Independent offers readers an original way to debate key issues

Posted by Emma Heald on March 12, 2009 at 11:26 AM

The Independent reported that it is asking its readers to work with the Debategraph community to help develop a "comprehensive map" of climate change issues that will confront world leaders at negotiations for a new international climate change treaty. Formal negotiations on Kyoto's successor start in less than three weeks.

Debategraph describes its goal as "to make the best arguments on all sides of any public debate freely available to all and continuously open to challenge and improvement by all," using argument visualisation and web-based collaborative editing. A diagram or map is created with the key questions about an issue, and then users can click on these to enter sub-maps, and click on different buttons to delve deeper and deeper into each topic.

The climate change map poses questions such as "What global strategy should humanity adopt?" and "Does climate change matter?" Independent readers have participated in compiling similar maps before, on themes such as "What should Obama do next?" The Independent also encourages its readers to keep up to date with their debates via its blog Independent Minds and its Twitter Feed @TheIndyDebate.

The Independent's collaboration with Debategraph is an interesting attempt to get its readers more truly involved with internationally-relevant issues of the moment. One of the great advantages of online news is the chance for vastly increased reader participation, as well as the possibility of having interactive graphics such as these. No longer do publications need to rely solely on their journalists' contributions to public interest debates. Other online publications are calling for participation from their readers in different ways; for example the Huffington Post recently asked its readers to help crowdsource the US Senate Stimulus Bill.

Source: Independent