If democratic innovations are meant to strengthen democracy, they must also be visible to the people they serve. Yet these initiatives often struggle to reach audiences beyond their participants. This workshop series explores how that can change.
Democratic innovations such as citizens’ assemblies, participatory budgets and deliberative panels are increasingly used to involve citizens in public decision-making. Yet despite their growing importance, they often struggle to attract sustained media attention or reach audiences beyond those already engaged.
To explore this challenge, Smarter Together is organising a series of three collaborative workshops bringing together democratic innovators, communication professionals, journalists, researchers and public officials. Through collective brainstorming and practical experimentation, participants will explore how democratic innovations can become more visible, more understandable and more attractive to wider audiences.
The workshops will take place at Smarter Together’s offices in Brussels and will work with two fictional cases rooted in Belgian realities. This approach allows participants to test ideas in a credible setting while exploring solutions that might be difficult to experiment with in real-world processes.
Wednesday 3 June, 17:30–20:30 | French
How can democratic innovations be designed from the outset to generate public interest, media attention and meaningful stories? Participants will explore how communication can be integrated into the design of a process itself, rather than added afterwards.
Thursday 25 June, 17:30–20:30 | English
How can we develop better narratives, formats, channels and communication tactics to make democratic innovations better known? Building on the ideas generated during the first workshop, participants will imagine and test concrete communication approaches.
Can democratic innovations become more visible without becoming more superficial? In this final workshop we will stress-test the most promising ideas developed during the series. Participants will assess their feasibility and their compatibility with key deliberative principles, identifying approaches that strengthen both visibility and deliberative quality.
To sign up, contact [email protected]
This workshop series is organised by Smarter Together as part of our project on Media & Democratic Innovations, which explores how democratic innovations can be communicated more effectively, understood more widely and covered more consistently by the media.
The project is supported by the National Lottery Fund for Democracy, managed by the King Baudouin Foundation.
Interested in learning more or getting involved? Contact Johanne Monfret at [email protected]
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