Virtual Voices

Over the course of two days, November 5th and November 6th in 2022, university students from across the country met for four hours to participate in Virtual Voices: Deliberation Across the Nation, a national Deliberative Polling® event where they discussed pressing issues facing American society at large and college campuses in particular. The event was hosted on the Stanford Online Deliberation Platform, a software program designed to facilitate productive deliberation. The platform contains an automated moderator which encourages participants to weigh the pros and cons of all proposals, monitors the participants’ language to maintain a civil atmosphere, and prompts all participants to contribute equally. Each day, participants engaged in an hour-long deliberation period in groups of between five and twelve students and a spirited hour-long plenary session with experts on the proposals being discussed.

This virtual event was the product of students enrolled in a DeliberativeDemocracy Practicum at Stanford University (COMMS 138/238), along with students from California State University, Northridge; Juniata College; Michigan State University; University of Houston, Downtown; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and the University of North Georgia. The class was led by Alice Siu, Thomas Schnaubelt, and Luke Terra of Stanford University.  Learn more about the final report here.

Photo credit: Kenny Eliason on Unsplash