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Press Release
Contact: For immediate release:
InSITeS Presents "Prospects for Electronic Democracy,"
Scheduled for September 20-21 at Carnegie Mellon
PITTSBURGH—More than two dozen scholars and e-democracy practitioners from four countries will assemble at Carnegie Mellon University on September 20-21, 2002, to assess how the growth of electronic networks is likely to shape the future of democracy.
"The Prospects for Electronic Democracy" is a two-day conference, organized by Peter M. Shane, director of Carnegie Mellon's Institute for the Study of Information Technology and Society (InSITeS) and the InSITeS Community Connections Initiative, and Peter Muhlberger, visiting assistant professor at the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management and research director for the InSITeS Program in Electronic Democracy.
Shane and Muhlberger founded Community Connections in the spring of 2000 to investigate under what circumstances the Internet might become a medium for citizen engagement with the community. Because the Internet has become such a powerful tool in facilitating human networking, it has also become a potential tool to revitalize democracy through applications such as online discussion forums, sites for e-mailing elected representatives, political campaign Web sites and online voting.
The presenters at the conference will focus on addressing questions such as: What do current real-world experiments tell us about the experience and consequences of e-democracy? Are the social and psychological contexts in which online deliberation is likely to occur supportive of democratic discourse? How are our conventional institutions of representative democracy being affected by
e-democracy initiatives? What are the implications of developments in information technology for our theories of what constitutes legitimate democracy?
The panel speakers come from a group of scholars who are highly diverse in terms of discipline and experience. Some of the contributors, such as James Bohman, Eugene Borgida, Michael Froomkin and Marci Hamilton, are extremely well-known figures in the fields of philosophy, political psychology and law, respectively. Other presenters are at earlier stages of their careers and come from fields such as information science, communications and political science.
In addition to panel presentations, the conference will also include two keynote luncheons. The first will feature Beverley Wheeler, an alumna of the Heinz School, who is now executive director of the Neighborhood Action program in the Office of the Mayor of the District of Columbia. The second will feature short presentations by originators or managers of different e-democracy initiatives.
"We hope that a combination of experience-based reports, technological demonstrations and theoretical perspectives will give our audience a strong sense of what we collectively know about e-democracy thus far, the potential for e-democracy to grow, the questions that need to be addressed in assessing that potential, and promising avenues for addressing those questions," says Shane. "It's an audacious enterprise, but the questions are just too important and too interesting not to pursue them."
The schedule for the conference is as follows:
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2002
Welcome: 8:45 - 9 a.m.
Session One: 9 - 10 a.m.
Session Two: 10:15 - 11:45 a.m.
Keynote Luncheon: Noon - 1:30 p.m.
Session Three: 1:45 - 3:15 p.m.
Session Four: 3:30 - 5 p.m.
Social and Psychological Contexts for Online Deliberation
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2002
Session One: 9 - 10:30 a.m.
Session Two: 10:45 - 11:45 a.m.
Lunch and E-Democracy Application Presentations: Noon - 2 p.m.
Session Three: 2:15 - 3:15 p.m.
Session Four: 3:30 - 5 p.m.
All sessions will be held in McConomy Auditorium in Carnegie Mellon's University Center. "Prospects for Electronic Democracy" is made possible by the generous contributions of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. For more information on the conference, please contact Dr. Dorothy Bassett, 412-268-4839.
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