http://bit.ly/9BPxPz
We've submitted E-Democracy.org's "Neighbors Issues Forums - Inclusive
Social Media" for the Reinhard Mohn Prize 2011 organized by the
Bertelsmann Stiftung which is focused on "Vitalizing Democracy through
Participation". The prize is 150,000 Euros.
From: http://bit.ly/9BPxPz
Neighbors Issues Forums - Inclusive Social Media
No. 89 | 13.08.2010
Location: United States, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota (Also UK
and New Zealand)
Time span: 2008 - Today
Initiated by: E-Democracy.org in association with
government-sanctioned neighborhood councils in Minneapolis and St.
Paul, Minnesota.
Neighbors Issues Forums support online citizen engagement in local
democracy and community. Our special Inclusive Social Media initiative
is pushing this work forward in low income, high immigrant
neighborhoods that are being left completely behind when it comes to
using the Internet for community and democratic participation. Our
Inclusive Social Media effort - http://e-democracy.org/inclusion - is
the specific program we are nominating within our global Issues Forum
network. This program is likely to expand to support inclusion of
participation actions across many more neighborhoods beyond to the two
pilot communities.
In the Pew Internet and American Life Project's "Neighbors Online"
study it found that 22% of American adults "talk digitally with
neighbors." For households with income over $75,000 the participation
rate is 39% and half that at 20% for just under $50,000 and only 12%
for less that $30,000. Further, among Internet users 15% who make over
$75,000 belong to the most intensive and community empowering
neighborhood e-mail lists and forums like our forums. In comparison,
only 2% of those with household incomes under $30,000 participate, 3%
up to $49,000, only 3% of Hispanics (both English and Spanish
Speaking) (while they don’t measure immigrants specifically, our guess
is that the percent would be even lower), and only 2% of rural
residents.
Our nominated initiative targets the least likely areas and
populations to be served by online engagement - the strong majority
East African Cedar Riverside - http://e-democracy.org/cr -
neighborhood in Minneapolis and the plurality ~40% Southeast Asian
(Hmong) with African-American (20%) and White (20%) Frogtown
neighborhood in St. Paul - http://e-democracy.org/frogtown
We also host a forum in a lower income, Native American majority forum
called Cass Lake Leech Lake - http://e-democracy.org/cl - in northern
rural Minnesota. This was part of our previous "Rural Voices"
initiative where we expanded to four rural Minnesota communities with
the support of the Blandin Foundation. Those forums remain open with
support, like almost all of our network, from local volunteers.
The lessons from these efforts need to be shared widely. Inclusive
outreach must be spread across online engagement efforts universally,
or the harsh reality is that efforts to use the Internet in governance
will bring anti-democratic results and simply raise the voices of the
already powerful in society.
Lot's more at:
http://bit.ly/9BPxPz
With your help we can make this the most rated and commented upon
initiative in the bunch. Because our government connection (required
for submission) is via government-recognized and funded neighborhood
associations, our submission is likely the most grassroots in the
bunch. Let's show them what grassroots can do online!
Steven Clift
E-Democracy.org
Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org
Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy
New Tel: +1.612.234.7072