Page 30 RAIN Summer 1986 An Illustrative Menu of Interactive Programs For all our experience with entertainment prograrruning, "citizen feedback" television represents an unexplored frontier. This briefmenu just begins to explore the potentialsfor interactive c01nmunication. Electronic Town Meetings-A "democratic sample" of randomly-selected citizens responds to issues, candidates, or choices in a live, "dial-in" dialogue. If consensus is strong, citizens can decide to send an electronic petition to elected officials that respectively expresses community sentiment and requests change. · Viewer Feedback Forums-With massive TV deregulation in 1984, individual communities now have a new responsibility to work with local broadcasters to meet their changing communication needs. Viewer Forums would enable each community to give direct feed-back to broadcasters. Regional and National Forums-Electronic gatherings to enable two or more communities to discuss key issues of regional or national concern (for example, toxic wastes, hunger and homelessness, the arms race, budget priorities, etc.) Candidate Forums-Electronic meetings where candidates for all levels of government offices meet, discuss issues, and respond directly to citizen viewers. This enables direct interaction between candidates and voters on a variety of issues. • The situation is ripe for a "win/win" outcome. Broadcasters and advertisers would profit from a loyal, interested, and growing audience of citizen-viewers. The public would benefit from innovative and socially relevant programming. Governments would benefit from an accurate, timely assessment of informed and deliberated public opinion on high priority issues and problems selected by the public itself. Working together we can achieve rapid and productive changes in the ways we use our primary tools of mass communication. ____ :--W~ need to act boldly and creatively. Now is not the time fot timidity. We need to reclaim every ounce of our in- -- genuity and social entrepreneurship as communities and as a nation. This is not the time to imitate the past, but to dare to invent a communications system that can support us in building a sustainable future. • The strongest nations in the communications era will be those that communicate most effectively. The U.S. seems to have enormous evolutionary potential: a heritage of free speech, remarkable tolerance for diversity, and the most advanced system of mass communication on the planet. It would be a tragedy to waste this potential. ~e social, economic, and political costs of not utilizing this system are already great and promise to increase in the near future. International Dialogues-These programs could open the electronic window of television to let us communicate with our neighbors around the world and see their living circumstances, viewpoints, hopes, and fears. People-topeople dialogues can build new trust, understanding, and shared visions for the future. Local "Live Aid"-This could be a local equivalent to the "Live Aid/Farm Aid" programming, but with an important difference. This program mobilizes the community on an ongoing basis to respond to crisis situations selected by the community, and uses local talent and resources to do so. Alternative Views of the Future-To build a sustainable and meaningful future, we must first imagine it. Electronic meetings could help us do that. For example, programs might dramatize major choices for the future and use feedback to explore'citizen preferences and expectations. They could invite a variety of peoplechildren, experts, presidential candidates, everyday citizens-to portray their hopes and fears for the future. These examples illustrate the wide range ofprogramming innovation that is now possible. We need to shake ourselves free from habitual limits ofthinking about television and begin to imagine the dozens ofdifferent types offeedback programs that have the promise ofbeing engaging, interesting, and powerful. A whole new generation of communication is waiting to be created. • Each generation must renew its contract with democracy in ways that respect the unique demands of the times. In this generation, our contract with democracy presents citizens with the unprecedented challenge of developing tools and skills for mass social communications to support a new level of citizen dialogue, imagination, and consensus. Our challenge, literally, is to "communicate our way through" these perilous times and build the foundation in human trust and understanding for a sustainable, satisfying, and secure future. Summary Our democracy faces a choice between communication and catastrophe. We have the technology and responsibility to move our society beyond the Information Age and into the Communications Era where two-way, or interactive, communication using broadcast television can enable us to build together a workable and meaningful future. 0 0 This is a sample ofthe work of Choosing Our Future, a non-partisan, national "corrununications advocacy" organization based in Menlo Park, California. For more information, contact Choosing Our Future, 109 Gilbert Avenue, Menlo Park, CA 94025; 4151853-0600.
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