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Small Group Dialogue

Release 1.0 EContent The New York Times MSNBC.com Washington Post The Boston Globe LA Times

Release 1.0, July/August 2004
Politics on the Net: A Three-Way Digital Divide, by Christina Koukkos (Adobe Acrobat, 60KB)

Encouraging dialogue and political discourse online where "multiple competing ideas and voices can flourish."

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EContent, July 2002
Keeping a Civil Tongue: Web Lab's Plan to Extinguish Flame Wars, by Steve Smith

While the rest of us tended to yell at each other online throughout much of the late 90s, the New York Internet think tank Web Lab was evolving a better way...

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The New York Times, September 26 , 2002
Vox Populi, Online and Downtown

Less chronicled is the experience of 800 people who could not make it to the Javits Center that day but instead convened over the Internet over a two-week period to discuss many of the same questions, at more length and perhaps with more nuance . . . the 10,000-odd messages produced by the online groups are also being scrutinized as a model for civic engagement on local and national issues...

      Since Sept 11, my need to talk and to share has been acute, not just for me, but for so many. Always, I lament: If only we had that giant town square, where each night after dinner everyone could gather. Instead of reverting to the TV set, revert to each other to check in and express ourselves, try to make sense of it all
The truth is, we do have a town square...

Washington Post, February 1, 2001
MTV: Battling Hate Online

Groups like Web Lab are building new kinds of Web forums designed to foster a more useful debate....

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The Boston Globe, September 17, 1999
A Safe Place to Sound off about Race, by Patti Hartigan

      ...None of these people have ever met in person, but for the past week, they have been revealing emotional details about their personal lives in a unique online forum. Spurred by the engaging PBS documentary series, ''An American Love Story,'' these intimate strangers have volunteered to participate in an ongoing dialogue about race, relationships, prejudice, and other provocative topics. It's an experiment masterminded by a New York operation called Web Lab, which aims to show that the Internet, despite its crass commercialism, can foster intelligent communication among diverse groups.

LA Times, October 3, 1999
Dealing With Differences, by Lynell George

      ...Since the 10-hour documentary "An American Love Story" aired Sept. 12-16 on PBS, the "lovestories" Web site has hosted a series of sustained, intimate group dialogues. The hope: to continue and expand discussion about the series and the thornier issues of race, relationships and differences that the series raised. 
     ...The resulting on-point discussion can be rare in the anonymous and newish world of the Web. But the film, and topics that bloom from it, provoked a free flow of ideas, advice and self-searching. 

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