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The Center for Communication and Civic Engagement is dedicated to understanding communication processes and media technologies that facilitate positive citizen involvement in politics and social life. CCCE is located in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington, and co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science. Students and faculty at the center work together on original research, new educational programs, policy recommendations, and Web-based citizen resources. Take a look at some of our projects.
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CCCE Collaborates in NSF Grant to Develop Technologies for Public Engagement and Deliberation
Public engagement and deliberation play key roles in democratic society. Yet, there are significant problems in both of these areas at present in America. Civic engagement is uneven at best, and thoughtful public deliberation about major issues is often displaced either by apathy or shrill and extreme voices.
We propose to investigate the design, implementation, deployment, and testing of innovative ways for citizens and government to communicate. The aim is to achieve measurable improvements in citizen engagement, participation, and deliberation, and to enable public officials to gain insight from always-available and readily interpretable citizen input. To test our ideas, we have the enthusiastic participation of the Seattle City Council, the Seattle Department of Information Technology, and various civic organizations as partners in this research. This project is a collaboration with Alan Borning and Travis Kriplean of the UW Computer Science Department, and Deen Freelon from the Department of Communication.


