Any legitimate ETM [Electronic Town Meeting] must be based on the New England town meetings of yore, when ordinary citizens debated the issues of the day and then voted yea or nay.
Predictor: Becker, Ted
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article about digital democracy for Wired magazine, Evan I. Schwartz quotes Ted Becker, a professor from Auburn University. Schwartz writes: ”Ted Becker, an Auburn University political science professor who has been running experiments on ETMs for 15 years, calls what [Ross] Perot does ‘electronic town manipulation.’ Becker also notes that what President Clinton has been calling ETMs are simply glorified versions of ‘Donahue,’ as there is no real interaction with viewers. Any legitimate ETM [Electronic Town Meeting], he believes, must be based on the New England town meetings of yore, when ordinary citizens debated the issues of the day and then voted yea or nay.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics
Subtopic: Democracy
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Direct Democracy: Are You Ready for the Democracy Channel?
Quote Type: Paraphrase
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.01/e.dem_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney