T
he Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM) and the U.S. Department of State announce:
Opinion Space: A Global Experiment in Open Dialogue
Opinion Space is a visualization tool for world opinion developed by an interdisciplinary team of students and faculty at the UC Berkeley Center for New Media in collaboration with new media experts at the U.S. Department of State.
Opinion Space is an experimental interactive website where participants can express opinions and instantly see where they stand with respect to others around the world. It uses dimensionality reduction techniques to display the emerging diversity of viewpoints and collaborative scoring metrics to help the community highlight comments that are most insightful.
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"Opinion Space will harness the power of connection technologies to provide a unique forum for international dialogue. This is an example of what we call 21st century statecraft and an opportunity to extend our engagement beyond the halls of government directly to the people of the world. I can't wait to be a part of this exciting new conversation," said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Opinion Space invites users to share their perspectives and ideas on U.S. foreign policy in an innovative visual "opinion map" that will illustrate which ideas result in the most discussion and which ideas are judged most insightful by the community of participants
This map is not based on geography or predetermined categories, but on similarity of opinion. Opinion Space is designed to 'depolarize' discussions by including all participants on a level playing field.
To participate in this experiment, see where you stand with respect to others around the world, and join the discussion, please visit Opinion Space at:
Future discussion questions will be on a range of
foreign policy issues.
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State Dept:
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/03/138326.htm
Response from Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab:
http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/03/global-opinions-visualized-the-state-departments-opinion-space/#more-13891
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BCNM Contact: bcnm@berkeley.edu, 510-495-3505
For updated information, and to join the bcnm mailing list: http://bcnm.berkeley.edu/
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