Developing The Next Generation Of
Electronic Town Meetings
In 1993, the Meridian International Institute hosted an
invitational conference that brought together for the first time the leading
pioneers who had designed and run many of the first generation of ETMs. The goal
was to pool their experience and direct that experience toward the design of the
next generation of ETMs. These pioneers were joined by leading thinkers in group
facilitation and conflict resolution and by a number of public policy analysts
and media representatives.
There was strong agreement among the participants that the
exchange of experience and the learning process begun at the conference needed
to be continued and expanded. The conference heard from a rich variety of
practitioners who are creating the future of electronic town meetings and
related approaches. A groundwork has been laid for broader understanding about
both the opportunities and the many pitfalls that lie ahead.
A major conclusion from the meeting was that the use of
television and other electronic media such as the Internet in politics and
governance will expand rapidly in the coming decade. The challenge will be to
find ways to make use of that technology in a manner that will enhance our
democracy. To that end, there is an urgent need to develop mechanisms that will
allow us to learn in a more cumulative, systematic way from the wide variety of
experiments underway or planned, and to foster the development of approaches
that are consistent with democratic ideals.
Attendees:
Walter Truett Anderson, Vice President, Meridian
International Institute
Geoff Ball, facilitator, trainer and conflict manager
Kirk Bergstrom, Hawaii Televote
Ted Becker, Professor of Political Science, Auburn University
Catherine Clark, Program Officer, The John and Mary Markle Foundation
Robert Deward, Pacific Bell special projects
Michael Doyle, Michael Doyle Associates
Duane Elgin, Director, Choosing Our Future
Charles Firestone, Program on Communications and Society, Aspen
Institute
Ed Fouhy, Producer of the Presidential Debates 1988, 1992
Larry Greene, Network Direct
Andreas Gross, Institute for Scientific Democracy, Member of Swiss Parliament
Hazel Henderson, author, economist
Mike Hollinshead, producer of electronic town meeting
Robert E. Horn, Director, The Electronic Democracy Project
Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz, Awakening Technology
Jay Levin, developing a Los Angeles cable channel for electronic town meetings
Ernie Lowe, wrote plan for electronic town meetings for Harkin campaign
Robert Lucas, Producer of North County Agenda
Robert Kingston, National Issues Forums, The Kettering Foundation
James J. Lardie, President, For the Children
Edward Lenert, Center on Communication, Technology, and Society, Univ. of Texas
Jeff Reiss, cable channel entrepreneur
Steven Rosell, President, Meridian International Institute
Christa Slaton, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Georgia Southern
University
Evan I. Schwartz, journalist, Business Week
Paul Smith, developer of annual opinion poll, Australia
Ron Thomas, Director, Savannah Chatham County electronic town meeting project
Ted Wachtel, author of The Electronic Congress
Kim Wheatley, Option Technologies
Anthony Wilhelm, Center for Politics and Policy, Claremont Graduate School
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