The Web is changing the way citizens engage with the political agenda. Following the emergence of social media, political events are now surrounded by real-time reactions and analyses from viewers, political actors, mainstream media and other social organisations. We anticipate a future in which events such as election debates will be enriched by an unpredictable range of additional information streams from individuals and organisations, from additional live reaction as events unfold, to retrospectively added resources which can be more reflective, and hence possibly higher quality. The EPSRC Election Debate Visualisation (EDV) Project is aimed at developing an online video replay platform during the 2015 UK General Election, in which party leadership debates are linked to customisable visualisation channels to enhance viewers’ experience and hopefully encourage citizen engagement.

1. Collective Intelligence Meets the Political Agenda:
Enhancing Election Debates to Foster Viewers' Engagement
edv-project.net
Brian Plüss
Anna De Liddo
Simon Buckingham Shum

2. Simon Buckingham Shum
Professor
Learning Informatics
Anna De Liddo
Research Associate
Collective Intelligence
Paul Wilson
Lecturer
Design
Brian Plüss
Research Associate
Debate Analytics
Giles Moss
Lecturer
Media Policy
Stephen Coleman
Professor
Political Communication

3. Leeds & OU research
on the 2010 Election Debates

4. Univ. Leeds prior research into
public response to the
televised 2010 Election
Debates

5. Impact of the 3 debates on
voter intentions

6. Key findings…
• the British public appreciated the debates
• 2/3 said they’d learnt something new
• they seemed to energise first-time voters
• people would talk about them afterwards
(esp. younger voters)
• media coverage shifted from focusing on
the ‘game’ to the substance

7. Mapping the UK election TV debates
http://people.kmi.open.ac.uk/sbs/2010/04/real-time-mapping-election-tv-debates

8. Mapping the UK election TV debates
http://people.kmi.open.ac.uk/sbs/2010/04/real-time-mapping-election-tv-debates
Seeing Nick Clegg’s moves

9. The EDV Project
2013-2016

10. Focus groups motivate a set of
‘democratic entitlements’
• Ability to scrutinise the communicational strategies
adopted by the speakers, e.g. to detect intentional
confusion & manipulation
• Understand the meaning, background and
historical record of political claims
• Connect disparate arguments and claims with a
view to understanding their ramifications, esp.
negative
• Have a sense of involvement, presence and
voice, including telling their stories

11. The debate-viewing
experience today

12. The Clegg-Farage 2014 debates on UK-EU relations
LBC Radio, 26 March BBC, 2 April

13. The Clegg-Farage 2014 debates on UK-EU
relations

14. The Clegg-Farage 2014 debates on UK-EU
relations

15. The Clegg-Farage 2014 debates on UK-EU
relations

16. The Clegg-Farage 2014 debates on UK-EU
relations

17. The Clegg-Farage 2014 debates on UK-EU
relations

18. The Clegg-Farage 2014 debates on UK-EU
relations

19. Fact-checking
Full Fact (@FullFact)
Independent fact checking organisation
• https://fullfact.org/
• Knowledge base
• Live fact-checking
• …

20. BBC Live site

21. The Future of
Election Debate Replays

23. Replay
Platform

24. Debate Analytics and
Visualisations
• Argument Maps
• Rhetoric and Rules of the Game
Collaborations might make possible:
• Social Media Analytics
• Fact-Checking
• Topic Analysis

25. Argument Mapping and
Visualisation
http://compendiuminstitute.net

27. Collaborative
Knowledge
Production
Collaborative Web
Annotation and
Knowledge
mapping
Structured Online
Discussion and
Argumentation
Social Network
Analysis and
Visualization
Advanced Analytics for:
Attention mediation &
Deliberation diagnostic
http://catalyst-fp7.eu
Collective Argument Mapping and
Visualisation
Collective intelligence
for social innovation

28. Rhetoric and Rules of the Game
(Non-Cooperation in Dialogue)

29. Rhetoric and Rules of the Game
(Non-Cooperation in Dialogue)

30. Rhetoric and Rules of the Game
(Non-Cooperation in Dialogue)
• Rules of the game in terms of discourse
obligations
• Coding scheme for manual annotation of
transcripts
• Method for classifying annotated speaker
contributions wrt the rules of the game

31. Rhetoric and Rules of the Game
(Non-Cooperation in Dialogue)
• Rules of the game in terms of discourse
Dialogue Act
Initiating Responsive
Init-Inform Init-InfoReq Resp-Inform Resp-Accept Resp-Reject
On-Topic Off-Topic
Objective Subjective
Accurate Inaccurate
New Repeated
On-Topic Off-Topic
Neutral Loaded
Reasonable Unreasonable
New Repeated
Relevant Irrelevant
Objective Subjective
Accurate Inaccurate
New Repeated
Complete Incomplete
obligations
• Coding scheme for manual annotation of
transcripts
• Method for classifying annotated speaker
contributions wrt the rules of the game

32. Rhetoric and Rules of the Game
(Non-Cooperation in Dialogue)
Annotation Tool

33. Rhetoric and Rules of the Game
(Non-Cooperation in Dialogue)
• Rules of the game in terms of discourse
Dialogue Act
Initiating Responsive
Init-Inform Init-InfoReq Resp-Inform Resp-Accept Resp-Reject
On-Topic Off-Topic
Objective Subjective
Accurate Inaccurate
New Repeated
On-Topic Off-Topic
Neutral Loaded
Reasonable Unreasonable
New Repeated
Relevant Irrelevant
Objective Subjective
Accurate Inaccurate
New Repeated
Complete Incomplete
obligations
• Coding scheme for manual annotation of
transcripts
• Method for classifying annotated speaker
contributions wrt the rules of the game

34. Rhetoric and Rules of the Game
(Non-Cooperation in Dialogue)

35. Rhetoric and Rules of the Game
(Non-Cooperation in Dialogue)
• Is there room for crowdsourcing these?
Dialogue Act
Initiating Responsive
Init-Inform Init-InfoReq Resp-Inform Resp-Accept Resp-Reject
On-Topic Off-Topic
Objective Subjective
Accurate Inaccurate
New Repeated
On-Topic Off-Topic
Neutral Loaded
Reasonable Unreasonable
New Repeated
Relevant Irrelevant
Objective Subjective
Accurate Inaccurate
New Repeated
Complete Incomplete

36. Citizen Voice Channels
• Viewer Feedback
And later perhaps…
• Crowdsourced Fact-Checking
• Life stories

37. Citizen Voice Channels
• Viewer Feedback
And later perhaps…
• Crowdsourced Fact-Checking
• Life stories
• Everything?

38. What if viewers had a say?

39. What if viewers had a say?
‘Soft’ Feedback

40. What if viewers had a say?
‘Soft’ Feedback:
• Controlled and nuanced
• Voluntary and non-intrusive
• Enabling analytics and
visualisations

41. What if viewers had a say?
‘Soft’ Feedback:
• Controlled and nuanced
• Voluntary and non-intrusive
• Enabling analytics and
visualisations

42. A paper prototype: the flashcard experiment
• 18 flashcards in 3 categories
• Emotion
• Trust
• Information need
• 15 participants watched the
second Clegg-Farage debate live
• Video annotations in Compendium
(and Youtube!)

43. A paper prototype: the flashcard experiment
Emotion cards

44. A paper prototype: the flashcard experiment
Trust cards

45. A paper prototype: the flashcard experiment
Information need cards

46. A paper prototype: the flashcard experiment
• 18 flashcards in 3 categories
• Emotion
• Trust
• Information need
• 15 participants watched the
second Clegg-Farage debate live
• Video annotations in Compendium
(and Youtube!)

47. A paper prototype: the flashcard experiment

48. A paper prototype: the flashcard experiment
• 18 flashcards in 3 categories
• Emotion
• Trust
• Information need
• 15 participants watched the
second Clegg-Farage debate live
• Video annotations in Compendium
(and Youtube!)

49. A paper prototype: the flashcard experiment
Compendium Annotations
• Video mapping with modifications
• Annotations exported as XML,
CSV, etc. for analysis
• Youtube export for dissemination
• Replay of annotated videos

50. A paper prototype: the flashcard experiment
Qualtitative analysis:
• Engagement with the cards
• Ease of use
• Peer pressure
Quantitative analysis:
• Most/least frequently used cards
• Most/least frequently used categories
• Comparison with other feedback
elicitation methods

51. A paper prototype: the flashcard experiment
Outcomes:
• Test of hypothesis on categories
• Scalability
• Revision of the card deck
• Get insights for the design of the
platform feedback interface

52. A digital prototype

53. Debate Replay Platform
• Uniformly organise diverse sources
of information
• Support user preferences in terms
of:
• Visualisation channels
• Media navigation and indexing
• Allow for different kinds of audience
response

54. EDV
Replay
Platform

55. Arguments Fact checking
Generation of:
- Web content
- Analytics
- Open data
- ...
Repository
Replay Website
GO!
Argument Mapping
Open
Data
Video Transcripts
Twitter
Feeds
Soft
Feedback
System
Rhetoric and
Rules Checking
Debate
Rules
Non-Cooperation Topics
Open Data
Sentiment
Analysis
Party
Manifestos
Topic Analysis
Soft Feedback
Analysis
Fact-Checking
Soft Feedback
EDV Architecture Sketch
Features and functionalities:
• Gather data from sources
• Analyse data and produce visualisations
• Tailor augmentations to audiences and purposes
• Publish open data and replay interface
• Provide access to citizens and give them a ‘voice’

56. Thanks for your time!
Brian Plüss
Anna De Liddo
Simon Buckingham Shum
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, UK
http://edv-project.net/