[liberationtech] Fwd: BCNM and U.S. State Department announce collaboration

[Terry Winograd]

The Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM) and the
U.S. Department of State announce:

Opinion Space:
A Global Experiment in Open Dialogue

http://state.gov/opinionspace

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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U.S. Dept of State Media Note
Washington, DC
March 15, 2010

The Department of State today launches "Opinion
Space", an interactive site hosted on State.gov
that seeks to foster global conversations on
foreign affairs.

"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, developed jointly by the Department
of State and the University of California at
Berkeley's Center for New Media (BCNM), is
accessible to anyone around the world.

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:

http://state.gov/opinionspace

Future discussion questions will be on a range of
foreign policy issues.

-------------------------------------------------
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 at berkeley.edu, 510-495-3505
For updated information, and to join the
bcnm mailing list: http://bcnm.berkeley.edu/
-------------------------------------------------


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