Lecture: "Experimenting with Democracy"
The National Center for Digital Government and Science, Technology and Society Initiative present a lecture on "Experimenting with Democracy: Results from the Study of Online Townhalls with Members Of Congress" with Professor David Lazer.
This lecture will explore the potential of the Internet to transform the relationship between representatives and citizens. Dr. Lazer will discuss the results from a series of online townhalls conducted in 2006 and 2008 with members of Congress meeting with randomly selected constituents. His results suggest that these townhalls produced thoughtful deliberation that, in turn, had significant impacts on the views and political actions of the participants.
David Lazer is an Associate Professor at Northeastern and Director of the Program on Networked Governance (PNG) at Harvard. His work focuses on how interconnectedness of people and organizations affects the success and failure of actors and systems. His work has appeared in a wide variety of top scientific journals, including Science, Administrative Science Quarterly, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Journal of Politics.
The National Center for Digital Government and Science Technology and Society (STS) Initiative are based at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the Center for Public Policy and Administration and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. NCDG's mission is to build global research capacity, to advance practice, and to strengthen the network of researchers and practitioners engaged in building and using technology and government. It seeks to apply and extend the social sciences for research at the intersection of governance, institutions and information technologies. The STS Initiative was established to promote multidisciplinary collaboration among the natural, physical and social sciences, engineering and public policy. It serves as a catalyst for innovative research as well as an interdisciplinary forum to discuss issues in science and technology. The STS Initiative provides a single point of contact for campus-wide faculty collaborations, enabling effective teaming on new proposals and initiatives.
For more information, please visit www.ncdg.org and www.umass.edu/sts.