Re: Interactive Television and E-democracy

Civic Technology Community Group,

Here are three more ideas:


Firstly, individuals or teams of orators could debate one another while their live audiences interacted, in-part or entirely determining, in real-time, the individuals or teams winning each round of debate. Audiences could also both enter debate topics and upvote any already-entered debate topics which would interest them to see addressed by the show.

Secondly, inspired by AMA interviews [1], audience members could speak into their remote-control or smart-phone devices, having their natural-language questions transcribed, could manually type-in, or could otherwise select from already-entered questions using their input and interaction devices. Using artificial-intelligence technologies, semantic similarities between alternative phrasings of questions can be measured. These technologies would be useful for presenting already-entered questions to audiences for upvoting purposes and for collating questions gathered from audiences to provide to show hosts or moderators presenting audiences' questions to interviewees. In the United States of America, leaders who have participated in AMA interviews include: Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump.

Thirdly, podcasters could make use of real-time audience-interaction technologies and techniques to engage with both their live-viewing and later-viewing audiences in new and creative ways.


Thank you. Any thoughts on these ideas?


Best regards,
Adam Sobieski

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/IAmA

________________________________
From: Adam Sobieski <adamsobieski@hotmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2026 7:21 PM
To: public-civics@w3.org <public-civics@w3.org>
Subject: Interactive Television and E-democracy

Civic Technology Community Group,

Hello. There is a new series on Netflix called Star Search which enables its audience members to use their remote-control devices to vote, in real-time, to allocate points, or stars, to talented acts and performers.

Having experienced this convenient combination of video and real-time interactivity, I thought about its e-democracy applications. I envisioned virtual townhalls, political speeches, and fireside chats using these technologies, providing real-time opinion-polling capabilities. Journalists, news programs, too, could make use of real-time opinion-polling capabilities.

I wanted to share these ideas here. What do you think about emerging interactive smart-television technologies, real-time opinion polling capabilities, and e-democracy?


Best regards,
Adam Sobieski