[CPSR Home Page] | [CPSR Newsletter Index] | [Summer 1997 Issue--Table of Contents ]

Growing an Online Political Community in Minnesota

by Mick Souder
Minnesota E-Democracy Project

CPSR News Volume 15, Number 3: Summer 1997

Minnesota E-Democracy is committed to creating high-quality online public spaces for citizen interaction on public issues and nonpartisan organizing of political information. The project has successfully conducted online debates among U.S. Senatorial and Minnesota Gubernatorial candidates, created a database on political donations and developed guides to online political and media resources.

My luck comes from the fact that the list has had some influence beyond the online world, creating what I call when feeling particularly jargony a "real-place-cyberspace interface." Issues discussed on MN-Politics have motivated people to contact their legislators, state commissioners, and city council members. List postings have appeared in the hands of state senators as they work on legislation. Messages to the list have caused local radio talk show's to bring in guests with curious angles on issues of public debate.

The people involved in putting together the list have done several things that increase the visibility of MN-Politics as a component of Minnesota political life.

• We have networked with politicians of various parties, officeholders (or their staff) from the governor's office, state legislatures, and county, city, and neighborhood governments (yes, we have neighborhood government here in Minnesota), getting them to participate in or at least monitor the list (and have created a digest version of MN-Politics for those who wish only to monitor the discussions).
• We came online in 1994 just as the media was ohh-ing and ahh-ing over the Internet and just before media started to proclaim that the net was a porn-riddled, crime-ridden cesspool of bad manners and privacy-choking advertising. This media-amplified scare led to considerable monitoring and participation by campaign consultants, daily and alternative newspaper journalists, and radio personalities. I have been on the radio several times to explain list interactions and specific discussions to the general public.
• A number of people in Minnesota E-Democracy who take the list seriously use its interactions as a basis for academic research. This research has lent support to the belief that interactions on the list have value beyond cyberspace.
• We have created a virtual civic network by partnering with Twin Cities Free-Net, Minneapolis Telecommunications Network Internet Service for nonprofit organizations, and Minnesota Regional Network to share a variety of resources including web space, mail lists, technical expertise, and networking with community activists.
• Minnesota E-Democracy has taken several positions that have encouraged thoughtful discourse. For example, Minnesota E-Democracy claims the ultimate first amendment rights to our forums. We maintain that directing and sometimes restricting dialogue in our forums as we see fit is protected by our right to freedom of expression. This claim gives us legitimacy in imposing rules and guideline's for MN-Politics, which aim not to restrict expression but rather to promote thoughtful discourse. Participants understand that they are publishing (and we have web archives to prove it) and should therefore take a long view in their positions. We restrict postings to two a day which give list members the sense that they need to reflect in order to make those two postings count.

We also are aware that our influence is fragile. Unlike physical communities, which are more difficult to leave because of the financial burden of physically moving to a new location, cybercommunities can be abandoned with a few strokes of the keyboard. Therefore, we seek to grow the list in a way that doesn't drive away the people who have demonstrated interest in the list over the past three years. The challenge faced by Minnesota E-Democracy is to nurture the seeds of community we have already planted while at the same time expanding our reach further into Minnesota civic life.

If we can do that, my good luck will hold.

Those interested in learning more about the Minnesota E-Democracy Project, can visit their website at http://www.e-democracy.org/. For Minnesota residents who want to join the debate, the site also has links and forms for subscribing to all the current discussion forums.

Mick Souder is a Product Manager at MRNet where he performs a variety of consulting, marketing, and training functions. Some of his projects include the Internet for Minnesota Schools (InforMNs), Minnesota E-Democracy, and the Government Information Access Council. He is also the President of Minnesota Citizens Online.

[Previous Article] | [Table of Contents] | [Next Article]

© Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
P.O. Box 717 Palo Alto, CA 94302-0717
Tel. (415) 322-3778 Fax (415) 322-3798 webmaster@cpsr.org