February 24, 2012

Speaker: Travis Kriplean

Trust in our democracy has been eroding, undercutting our ability to confront difficult collective problems. Meanwhile, our public discourse has become more fragmented and polarized. I argue that these issues are inextricable and that a necessary precondition for transcending them is to create communication technologies that empower publics to better find common ground upon which they can organize and take action. To inquire further, I have created two new interactive technologies, ConsiderIt and Reflect, that help facilitate large public discussions on the web by encouraging people to consider tradeoffs and listen to each other. Analysis of multiple field deployments illustrate that participants in the deployments used these technologies in normatively desirable ways, suggesting that the design direction may have wide traction amongst the public. Whether these and similar technologies can be combined to create more effective organizational structures that build trust and counter fragmentation over the long term remains to be seen.

About the Speaker:

Travis Kriplean is a postdoc in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, having just recently finished his PhD work in the same department. He creates new ways for people to discuss political issues, such as Reflect and the Living Voters Guide. In the past, he has contributed to UrbanSim, conducted research on how Wikipedians work together, and led the technical effort at Flash Volunteer. Outside of work, you can find him running in the mountains.