Online Forums: Creating E-Democracy Hands of the Future As we drive into the future on the information high way, we can feel that the future is impinging on us--our private life, business life and public life. Along with the expansion of the Internet capabilities, the conventional economy has expanded to include e-commerce, and the public sector has turned to explore e-democracy. “Thanks to the Internet, millions of individuals now have the power that formerly only belonged to the owners of printing presses and broadcast licenses -- the power to spread their views, whether profound or profane, to a worldwide audience.” The individual citizen’s social horizon has dramatically expanded, as large as people would like to reach in public life. There are more overlapping interacts among common citizens and elite, producers and consumers, capitalists and professionals, and so on. This is a crucial “seed time” for the public and for the media to realize that “Thomas Jefferson didn’t invent the First Amendment for media owners, but for the people.” Just as newspapers served the American Revolution 225 years ago, “the Internet has revolutionized the public opinion market,” said Robert Tinsley, Program Director of the International Center for Journalists. Individuals shoulder responsibilities to take advantage of the Internet to speak up and to take charge of their public life, to earmark the new media, instead of being earmarked by the old journalism or any other professions. Not like any conventional news media, the Web is a very public sphere, that is facilitated, used and owned by businesses, public agents and “netizens (online citizens).” “The Internet is not about technology. It's about relationships,” wrote Phil Madsen, Webmaster of the official website of Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura. It holds potential to reshape the relations among the press, the public and the government. The Internet, by its nature is bottom up, not like the conventional news industries, which naturally operate in a top-down structure. On the Web, readers are also writers, explained Professor Jay Rosen, Chairman of Department of Journalism, New York University. Opportunities and challenges are both opening up for newspapers and the public life. To meet the challenges, most U.S. newspapers have established online divisions to serve the online public, whose voice has been speaking up in some online forums, particularly those moderated public forums, that seems like a public yard-sale of citizens’ opinion. By observing the “Live Online” of WashingtonPost.com, “Talk Today” of USAToday.com, “Discussion Boards” of Latimes.com, “Talk” of Startribune.com, “Forums & Chats” of Cleveland.com, and “Forums & Chats” of STLToday.com, I found that online forums are revealing future roads for online newspapers to interact with the online public. These practices actually create a new public opinion market, which is beyond conventional ones and is unique in several ways. The public is seen as a “silent majority” in an off-line world, where their voices are supposed to be low quality noises to be discounted, while opinion experts sell their valuable opinions in the mass media. But on the web, the public has almost unlimited opportunities for discussions among themselves. Netizens in online forums not only practice a unique dynamic, they also carry a unique motivation: “The public speaks only for what they care, while journalists do their job for payments,” pointed out Professor John Pavlik, Executive Director of Exploring New Media Center, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University” The different dynamic and motivation set online forums apart from those commercial news industries. The online forums offer a completely new way to serve the public mind. The floor in online forums is always open to every participant, without time or space limitations. All can speak any time, talk to all or some members, then to get responses, and conduct in-depth discussions. In some online forums, netizens actually expressed very profound understandings on public issues. Sometimes one point of discussion may run 30 back-and-forth messages among participants, hence more frequently than some face-to-face meetings. New topics can be raised by any netizens at any point at any time and in any way. If the topic really matters to the public, then netizens will voluntarily jump into the discussion, and issue naming and framing will naturally occur in the online forums. I found that in some online forums, the public has been self-informed, self-educated, the public voice is actually rolling out some public common sense, building up or promoting netizens’ common understanding of citizenship. It’s a kind of public E-deliberation among volunteer citizens. Typical Concerns Of course, the online forums are still a very new practice. It is in its childhood just like the Web itself. There are concerns around the online forums such as the digital divide, its purpose and credibility, legal and financial problems. Some argue that these netizens are only a small portion of the people who speak very loudly on the Web. I prefer to see them as electronic explorers, while the rest will eventually follow along some day. A prevailing public involvement can be expected when netizens have built up the online forums into a creditable, comfortable and enjoyable E-home. The online forums released individual citizens’ political and social energies, enthusiasm, as well as unique insights. They are citizens’ e-congresses, experiments of direct democracy, and new assets to representative democracy. The potential public and human gains from the online forums are so immense, that is difficult to imagine either the elite or common citizens staying away from them. In daily life, it can be said that people go to a restaurant for their stomachs, go to church for their souls, and will go to an online forum for their thoughts and opinions. There is no need to question their rights of representation, because netizens are only speaking on behalf of themselves. Like citizens voluntarily go to a restaurant or church without going through any political or social elections, people can also voluntarily go to an online forum merely as a common citizen and discuss public issues with others. For building up credibility, online forums are not lacking in resources. All participants are registered in online forums, some only accept true name participants. And Internet users are easier to contact or trace than letter authors of newspaper, or telephone participants of radio and TV shows. Newspapers’ legal counsels or volunteer legal teams can police the online forums. Moderators chair the public E-deliberation, filter irresponsible language. Journalists and participants inform the forums with breaking news and references. Achievements of discussions can be made into documents of public proposals or complaints, endorsed by volunteer citizens, then sent to related public agents or other practitioners. Actually, a new profession needs to be created for the online public forums, said Deborah Wadsworth, President of Public Agenda. Web moderators may play a key role in building up healthy and sustained online public deliberations. When the possibilities of the new economy collide with the institutionalized rigidity of old-style labor and tax laws, not surprisingly, online forums also encounter legal difficulties of making rooms in the off-line world. AOL chat rooms users “noticed that the Fair Labor Standards Act does not allow volunteers in profit-making organizations.” This is a tough issue, but it will have a solution. Remember the common saying in the law community? “We care about the people instead of the law.” That’s right, the law has to correspond with the public interest, sooner or later, easy or difficult, the law will change and the online forums will get along well with the legal system. Road to the Future Currently, most online forums are not profitable business for online newspapers. So newspapers invest very limited financial and personal resources into the online forums as stakes on future harvest. A bright future of online forums can hardly be expected from further major contributions of newspapers in the economic slow-down period. But eventually, Robert Tinsley maintained, online newspapers will find out a way to make their business profitable someday. And some dotcoms are still working hard on creating political and social ground on the web. AOL’s “e-government” and Delphi.com’s “online community” are good instructive works among many efforts. Government’s financial support can be expected when the online forums mature as important public facilities, like the civic infrastructure of public libraries. But that is not in the near future, because government has taken a hands-off approach to the construction of the “Information High Way,” and government’s attention now is on war against terrorism. Besides, America has a quite different economic environment from the rest of the world: the commercial news organizations do not like government to challenge their leaderships at all, though the U.S. does have government financed public TV and radio, pointed out Rich Jaroslovsky, Senior Editor of The Wall Street Journal, Professor of the Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University, President of Online News Association. When the online forums meet real politics, Dr. John Dedrick, Coordinator and Program Officer of Kettering Foundation, doubts that interest groups will welcome the new political competitors. This is an important reminder that online forums may enjoy a lot of publicity on the Web but will make little headway in the actual political field, if those volunteer citizens are left to swim or sink without any support of professional moderators. Meanwhile, remembering the victory of Governor Jesse Ventura in Minnesota, we better not underestimate this growing force of on-line volunteers. As Professor Rich Jaroslovsky said, people do need to have creative ways to use the Internet, but you don’t need to be an enormous organization to do outstanding works anymore. A possible new driving force seems to reside in the NGOs, who aim at public services. Online forums offer a new way of providing great public services at low cost. NGOs can contribute to the public life by serving the online public. By providing financial, legal, and training supports to the online forums, NGOs can build up a non-profit media and make a big difference in the public’s life. This sector itself has changed in the past two decades, pointed out Dr. Maxine Thomas, Secretary and General Counsel of Kettering Foundation. Many new foundations have appeared on the landscape, created by high-tech donors. They may like to create civic space through the online forums, while the old mode foundations may lack interest to try such new possibilities. Indeed, a new generation of millionaires does its philanthropy in different ways, Dr. John Dedrick argued. They are apt to put their hands on and operate non-profit foundations with a business perspective, actually seeing philanthropy as a strategy to defend or expand their primary business interests. At the same time, some old foundations have done their works of creating civic space in the society. “Freedom is not free,” also is true for online forums and the E-democracy. A bright future for the public deserves a good effort from the public. If the public is getting sick of relying on spin doctors, PR gurus and media sensationalists to make up their minds for them, this is the time for the public to use online forums to reintroduce common sense into the public life. Organizations or even an individual citizen should realize that, today with the Internet: “you can make a difference on your own time from anywhere as an E-Democracy volunteer.”