videos, questions, or commentary, then make your “ask” specific and policy-focused. For example, ask people to contribute questions that address a specific policy issue or set of policy issues.

Epilogue

We post these recommendations as a strawman. We certainly don’t have all the answers, and we hope that further reflection and discussion will enhance the dialogue and perhaps lead us to a more nuanced understanding of how technology should and will shape the future of presidential debates in the future.

Please add to the discussion. Email your ideas to ipdi@ipdi.org.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 5:36 pm and is filed under 2008 Election, Blogs, Citizen Media, Debates, IPDI, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.