The Citizens' Agenda

Event and Ticketing Details

Dates & Times

Wednesday 04 September
7:45 PM - 9:30 PM

Location

The Wheeler Centre

176 Little Lonsdale Street Melbourne Victoria 3000

Get directions

In 2010, ‘new journalism’ guru Jay Rosen suggested a radical new form of election reporting – as opposed to the usual personality-based ‘horse race journalism’.

Four to six months before the election begins, the media should ask citizens not who they would vote for, but which issues they want the candidates to discuss. The media would then pursue these issues.

The Citizens’ Agenda is a social-media based research project that puts Rosen’s idea into action, run by the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism and social media website OurSay. It aims to encourage political engagement by opening the process to the people.

Voters in ten key electorates around Australia – a mix of marginal and safe seats, urban, rural and regional – will have a chance to directly influence debate and media coverage, by posting questions on the OurSay website and voting for the questions others have contributed. The questions voted most crucial will be put directly to local candidates, in a series of ‘town hall’ style meetings.

Join moderator Andrew Holden and five candidates for the seat of Melbourne (currently held by Adam Bandt) – Bandt (Greens), Sean Armistead (Liberal), Cath Bowtell (Labor), Michael Bayliss (Stable Population), Royston Wilding (Secular Party) and James Mangisi (Sex Party) as the top questions are posed, live.

Be part of this revolutionary example of democracy in action – and journalism as driven by the people, for the people.

Podcast

Missed out, or couldn’t get there? Listen to the audio recording of the full event: mp3 (99 minutes, 47.5mb)