Designing public spaces for democratic stories

ABSTRACT

We argue that civic discourse can also be public storytelling and propose three reasons to consider this relationship: stories' relational nature - their ability to represent uniquely human perspectives and emotions - may ameliorate aspects of citizens' disinterest in civic life; the ability of stories to represent both individual perspectives and cultural norms may offer a form of public opinion that is relevant on both personal and collective scales; and the inherent transparency of familiar narrative forms may offer new ways to explicate unfamiliar aspects civic discourse. We propose a relationship between civic discourse and public storytelling and review one system called TexTales in relation to a developing model of "democratic stories.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.1 Multimedia Information Systems

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces

General Terms:
Design

Keywords:
community installation, democratic stories, participatory design, public opinion