Midwest Democracy Project Created to Provide Trustworthy News to Citizens
An innovative project was launched this past summer to help citizens make informed political decisions without the distraction of political “noise.” With the ever-decreasing percent of civic participation among citizens, the Midwest Democracy Project (MDP) was created to provide a trustworthy news source for citizens in Kansas and Missouri. MDP combines traditional journalism with multi-media and social networking to create an assortment of news sources for citizens. Using this tool, citizens can learn about upcoming elections, candidates, and issues. MDP is a pilot program run by The Kansas City Star and in collaboration with various organizations including the Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy (ICDD), and is sponsored by the Kettering Foundation.
The project consists of a series of National Issues Forums (NIF) that took place in the months of September and October to help citizens engage in public issues. Also, the project provides an interactive website to help citizens easily access political information, particularly around election season.
“I thought we could create a ‘one stop shop’ website that would bring all that information we produce during election season in one place that is easy to find and accessible 24-7,” said Anne Hartung Spenner, MDP executive director and assistant managing editor at The Kansas City Star.
The website also has the first Midwest candidate issues database where citizens can search to compare candidates and their stand on issues.
“This is a big step for us in terms of getting candidates questionnaires out to the public,” said Miriam Pepper, vice president, editorial page of The Kansas City Star.
The project thus far has been successful in engaging local citizens on important public issues and informing them of upcoming elections. The website has had increased traffic during the recent election season.
“The two to three weeks right around election day, we had people come to our site in large numbers,” Spenner said, “Clearly, they were trying to get informed for the election.”
MDP is now a permanent aspect offered to readers by The Kansas City Star and will host several more forums in the upcoming year in which citizens can engage in.
The role of ICDD in the project was to host several forums throughout Kansas City. The locations included The Kansas City Star, KC Public Library and Johnson County Public Library.
In addition, ICDD faculty member for democracy and research, Bill Schenck-Hamlin and graduate student Nicole Baxley are researching and comparing online discussion to face-to-face dialogue. They will do their research by comparing the dialogue at the three forums and a blog that volunteers from the first forum got the opportunity to moderate.
According to Schenck-Hamlin, he will look at many different forums that provide an opportunity to examine the quality of public argument.
“We want to know whether participants will retain the same quality of argument on the message board as they practiced in a public forum,” Schenck-Hamlin said, “Or do they revert back to their pre-deliberative experience on a message board?”
After researching which mode of communication works best to deliberate on public issues, he will then present his preliminary research findings in early December.
“We suspect that most citizens will find that deliberative forums are a satisfying place within which to learn about the important issues of the day and that facilitated forums are the most productive,” Schenck-Hamlin said.