Can taking an alternative approach to traditional town hall meetings result in a more effective dialogue between citizens and Members of Congress? The answer is yes—and much more. Not only can online town halls offer opportunities for more deliberative—and persuasive—communication, they can also improve citizens' trust in, and perceptions of, their Member of Congress.

Traditional in-person town halls have long been a cornerstone for communications between citizens and Members of Congress. However, their effectiveness in recent years seems to be in question. Many critics consider them to be highly partisan events, filled with strong supporters or stark opponents, leading shouting matches or glorified opportunities for Members of Congress to repeat political rhetoric. Interested in discovering better ways to obtain citizen input, CMF and leading universities partnered to examine whether town halls could be improved through an online format.

The results surprised us – online forums may help increase citizen trust and political engagement.

In 2006 and 2008, CMF, and our partners at the University of California–Riverside, The Ohio State University, Northeastern University, and the Harvard Kennedy School, conducted a study to gauge the effects of holding online town hall meetings. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard.

In our experiment, we invited random samples of constituents who were more representative of eligible voters (i.e., more like actual congressional districts) than the attendees typically found at town hall meetings. Additionally, we focused on smaller audiences (20-175 people) and on one policy issue (i.e., immigration for the House sessions and detainee policy for the Senate).

There was little to no moderation during the meeting. Constituents were allowed to ask any question on the chosen topic (as long as it wasn't duplicative or offensive) and the Member responded in real-time.

These changes in format offered a different experience for the constituents and Members. All parties generally felt that the sessions were much more thoughtful and substantive than expected or than they had previously experienced in other forums.

Specifically, our data also showed that the Members were more persuasive in this environment. As the results published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences illustrate, researchers found evidence that the 21 online town halls held with 13 Members of Congress affected:

• Citizens' views on specific policy issues (more towards what the Member believed);
• Citizens' trust in, and approval of, their Member of Congress (higher levels of both); and
• How citizens voted (more likely for their Member).

The study has broader implications about who Members should be communicating with and how, as well. According to co-author Michael Neblo of The Ohio State University:

"One key takeaway from this study is that we need to find ways to involve all citizens and not just the political "junkies" who keenly follow all of the latest partisan battles in Washington. We need such people's passion, but an exclusive diet of the resulting take-no-prisoners debates can turn off average citizens who see politics as a rough-and-tumble game rigged against them. The citizens we recruited were not generally political junkies. Many of them didn't even regularly vote before this experience.

Yet after the study, 94% of them said they enjoyed the town hall experience and would do it again. Members of Congress told us they liked the experience, too. Rather than just focusing on their partisan talking points, they could delve into the issues and explain the merits of their position.

The internet makes it easier than ever for representatives and their constituents to connect like they did in our town halls. Maybe then we can move toward a representative democracy that looks more like the one we learned about in our civics textbooks."

Source: "Digital Town Halls Take Political Discussions Beyond Sound and Fury," The Conversation, March 16, 2015.

In addition to the paper and OpEd linked above, you can also read Dr. Neblo's commentary in The Washington Post ("Politicians and citizens talking without shouting? It can happen.", March 16, 2015).

Through this research partnership, CMF and the professors also published a report for Congress titled "Online Town Hall Meetings: Exploring Democracy in the 21st Century," which you can download as a PDF or review the key findings here.