Turning Debate into Data

One of the difficulties of any debate is how to extract the pertinent points. Interactive Democracy provides a system that can turn debate into data for analysis in many different ways. It does this by allowing people to vote point by point, question by question and on what type of evidence is being presented, from Heresay to Good Quality Empirical. Furthermore, the identity of voters, though hidden from public view, can include their age, location and qualifications.
These classifications allow users, including journalists and politicians, to analyse the debate in all sorts of different ways. It will enable better questions and summaries from journalists, new points from commentators, more focused campaigns from politicians and better law formulation from the legislature.

Graphing the Evolution of Debates

This TED talk by Hans Rosling, though fascinating in its own right, shows how computer generated graphs can help make sense of complex information. The same type of technology could be used to show how an Interactive Democracy debate evolves. For example, if each debating point grows or diminishes in approval, or is superseded by a counter point, this could be shown in a similar way as Hans Rosling's examples. If the data is open source, other people may create enhanced displays which may include demographic information about voters without divulging their identity (e.g. qualifications, age, sex and geographical location).

Picture the Data

How information is presented can have a significant impact on the debate. This image, produced by The Guardian, is an excellent example (apologies for the small scale). If you look at it with a view to reducing our budget deficit perhaps it will clarify your values: perhaps you will want to compare the value and cost of the Department for International Development and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Will other voters agree? Will it cause an analysis of the benefits from each department?