Our democracy is a complex political system made of an intricate web of institutions, interest groups, individual leaders, and citizens that are all connected in countless ways. Every attempt to influence and improve some aspect of this complex system produces a ripple of other reactions. To identify the root causes of problems we want to address, find intervention points, and design strategies to affect positive change, we use a methodology called systems mapping. We create systems maps in collaboration with broad and inclusive sets of stakeholders, and use them to design and then assess our grantmaking strategies. They are intended to provide a shared language, creating new opportunities for dialogue, negotiation, and ideas that can improve the health of our democracy.
This systems map describes how digital tools and technologies have transformed our public square in recent years for better and for worse. The flow of news, information and civic discourse is now largely governed by five major companies: Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, and Apple. Following numerous high-profile scandals, the public has grown concerned about issues of discrimination, mis/disinformation, online hate and harassment, lack of transparency, voter suppression, and foreign interference in our elections through the platforms. The platforms’ lackluster response to these crises suggests that we need to build a strong movement to force the platforms to become accountable not just to their shareholders, but to the public.
The map consists of three interlocking loops.
Platform Power & Profitability describes how the platforms have come to dominate digital communications at the expense of the public square’s overall health and transparency.
Discriminatory Targeting lays out the ways in which platform tools have been used to weaken our democracy, spread hateful content and disinformation, and have exacerbated longstanding racial, economic, and gender inequalities.
The Decline of Commercial News shows why and how news publishers have been unable to compete with platforms for attention and profits in the digital age, and what the loss of journalism means for the public square.
Voting is the foundation of a healthy democracy. Elections are fundamentally about everyday citizens expressing their views and participating in government. Legitimate election outcomes are predicated on a process that is free and fair for all qualified citizens. The American electorate deserves a modern, voter-centric election system that runs efficiently and inspires trust in electoral outcomes.
As we learned during the 2000 presidential election, problems with election administration can have serious ramifications on the public’s perceptions of electoral fairness. More recently, concerns over foreign influence, coupled with unsubstantiated allegations of widespread “rigging” during the 2016 presidential election, called the resiliency of the election system — and the legitimacy of the outcome — into question.
Despite these challenges, we believe that the election system remains resilient. In a time with a renewed spotlight on electoral fairness, and in consideration of the ongoing challenges that states face, the Democracy Fund seeks to better understand our election system’s most salient dynamics. Starting with the framing question, “to understand the election system in the United States, you need to understand…” we used systems thinking to identify three key factors that create pressures for change, both positive and negative: “effective election administration,” “public trust in elections,” and “decision to vote.”
The American election system is decentralized — as long as there is no conflict with federal requirements, localities have a significant amount of flexibility in the way elections are run. Election processes are determined by local, state, and federal requirements; administrative rules; and rapidly changing technology. Since election rules are highly varied among states and local jurisdictions, systems thinking helps us grapple with the complex nature of elections and allows us to find common occurrences that apply to every election.
Improvements to the election system will require legal and administrative changes, technological upgrades, and partnerships between election officials, lawmakers, and other key stakeholders. Many of these stakeholders were invited to participate in the generation and iteration of our Election Administration & Voting systems map. It is our hope that the map reflects our thinking about the election system and serves as a guide for Democracy Fund to do our part to improve the voter experience.
Understanding Our Analysis
Elections are about everyday citizens expressing their views and shaping their government. Effective election administration, high public trust in elections, and high levels of voter engagement are signs of a healthy election system and a healthy democracy. By “effective election administration,” we are referring to a process that balances security with access, and embraces policies that are well-implemented and voter-centric.
Election administration in the United States is ripe for dramatic improvement through common-sense reform. However, election policy is also uniquely prone to political gamesmanship, i.e., political actors may attempt to manipulate the rules in a partisan fashion. Policy changes that are perceived to influence an election outcome or otherwise shift political power will likely perpetuate a vicious cycle of election law gamesmanship. Whether intentional or not, election law gamesmanship ultimately makes it difficult for election officials to administer effective election processes.
Voter Registration
Two main challenges necessitate voter registration reform. First, voters might not understand or be able to easily register to vote. Second, administrators face challenges processing and maintaining accurate voter registration data.
Voter registration is the basis for all election planning. In nearly every state and jurisdiction, eligible citizens may only vote after registering. Registration can also serve as a potential barrier for those who:
Do not understand the requirements and timing of registration,
Do not know they are not registered,
Do not know how or when to update their registration record, or
Encounter administrative hurdles, e.g., not having the appropriate documents required by the state.
Under federal law, a state’s chief election official must maintain a statewide voter registration list. Registration roll accuracy is vital because election officials must determine voters’ eligibility, assign voters to precincts, and make critical decisions about the type and number of resources that are needed to serve voters, among other things. Because election planning depends so heavily on registration, inaccurate rolls can cause inefficiencies throughout the system, potentially decreasing voter confidence in election outcomes. A bad Election Day experience might even cause some people to stop voting altogether.
List maintenance is an enormous challenge for at least two reasons. First, people are more mobile than ever before and many voters do not update their address at the elections department. Second, the diverse sources of registration forms can lead to errors. Registration forms come from voters, motor vehicles departments, public service agencies, political parties, and third party registration groups. Though many states offer online voter registration, many state agencies and groups still use paper forms. So while handwritten forms offer another option for people to register, they also increase the potential for errors in the state registration rolls.
Election Official Education
As public servants, election officials must possess the technological acumen, public relations expertise, and adaptive decision-making skills essential to navigate our rapidly-changing environment. Most election officials receive regular professional training at the state and county levels. Though many are successfully implementing innovative practices, it is unclear to what extent these training programs create a culture of adaptation in election management.
Because election administration in the United States is decentralized, the availability and rigor of these training programs vary widely by state. Additionally, limited resources and regional cultural dynamics can make knowledge-sharing difficult. Although several tools offering best practices and assistance outside of state training programs exist, it is unclear if election officials effectively know about or access those resources. Furthermore, travel costs and other considerations can hinder networking opportunities for local election officials. Over time, these and other dynamics identified in our systems map can make it more difficult for election officials to maintain high-quality election planning.
Election Management
Election management refers to the decisions and processes for planning and administering elections. Election officials take steps to ensure that Election Day runs smoothly, even in the face of ongoing challenges. Election official capacity to meet voter needs depends not only on available budget, but also on their access to new ideas from professional education and training, use of line management tools and other technology, and their ability to collect and use election data.
Many election officials grapple with budget constraints, which directly impacts their ability to successfully plan and execute voter-centric elections. Resources — financial and otherwise — affect an official’s ability to, for example, purchase reliable voting equipment or offer early voting options. With insufficient resources, voters might experience long lines or an equipment malfunction. These experiences may also cause some voters to lose confidence in the election system.
Technology Innovation
Technology captures a large amount of very useful election data that officials must know how to harness. These data have the potential to provide election officials with key insights into voter behavior and organizational processes. Because elections are subject to a high level of scrutiny, there are also opportunities for officials to use these data transparently for the public’s benefit.
Election technology includes the products of for-profit voting machine vendors, as well as the digital tools created by academics and civic technologists. For many election officials, it is extremely difficult to keep up with the latest innovations. Some jurisdictions may be hindered by the cost of new equipment and some officials might find it risky to try new technologies in high salience elections. Adoption of new election technology is rapid in some respects (e.g., ePollbooks), and very slow in others (e.g., ballot on demand tools), which indicates that more information and education about these resources are required.
Importantly, adoption of new technology may impact voters’ perceptions about elections. First, many Americans are already exposed to the latest technological advances in other areas of their lives and may come to expect the same from election officials. Second, voter confidence in election outcomes is influenced by the voter experience. Lack of innovation or technology that fails could have a negative downstream impact on the voter experience.
Voting Equipment
A handful of for-profit companies build, sell, lease, and service voting equipment for the 10,000 election jurisdictions in the United States. Because elections are relatively low priority when compared to other budgetary considerations, most election jurisdictions will invariably rely on the vendor’s service contract to keep machines running for as long as possible. Reliance on these contracts, episodic purchases or upgrades to voting equipment, and the very limited marketplace for voting machines, have disincentivized major innovation among vendors.
Stories about voting machine failure, whether personal experience or not, can shake voters’ confidence in election outcomes. Continued reliance on service agreements and market stagnation increase the possibility of voting equipment failure or decertification. When reported widely, the impact of a machine malfunction in one jurisdiction can cause a negative ripple effect on the entire system.
Integrity and Security
Election integrity and security are vital components of a healthy system. Election officials create and implement a wide variety of security protocols and procedures, which range from pre-logic and accuracy testing of voting equipment to the post-election canvass. These processes encompass both the physical and electronic security of election materials and data, and are put into place for at least two reasons:
To ensure that ballots are protected and counted to the fullest extent of the law, and
To maintain the privacy of qualified individuals’ identifying information, to the extent that the law allows.
There are several advocacy groups focused heavily on either the voter access or election security aspects of election integrity. At the end of the day, election officials must be able to strike a balance: create procedures that maintain system integrity without compromising the rights of voters.
Real threats test the integrity of the American election system. The recent news about unauthorized, unsuccessful attempts to digitally infiltrate statewide voter registration lists have come to the fore and put confidence in our election processes at risk. And while election officials have responded quickly to reduce cybersecurity risks and prevent future attempts at hacking, the high salience nature of these stories drowns out the important work that election officials do, which potentially reduces the public’s trust in elections.
Ease of Voting
In a 2014 report, after determining that voters need more opportunities to cast a ballot, the Presidential Commission on Election Administration recommended that states expand opportunities to vote before Election Day. Early voting periods allow campaigns and advocates to bank their base early so that they can concentrate on fewer voters for Election Day. As campaigns encourage more citizens to cast ballots early, pressure builds on election officials to increase access to early voting.
Currently, 37 states and the District of Columbia allow early in-person voting, no-excuse absentee voting, or both, and three states conduct elections exclusively by mail. Although early voting can reduce the obstacles to engagement for many people, it can also negatively affect voter confidence (in-person voters tend to report higher confidence levels than those who cast their ballots early by mail). Furthermore, as more voting options are made available, the financial, time, and personnel cost of election administration increases.
Voter Engagement
The decision to vote is complex. It is affected by “individual resources” (e.g., education, income, political interest), “social resources” (e.g., civic memberships, church attendance), and the efficacy of voter mobilization by organizations. These complex dynamics, combined with notions of confidence in government, form a tight bundle of social relationships often referred to as social capital. Elections build social capital and enrich and improve civic life. Higher levels of participation can lead to higher trust in government and in others. But at the same time, Americans have become less engaged with civic associations and have less trust in government; as result, they are less likely to vote.
Making voting easier by changing laws, policies, and processes can increase voter turnout, but it’s also important for citizens to think that elections — and government — matter to their daily lives. Voters can get basic public information about elections from multiple sources. However, basic information is not designed to help voters understand why an election matters. Campaigns, advocates, and media give context to the issues or offices on a ballot. The type of election (presidential, primary, state, local) is also key to understanding interest. The perceived importance of the offices and issues up for election are colored by voter attitudes, media attention, and peer pressure, among other factors.
Education About Elections
Making the effort to cast a ballot may seem small, but for many people the personal cost of participation might be high. And while early voting has made voting more convenient, a potential voter must take time and effort to arrive at the polling place, research ballot information, stand in line, and cast the ballot. The closer the election, the more critical basic information about voting becomes. If information is hard to obtain, it is hard to get voters interested in an election.
Citizens might not engage in civic life if they believe that government is hyper-partisan, ineffective, or irrelevant. Those who have a low capacity and tolerance for political debate may ignore competing information about the candidates and issues. Additionally, campaign behavior may make disengaged citizens feel even more disconnected from government and politics. Finally, our research suggests that partisan in-fighting turns people off from participation.
Barriers to Voting
Intentional and unintentional barriers to voting can arise through legal, legislative, and administrative decision making. When critical decisions are before lawmakers, judges, or election officials, it is vital that they weigh the impact those changes could have on discrete groups of voters, especially racial and ethnic minorities who have been subjected to purposeful disenfranchisement. Changes to election and voting laws may also have negative effects on women, persons with disabilities, individuals with language-access needs, residents in rural communities, and members of the overseas and armed services communities.
Litigation is one means of defending voters from the legal and procedural changes that negatively impact voting rights. Legal challenges require courts to evaluate a complex set of facts, laws, and procedures very quickly. In some cases, these suits are settled out of court, with issues partially or wholly alleviated. Even when well intended and especially when suits are brought close to Election Day, litigation and subsequent court decisions may give election administrators little time to make the mandated adjustments and could cause confusion for voters.
Election Law Gamesmanship
Changes to election laws and procedures are often viewed as efforts to game the election system and hurt political opponents. Regardless of actual motivation, the perceived intent of gamesmanship reduces the likelihood of bipartisan cooperation, undermines much-needed modernization efforts, and stalls politically neutral best practices — making bipartisan support for election policy changes more challenging.
Congress’ inability to take up the substantive issues of the day and its constant partisan conflict are eroding what trust remains of the American people in the institution, further undermining their broader faith in government as a whole.
It is vital, therefore, that Congress change itself to become a more capable and responsive legislative body. Just as important, the voices of the public need to be heard through the static of our current shrill political discourse.
These improvements will require changes in behaviors and attitudes by actors inside and outside the congressional system. They will also require significant change to the way Congress currently conducts its legislative business, and a restoration of its internal capacity to form informed public policy. Because of this complexity, we employed systems thinking to map the roots of Congress’ current state.
With input from former members of Congress, Capitol Hill staffers, lobbyists, journalists, and scholars studying Congress, the Democracy Fund has generated an initial map that we hope will provide a holistic picture of congressional dysfunction and improve our understanding of how the institution can better fulfill its obligations to the American people. This work builds from efforts of our partners, the Madison Initiative of the Hewlett Foundation.
A story of dysfunction
The Democracy Fund began this project with a framing question: How is Congress fulfilling or failing to fulfill its obligations to the American people? Early on, we concluded that the institution was largely failing to do so. The broader and more substantive question was, why? What were the most significant dynamics contributing to this dysfunction? And what could be done to address them?
Of course, Congress is not failing completely in its responsibilities. By focusing on dysfunction within the current system, our goal was to produce a document that could help uncover useful intervention points for improving the institution that would not rely on complete systemic changes to the legislative branch or require a wholesale reinvention of American politics.
Core stories within the map
Three interrelated narratives, represented by the red and orange loops on this map, organize our detailed analysis of current congressional dysfunction.
The red loop explores how Congress receives and internalizes a variety of policy requests and how its performance in processing the demands placed upon it affects public satisfaction and trust in the institution.
This core story begins with an observation (in red) that Congress is struggling to keep up with the mounting demands and pressures coming at it from a diverse, wired society. Members are struggling to represent their constituents as they endeavor to process competing policy and political demands. The hyper-partisan political climate in both chambers has greatly weakened the institution’s capacity to function. Weakened congressional capacity further erodes public trust and satisfaction in the institution. This risks driving segments of the public away from political engagement altogether, robbing Congress of different points of view while intensifying the impact of the loudest and shrillest partisan voices it hears. The decline of congressional capacity and the growing dissatisfaction with congressional performance are intensified by the stories contained by the two orange core story loops.
Dissatisfaction, along with important demographic shifts within the two-party system, drives increasing intensity of electoral competition for partisan advantage in Congress. Governing majorities — particularly in the House — rarely have turned over so rapidly in U.S. history as they have in the last 20 years, leading the minority party to consistently focus on the belief that its return to power is just around the corner.
This competitiveness has led the parties to stake out clear ideological differences between one another, forcing their partisan constituencies farther and farther apart philosophically. As the parties and their constituents have fewer ideas in common, hyper-partisan behavior increases within the electorate and among those elected to Congress, winnowing the possibility for compromise and dragging down congressional function. The disengagement of citizens with little appetite for such partisan warfare has intensified hyper-partisanship within the institution.
The narrative captured in this loop helps explain the partisan gridlock that has ground legislative operations in Congress nearly to a halt. But even if its leaders were interested in advancing substantive legislation, dissatisfaction with congressional performance also has affected the institution’s ability to formulate thoughtful policy solutions. The second orange reinforcing core story loop captures this narrative, beginning with the observation that increased public dissatisfaction with Congress has led members to demonize the institution as they try to run against Washington from an insiders’ position. In practical terms, this political trope has led Congress to slash its own appropriations, reducing the size and quality of its staff and legislative support services. These reductions have weakened member and committee offices’ expert capacity to craft policy, increased the influence of outsider experts who often also proffer campaign donations, and further weakened Congress’ ability to represent the will of ordinary citizens.
Supporting loops
The remaining loops on the map describe how other factors in the system intensify these central narratives. They include factors acting inside Congress (light blue) as well as external factors (royal blue).
Political-industrial complex
This loop describes the financial forces in contemporary congressional campaigns that reinforce the intensity of competition for majorities. Increased competition for majorities, along with changes to campaign nance, has driven more and more money into elections. Just as important, the recent increase in portability of campaign funds has effectively nationalized the electoral map, not only for parties’ campaign committees, but also for large- money donors. Nationalization of the electoral map drives greater competition for control of Congress, forcing members to spend an increasing amount of time raising money and developing relationships with donors nationwide.
Rhetoric of permanent campaign
With the increased ideological sorting of parties, party-nominated candidates are more likely to adhere to partisan orthodoxy on major issues. The emphasis on ideological differences between the parties also diminishes the importance of district-specific or event state-specific issues, making elections more likely to be referenda on the positions of either party as a whole. As a result, members have reinforced their commitment to their party’s ideological principles by ramping up media outreach or introducing legislation that stakes out political turf with little hope of becoming law (so-called “messaging legislation”). These efforts increase the ideological sorting of parties taking place broadly among the electorate.
Echo chambers
The increase in the ideological sorting of parties has created a robust and growing marketplace for partisan news and opinion. The reach of these outlets is augmented by the ability of voters to easily share material on social media. Because of this growth in partisan news and social media, congressional offices increasingly interact with audiences who consume information in a partisan echo chamber. In this media environment, offices face a heightened demand to speak directly to consumers of partisan news. This shift in attention reinforces the ideological perspectives of many partisan constituents, as well as members of Congress, and further defines the ideological positions behind a partisan identity.
Ideological influencers
In this section, two intertwined loops explore how the growing prominence of ideological elites intensifies the ideological sorting of parties. Partisan echo chambers have boosted the reach of ideological elites in the marketplace of political ideas. As a result, these elites are in a better position to scold members of Congress for ideological deviance or to champion favorites. Similarly, the ideological sorting of parties has created a fear in many incumbents’ minds that taking (or appearing to take) a moderate stance on issues may invite a primary challenge from a more ideologically committed opponent. This fear leads many incumbents to align themselves with ideological elites or to seek their support, further intensifying the ideological drift of the parties away from the center.
Demands for loyalty
Hyper-partisanship in Congress reinforces party discipline on roll call votes and in setting the legislative agenda. This drive for loyalty increases intraparty conflict as factions within the caucuses argue over the best courses of action to maximize political advantages and to live up to partisan ideals. Members risk being accused of disloyalty — and denied campaign nance resources and leadership positions — for aggressively pursuing policy solutions with members from the other side of the aisle. These penalties diminish the number and quality of bipartisan working relationships and further reinforce hyper-partisan behavior.
This demand for loyalty also is connected to the growing role of party leaders in setting the legislative agenda. As the capacity of Congress to function as a lawmaking institution has fallen because of members’ inability to work together, leadership has taken on more control of the legislative process. Their increase in control can mean fewer opportunities for compromise-seeking members to chart their own policy courses, as their work would unlikely make headway and could generate disciplinary action by their own leaders. Leadership’s weakening of cross-aisle working relationships therefore further reduces the capacity of Congress to legislate effectively.
Weakening of committees
Leadership’s more powerful role further weakens congressional capacity by undermining the power of committees. Whereas committees and subcommittees have historically enjoyed their own staff and significant latitude to develop proposals and seek legislative compromises, autonomy has been reduced and control shifted into the hands of party leadership. This shift has weakened another potential generator of bipartisan cooperation.
Weakening of congressional oversight
As congressional capacity decreases, the White House takes more responsibility for agenda setting. The political linkages between the executive and legislative branches are thereby intensified as congressional leadership calculates moves relative to the success or failure of the presidency. Because of these intensified linkages, congressional perspective on oversight has shifted toward more political ends. When congressional majorities share the party of the president, committee chairs are reluctant to conduct regular oversight hearings for fear of dredging up embarrassing information that may harm the White House politically. When government is divided, congressional leaders are more likely to use oversight as a political weapon against the president, and federal agencies are less likely to share information that committees request in oversight investigations.
As the independence of oversight from partisan politics decreases, so does the number of authentic oversight hearings – even if adequate staff is trained to execute the hearings successfully. These hearings are a crucial venue for effective congressional oversight — without them, overall institutional capacity to examine the conduct of the federal bureaucracy diminishes. Because oversight is a key constitutional responsibility of Congress, the capacity of the institution further suffers. Reduced independence of oversight from partisan politics also negatively impacts the effectiveness of outside watchdog groups, which further diminishes authentic oversight hearings. A more partisan congressional environment encourages some watchdog groups to act in kind, mobilizing only around investigations that can harm political opponents. Increased partisanship in oversight also lessens the ow of information to nonpartisan watchdog groups from Congress, negatively impacting their effectiveness.
Political incentives for authentic oversight
The political and policy linkage of the executive branch to Congress can cut both ways in terms of oversight, however. The melding together of political fortunes of the branches under united-party government has unique consequences. The greater the perception of misconduct by the executive branch, the louder outside political groups and government watchdogs will call for robust investigation of White House conduct, which increases political pressure for committees to do so. Outside groups’ effort and attention drive greater attention to executive branch conduct in the press, further intensifying the pressure on the White House. For Congress, the political cost of appearing complicit with presidential misdeeds can lead to renewed authenticity of oversight, mitigating some of the damage of other negative reinforcing loops.
Interpersonal impact of oversight
The weakening of independent oversight from partisan politics negatively affects bipartisan working relationships in Congress — particularly among the members of various committees whose collaboration on oversight is essential for execution. This breakdown creates a loop that is negative and reinforcing, and further weakens the independence from partisanship.
Gotcha reporting
This set of loops explores the role that traditional inside the Beltway media plays in magnifying congressional dysfunction. With reduced resources, expertise and reporting capacity, and with congressional capacity for policy simultaneously weakening, Capitol Hill journalism has shifted attention toward interpersonal and interparty conflict. This shift in focus and tone has led many member offices to limit reporters’ access in an effort to avoid the game of “gotcha.”
The constriction of information ow to traditional mainstream media outlets — facing their own reduced capacity and expertise — has created an environment in which congressional offices “communicate” with other lawmakers by sending messages through or leaking information to an already resource-starved media. Conflict-driven coverage relies on unnamed sources and lower editing standards, opening journalists up to manipulation by those inside the system. Unattributed comments create a dysfunctional track of communication through the media that can impact the course of negotiations on legislation and undermine the ability of members to negotiate in good faith and reach agreement.
Changes to congressional offices and staff
These loops explore shifts in the professional qualities and experience of Capitol Hill aides caused by the reduction in resources and strategic adjustments in their work.
Fewer resources drive greater turnover in congressional offices. It’s not just about salary: for wonks interested in working on policy, the recent decline in resources also means the best opportunities for professional development may exist outside Congress. Low pay attracts less experienced staff and the mindset that a job on the Hill is simply a means to a higher-paying job elsewhere in Washington. Members are increasingly hiring aides directly from campaigns. With less (or no) congressional experience, such staff tends to be driven more by partisan and ideological motivations and goals than by a desire to master policy or develop legislative expertise. Their presence on congressional staffs, combined with ideological shifts elsewhere in the system, has contributed to an increased focus on ideology across Congress and a reduction in policy expertise.
With declining official budgets, and less legislation being produced, members have found that hiring additional communications staff over policy staff is a more effective choice. This shift toward messaging makes particular strategic sense given leadership’s current dominance over the legislative process. The greater focus on messaging over legislating also addresses — and reinforces — the political needs that arise from the intensification of electoral competition and the ideological sorting of parties.
Intensification of political communications
As described in the primary core story, eroding satisfaction with congressional performance can intensify the demands and pressures placed upon the system. Members of the public who remain engaged do not simply give up on their interests and concerns; they find more aggressive ways to call for action by Congress.
The internet’s power to organize and aggregate many voices at once has changed the nature of advocacy, intensifying the demands and pressures Congress faces. Internet communication has made it cheaper and easier to activate ideologically-focused constituencies and swamp congressional offices with messaging, while keeping these constituencies engaged and active on issues. These new strategies have given rise to advocacy organizations that exist almost entirely online and often are founded around a core ideological perspective rather than the issue areas of traditional mass-membership advocacy groups. Some organizations also exist principally to raise money to underwrite political advertisements. The organizing and communications power of the internet also makes it easier to activate grassroots public participation in responding to congressional action or inaction.
The role of money
Although the map only occasionally mentions the role of money as an explicit factor in the congressional system, money plays a role in many of these factors. The factors directly affected by the influence of money on the system — either through its role in campaign nance, the business of political communication, or lobbying and constituent influence — are denoted by a green halo to help visualize their impact on congressional function and dynamics.
Original reporting, informed dialogue, and sharp debate all contribute to a healthy democracy in local communities. But local news outlets are dwindling as audiences and advertisers shift to digital and mobile platforms, often with a smaller footprint — leaving media deserts in locations where coverage once flourished. At the same time, promising local journalism experiments are cropping up across the country. Foundations and for-profit players are investing in innovative outlets as well as tools and models that reduce reporting costs and support civic engagement around breaking news.
How can these promising “green shoots” be widely planted and fully cultivated? More broadly, how can we better understand and effectively address the dynamics that shape how people learn about local issues, and about ways to participate in the civic life of their communities?
We believe that using systems thinking to map the Local News & Participation system can bring new understanding to all who want to support active citizens and vibrant media as vital elements in a healthy democracy.
With input from local news analysts, editors, journalists, funders, and other stakeholders, the Democracy Fund has generated a map of this system — starting with the reality that the Internet is transforming the dynamics of local news and providing remarkable new opportunities for public engagement.
Version 1.0 of the map centers on the powerful economic shifts that have jolted the local news landscape, and on the innovative efforts to create and sustain digital approaches for reporting and public dialogue. The map is grounded in our assessment of the key factors that affect the health of democracy and the local public square.
Understanding Our Analysis
Local News and Participation: Role of the Public Square
In a healthy democracy, people need reliable information, a watchdog to hold the powerful accountable, and opportunities to express and compare opinions on the issues of the day. Original investigative reporting, informed dialogue, and sharp debate all feed democratic engagement at the local level. Together these form a public square – a venue for citizens to learn, organize, engage, and be heard.
The State of Local News in 2015
In the U.S., our public square sits at a crucial turning point – facing important opportunities and threats to the ongoing vitality of political participation in our communities and nation. The Internet’s massive disruption to local news ecosystems has produced both significant opportunities and real threats to the health of our democracy. As powerful economic shifts have jolted the local news landscape, innovative efforts to create and sustain digital approaches for reporting and public dialogue have also emerged. The Internet is transforming the dynamics of local news and providing remarkable new opportunities for public engagement. Promising local news experiments are cropping up across the country. At times, these new platforms are meeting community information and participation needs more effectively than legacy news institutions had been able to in the past. At the same time, local legacy news outlets are shrinking as audiences and advertisers shift to digital and mobile platforms – leaving news deserts in locations where coverage and vigorous conversation once flourished. How can we better understand and effectively address the dynamics that shape how people learn about local issues and ways to participate in the civic life of their communities? Mapping the dynamics around local news and participation brings new understanding to all who want to support active citizens and vibrant news media as vital elements in a healthy democracy. The Democracy Fund Engagement Program team has generated a visual map of the dynamics influencing the public, news outlets, journalists, and others concerned with community information needs. Our framing statement is: “You can’t understand how local journalism enables or inhibits a healthy democracy unless you understand ________.”
Critical Dynamics
In many places, news outlets are shrinking, disappearing, or splintering into disparate units. However, at the same time, some outlets and individuals have successfully built new business models that have not only helped maintain a flow of quality, relevant news and community information, but also helped increase civic engagement. This successful experimentation has bolstered the viability of some news organizations and encouraged other outlets to experiment further. This is the core story that emerges from our map and to understand it, we explore a number of related topics that we believe the media field must grapple with if we are to address the challenges facing our communities:
The Public as Publishers
Through technology, the financial barriers to entry into the media landscape have come down, and pathways for two-way communication between content producers and consumers have opened up. Internet technologies have increased the ability of individuals to create and distribute their own content as well as the content of others, fueling new interest and opportunities for civic engagement and increasing the amount and range of information available. At the same time, however, this has increased overall noise and raised new concerns about verification.
The Rapid Adoption of Mobile
Consumer practices and preferences, including an explosion in the use of mobile devices, are changing how news is produced, packaged, and promoted.
Shifting Economic Models for Local News Providers
Local news outlets used to have an overwhelming advantage in attracting and retaining local advertising dollars. This has shifted in the Internet era. Large digital platforms are pulling advertisers and advertising dollars away from local outlets and becoming increasingly adept at personalizing advertising in ways that cement their hold on the marketplace. Mobile technologies also have led to changed advertising and distribution models that are driving a decrease in the level of resources available for local reporting, ultimately reducing the quality and coverage of local topics.
As the traditional advertising-based model of revenue has been dismantled for local news outlets, new sources of financial support have emerged. Individual subscriber/membership models, the backbone of public radio, are becoming an increasingly attractive option for other types of local news outlets, especially new nonprofit outlets. In addition, philanthropic support is becoming an increasing part of the revenue stream for local news via online nonprofit outlets. While government support is primarily used for infrastructure such as physical plants and broadcast equipment, occasionally public broadcasting funds are also used to support specific content including local or regional beats. Taken together, however, these new sources of income are not adding up to replace previous levels of support.
Ongoing Disruption of the Industry Players
Innovative outlets are replacing less nimble players who fail to maintain audiences or seize new opportunities. In this environment, new as well as established organizations find they must evolve rapidly or experience deep decline. In response to these trends, new entrants and incumbents alike are experimenting furiously with new revenue models and only sometimes succeeding; all but the largest face steady erosion of their viability.
Maximizing the Impact of Journalism and Government Transparency
As the quantity, quality, and relevance of local news increases, so does the production of news that exposes corruption. Access to more government data and records, for example, can expose corruption and increase public interest in open data. When this is done in a way that also provides solutions and actions to resolve a problem, public engagement in civic affairs is increased. When this output fails to provide solutions to problems, however, the public becomes more cynical and less engaged.
Partisanship in News Production and Consumption
Audiences are now increasingly able to select news that matches their own biases and beliefs, a behavior encouraged by the ability of large sites and social feeds to target content specific to these interests. In turn, outlets become more polarized and specialized to build and retain their audience base, increasing engagement among hyperpartisan audience members while making more centrist and undecided audiences more cynical about news and politics.
Newsroom Isolation and Community Disengagement
Journalistic practices can sometimes isolate newsrooms. In particular, journalists can appear detached or insensitive to community priorities when seeking a measure of objectivity or asserting independence.
Newsroom diversity, however it is defined – in terms of ethnicity, gender, age, ideology, or other factors – also matters to an outlet’s ability to engage the public. Having a range of perspectives and experiences within any news organization is vital to the generation of new ideas and connection with new sources, but diversity efforts have been a casualty of economic decline in much of professional news media. At the same time, the rise of digital media has created new ways for a wider range of community voices to be heard.
As the diversity of sources, stories, and staff decrease, so do the quantity, quality, and relevance of local journalism. This diminishes the engagement of the public in civic affairs and newsrooms. As the public becomes less engaged with the newsroom, it becomes more isolated, and diversity of sources, stories, and staff continues to dwindle.
Conversely, newsrooms that are more diverse and able to connect with and report on different constituencies increase their engagement with community, which contributes to better reporting, editorial, and accountability practices. These contribute to an increase in the quality and sometimes quantity of information.
New Priorities in Communications Policy
Public interest media and communications policy encompass a variety of issues and structures related to the ability of citizens to communicate with one another, express their own perspectives, access communications technologies and services at a reasonable or even subsidized rate, and protect themselves from libel or slander. Communications policy also regulates many of the actors who provide civic information and spaces for public dialogue, including Internet service providers, the owners of newspapers, radio and television stations, public access media facilities, cable companies, and others. Media and communications policy has a significant influence over the ability of local news ecosystems to support civic information and participation. For example, policy encouraging an open Internet and access to high-speed broadband can further increase the creation and sharing of user-generated content and lay the groundwork for experimentation in local news, while policy supporting local public media can strengthen state and local news media organizations with direct dollars for infrastructure and beats.
Journalism Practice in Transition
Changes in the journalism environment drive new priorities for continuing journalism education. The decline of traditional print and broadcast newsrooms and the rise of both small online newsrooms and even more decentralized citizen reporting via social platforms, has chipped away at the overall level of journalistic professionalism and integrity. Up-and-coming and citizen reporters are learning the trade from scratch, and are not necessarily aware of existing resources and institutions, while reporters trained for print and broadcast are struggling to adapt to the ever-quicker and more porous practices of producing online news. Skills once transferred through informal mentoring and on-the-job training, or through more formalized journalism education are now either missing, or being reconstructed so that they can be applied in a more participatory media environment.
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