What Does a User-Friendly Society Mean

Name: Pascoe J. Elvin

Institution: University of Westminster

Country of Residence and Nationality: England, British

Age at the time of the conference: 38

E-mail address:

Keywords: Television, Website, Debate

Theme: Citizenship

Question Time: TV Debate Goes Online

EMTEL Conference Paper

23-26th April 2003

London School of Economics, London, UK

by Pascoe J. ELVIN

DO NOT CITE

Introduction

In its online conference material, EMTEL poses the following questions:

*What does a user-friendly society mean?

*What are the facilitators of, and the obstacles to, its realisation?

*What are the consequences for markets and policy making?

It is a contention of this paper that a user-friendly society must have as a central plank of its construction means via which its’ government can work out with its’ citizenry how it can best meet the needs of this public. Aside from maintaining a constant statistical exercise to this end, such a society must seek to foster deep, open-ended dialogue with all, or as near as is practically possible, its people. These, and the generation of sufficient wealth to meet its needs, are the only ways in which a society can aspire to the status of user-friendly in the practice of contemporary representative politics. It follows then that answering the first of the above questions entails reaching some understanding of structures that underpin a society that, if not yet entirely user-friendly, contribute towards that end. As my own area of interest is online debate especially in comparison to the offline, I would like to cannibalise the question in a way that is still very germane to the overall topic:

*What does a user-friendly PUBLIC DEBATE mean?

*What are the facilitators of, and the obstacles to, its realisation?

*What are the consequences for markets and policy making?

The ideal user–friendly public debate would consist of all citizens wishing to take part forming a representative public and having free and unhindered access to a debating space and the right to speak in it without undue interference. Here, they would be able to discuss matters of concern at sufficient length to serve a number of potential purposes. The first of these however, the legitimation of any outcome as a law-making product of a majority consensus is a process that most representative democracies have tended to use sparingly, most commonly in referenda on single, tightly defined topics. To demand that a quorum of the public spends time on such a legislative process breaks with the logic of the division of labour in modern democracies and is also problematic when poor decisions are seen to be made. For the public cannot remove itself from office or be held in contempt for making poor decisions. Most actually existing societies would also have great difficulty in forming a true quorum, social exclusion being the ongoing problem it is. For it is the “wishing to take part” that is very thorny. Exclusion always cuts both ways in that those on the outside may be deprived of many things both material and in regard to their rights and the state is deprived of the crucial input of those excluded.

Using debate for the important but nebulous matter of will-formation is a more practical means by which government can be reflective of its voters needs and aspirations. Sometimes this less formal type of discussion will result in an acknowledgment that the subject requires more research and reflection on the part of participants before an informed position can be reached. More often, public debate is a never-ending clash of ideas that find representation in a wide variety of public settings. In the case of my own fieldwork, we will find some tentative indications of how this works in the British Broadcasting Corporations programme Question Time and its extension online with follow-up debate on its web site.

The facilitators and obstacles to this process must be: members of the public themselves, social institutions that may foster or repress such debate, for example, the police, educational establishments and finally media outlets such as the letters columns of newspapers, television discussion programmes and latterly online forums such as newsgroups and real-time chat rooms. This paper seeks to use primary data from fieldwork in a particular set of the media, old and new, to provide some answers and many new directions to take in answering the last of the three questions posed above. As will be shown, differences in attitude amongst providers and users, the nature of the media technology and the fact that these channels must maintain sources of finance, all have a great and demonstrable influence on the resulting debates. These are differences that we as researchers with potential influence on policy-making must be aware when setting out our evaluations of these potentially crucial components of the user-friendly society.

Finally I would like to present the reader with a potentially surprising hypothesis given how much time and effort in academic and government research has gone into the problem of bridging the ‘digital divide’: Today, when it comes to public debate, it is easier for many European citizens to cross the digital divide than it is to cross the ‘analogue’ divide of public life.

“go to our website where you can carry on tonight’s debate and to

vote on the subject you’d most like to see discussed next week”.[1]

Constructing a TV Debate

Every other television show broadcast in Britain seems to end with such an invitation yet online debate in general was almost unheard of only ten years ago. There are now literally hundreds of web “discussion” pages linked to television output based in Britain alone. This paper discusses one of these new “spin off” sites as a representative of the TV anchored but online web forum: the BBC’s Question Time. Actually taking part in such a discussion is an obvious way into an understanding of its own culturally determined practices and to this end I applied to and was invited to participate in the recording of one debate on March 14th 2002 as an audience member. . . Considering both the on and offline manifestation of Question Time (QT) from the perspective of its user-friendliness first means documenting the crucial matters of how the audience/participants are chosen, schooled in order to help produce the debate and the dramaturgical and performance aspects of the TV debate itself as a form of theatre. This paper will then discuss how the programme makers attempt to follow up the debate with the help of online technology. This will also entail the introduction of the statistical methods I have used to assess all the data sets under discussion and materials garnered from an interview with a key BBC employee working with its online “communities”.

In the first instance the audience of QT is self-selected. Their participation is solicited within the program itself, on the web site and other forms of advertising. During the debate itself, the Chair, David Dimbleby (DD) encourages those who are interested in joining the audience to write, email through the web site or phone in to a call logging answer phone service for a chance to be in the audience. The selection process therefore owes a debt to the methodology of the executive pillar of government. Unlike, for example, jury service which is chosen, randomly from the electoral role, debaters, like prospective members of parliament, must first put themselves forward and then submit themselves to a further selection process. As such it is then replicating at the selection stage the modus operandi of representative democratic politics rather than direct modes where the citizen and the law-maker are indivisible. In the case of QT this is not debate “of the people and by the people” but of the people and by the TV company which, as we shall see adds a whole new dimension to topical, political debate. Just as with the digital divide the first step to crossing the analogue is to possess the skills and self belief necessary to put oneself forward.

At this stage of the research project, I was not impressed by the user-friendly-ness of the application process. I had tried and failed to secure tickets online and was rejected at the last moment from one show requested by telephone due to space restrictions. Of such mishaps is democratic participation made. It is one of the particular features of offline debates that they have to happen in specific physical spaces regulated by limits placed on the debating arena itself. These include safety features such as ventilation and fire precautions and in this case the fixed number of seats available which is determined by the particular needs of the space as a makeshift TV studio. Not getting in to the audience on the first attempts created the impression that this was a prestigious event for which demand for tickets to take part was great. Taking part in QT was on a competitive, first come, first serve basis. This had the effect of re-focussing my desire to take part in the debate. Perhaps again I should parallel this felt experience with the process of selection as a parliamentary candidate. This does not only depend on the readiness of the candidate to carry out his/her allotted tasks but also their conformity with a set of selection criteria.

Although those wishing to take part do choose to put themselves forward, the next stage of the selection process passes out of their hands into the TV production company. Potential participants are telephoned a few days before the debate they have applied to join and are asked a number of questions. This is a form of vetting to ‘get the demographic balance right”. The questions asked are:

What is your occupation?

How old are you?

Have you participated in the show before?

Do you belong to a particular political party?

How did you vote in the last election?

To what ethnic group do you belong?

What are the particular issues that interest you?

Will you be happy to ask a question to the panel?

Do you know the location of the TV studio?

This is a crucial stage of the construction of a “representative” audience but of what does this actually consist in a program such as QT? Does its demographic mix have to reflect the national make-up in terms of race, age etc? The problem that this last question addresses is an age old one in democratic practice from Ancient Athens through England’s Rotten Borough’s, to allegations surrounding the 1999 election for London Mayor: Packing. That the program makers are concerned about this representativeness is clear both from the above interview. QT could also be in danger of over representing the town versus the country. In its’ defence, one could at least say that BBC enjoys close to 100% coverage for its terrestrial signal so at least the invitation to take part could be seen in remote locations. Nevertheless, however it is enforced ‘getting the demographics right’ could be prejudicial to a given individuals aspiration to take part.

Both from the perspective of making “good telly” and having a lively debate, it is poisonous to have in the debating chamber too many of those who have little or no interest in taking part but are present for other reasons. These free riders could simply include those wanting to be seen on TV or following a particular participant. During the recording I noticed a pair of young women sitting in front of me who seemed particularly animated when the comedian Harry Enfield spoke. These were, I suspect, fans who had put themselves through the vetting process in order to spend an hour in the company of their hero. Likewise I was surprised to see a small queue forming after the recording to speak and request an autograph from the Chair. None of these mentioned had taken active part in the debate except perhaps to show their appreciation of the bon mots of their respective debating gladiators. They may then have added to the volume of applause at points but had not enriched the argumentation with comments, questions or rebuttals. This is a particular effect of Television as a spectacle that I venture would not be traceable to online discussions that do not have celebrities included in the media package. In some ways this is an ancient problem. Charismatic nobles in ancient Athenian democracy found they could influence the polity by the attractiveness of their presence and the stylishness of their pronouncements rather than the strength of their arguments. It was for this reason that Socrates came into open conflict with the Sophists who concentrated on teaching persuasiveness rather than truth. In taking part in a TV debate then, one is not only competing for space with fellow debaters but also those who merely want to be in the presence of their ‘hero’.

This is what the programme makers are surely trying to avoid with the question about putting a question. Fear of being put on the spot on national TV should surely discourage many viewers inclined to attend for ‘fan’ reasons. Asking a question to professionals, well-versed in public speaking, would certainly put off the less determined free riders. I was already aware that everyone in the audience would be required to produce and submit two questions for consideration and so was not surprised by this query. However, this is never made clear in the programme’s entreaties for potential audience members to come forward. Is it considered that explaining this would be too time–consuming, irrelevant or would put off potential, good participants? It might also be interesting to know how many people on average spoil their question cards as we could look upon this as an indication that such MEM are not present to debate but to gawp.

On the back of the ticket under the heading “THIS TICKET IS ISSUED SUBJECT TO THE FOLLOWING CONDITIONS” followed by a legalistic paragraph listing conditions:

The ticket is not transferable to any other person

Children are not admitted

No photographs or other recordings are allowed in the studio

The production company are not responsible for travelling or other expenses incurred

The production company (MBC) holds all rights to the recordings

MBC has the right to refuse admission, cancel the performance or change it’s timing and duration

A request for the ticket holder to follow directions of MBC/BBC employees

The first of these conditions clearly carries both security conditions and import for audience balance. For if the ticket were able to enter the market, it would not be held by someone who had been through the vetting procedure described above. It would appear however that the security element is not held at a premium because those appearing at the TV studio to join the audience are only checked by name, no one had to produce a substantial piece of identification for the two queues I witnessed. Indeed, at Ipswich a man in front of me explained that his wife had been unable to come and he had brought a friend in her stead. They were ushered in without further ado, proving that the ticket certainly is informally transferable.

In British History there have been very few example of physical attacks on the platform of a political meeting and the laxness of this level of security encourages the belief that the arrangements for QT are determined by this cultural reality. However the frisking and metal detector that all audience members go through would certainly make it less likely that a culturally aberrant attack would result in any fatalities. This does underline an oft neglected fact that even in a long established democracy everyday practice of this mode of organisation does have to be protected by security measures. I saw quite small metal objects such as a nail file tagged and bagged for later collection by audience members. Even this measure could potentially mitigate members of certain religious groups whose faith requires them to carry about their person objects that could be construed as weapons. Non-co-locational presence does away with the necessity of a physical search.

There could be several reasons for barring children from the programme. Minors do not have the right to vote, placing them into the same category of other types of residents who do not have a direct influence on politics through the ballot box. Like criminals, children are deemed unfit to make a rational determination although in the former, dis-enfranchisement might be seen as a punishment rather than a lack of mental development. Adult citizens are conceived to have a duty to obey the laws of their own land in return for the State’s protection. Children nevertheless are also deemed more likely to transgress Laws and norms generally and this makes them undesirable as an audience for political debate. “Never work with animals or children” W. C. Fields quipped and although it is the lack of sentimentality that still amuses, I suspect that his maxim was quite practical for the unpredictability of both make them problematic for highly controlled activities such as Film or Television making. We have seen so far how the production company is intent on forming the audience in quite a distinct way in which children have no part.