USA – This is a pivotal election. It will affect the lives of everyone, not least young adults who will have to live with the long-term consequences. The US has over 69 million voting age millennials (18-35 year olds), but only 46% voted in 2012. A much lower turn-out than for older generations: 61% for Gen X and 69% for Baby Boomers.
Why?
Most of us don’t believe we have much impact or that our opinions don’t fit neatly into the boxes politicians present to us. We neither think we can affect politics nor that it represents us. Yet some of the most far-reaching political decisions of our age are being made without our say so or knowledge.
This needs to radically change. To do so, we believe those most impacted by an issue should have a bigger voice in its outcome. For millennials, the major issues include unaffordable housing, lack of jobs, debt from college fees and the environment.
Sway is the app that gives us all, young and old, greater knowledge and understanding of the major issues being debated and how we would then vote.
We will demonstrate how those most passionate vote in order to persuade others; and take a step towards transforming politics for the better. In time, this will change how we vote and ultimately how democracy can become more democratic!
We do this by showing you the best news and opinion articles from around the world on both sides of the political divide and from the very best and most reputable news sources to give you all sides of the argument. The more levels you engage with, reading the articles, voicing your opinion, fuelling the debate, the greater your understanding as we delve into policy and long-term studies from esteemed global institutions – to therefore give you more influence or sway in the vote’s outcome. You will be armed with the full argument and all the supporting facts.
You’ll be shown how you voted on issues within the app compared to the community standard vote. The user will draw deeper insights about democracy and how knowledge is critical.
We’re launching Sway in time for the US election but it will run beyond that to become a global tool for anyone interested in the important issues of the day and to perhaps to better understand their own beliefs. Get involved. Make a difference. Use your Sway.
“The first duty of every man is to think for himself” – José Marti
Sway is a new, free-to-use mobile app that enables and encourages voters to look at vital issues in a way that goes beyond party politics and their current knowledge. We live in a monoculture where our world views tend to be driven by the same media sources and the same set of friends and colleagues on social media who all share our point of view. It’s a ‘filter bubble’ that reduces exposure to new ideas and stops us from having a healthy and informed debate.
Sway is designed to encourage a spread of ideas. It enables audiences to understand the world and themselves by exposing them to a wider range of opinions, facts and ideas from diverse, independent and, to avoid bias, initially unidentified sources.
Users will choose the level to which they examine any one subject, from headline ideas and bullet points at Level 1 to in-depth policies at Level 5. At every level, they vote in order to get to the next deeper level of knowledge. The more levels they explore and vote on, the greater sway their next vote has. They can also look at how their vote has swayed as they read and learn more. They can then share what they have learned with others encouraging debate and learning.
We want to encourage users to really understand the issues by rewarding them with more Sway or influence the more they explore and so understand. This will influence the way the vote is counted. Users can see over time how their knowledge informs their voting and ultimately compare the final swayed vote to the conventional US electoral system and the presidential race.
We want to encourage a broad understanding of the issues and allow audiences to understand themselves and their own beliefs and opinions.
The idea is being launched initially to encourage more people to vote more thoughtfully in the US Elections. As people use the app to explore more and more issues from gun crime to affordable healthcare and match their views with those of the candidates, they may switch from Trump to Clinton or vice versa.
Sway is then going to move on to other elections in mainland Europe and the UK.
THE GAME OF POLITICS
Gamification has been applied in many fields to good effect. Mobiles have become our companions of choice: the average American checks their phone 46 times a day. Imagine what can happen if you apply the power of both gamification and mobile technology to democracy. That’s exactly what Sway, the new democracy app, does.
There have been a number of apps or online tools that have encouraged people to look at policies rather than parties and then tell them what the aggregate of their policy preferences means for their political choice. Good, thought-provoking stuff. Sway takes that principle much further and deeper.
WHY IS SWAY SO VITAL NOW?
Politics is shifting from just being a spectrum of left to right, to include an added axis of inner-facing an outward-facing people – those who feel left behind by globalisation and those who enjoy its benefits. People need help amidst these powerful and shifting forces.
There are more factions forming inside political parties – think Bernie Sanders inside the Democrat party – and more political parties beyond the mainstream. We are exposed to a comparatively narrow range of opinions and ideas. Facebook, for example, whose service we access for an average of 20 minutes every day, operates a ‘filter bubble’. This means they recommend articles, social commentary and points of view based on what you already like. This reduces our exposure to fresh ideas.
As James Surowiecki argued in “The wisdom of crowds”, diversity of well-informed, independent views, aggregated in the right way, on the right platform, can deliver smarter, faster, more reliable decisions, less subject to political forces, than the deliberations of experts. Too often, we are ending up in a self-reinforcing enclave or bubble of opinion and spin. Balanced, informed debate is a fringe phenomenon isolated to a few experts or ‘outliers’.
We believe there is space to create informed voting, a system by which the electricity of true democracy can return and that the Sway app could be a powerful tool.
HOW DOES SWAY WORK?
We will launch Sway in early October, designed as a free-to-use app for both Apple and Android. The system will focus on the major topics and policy ideas offered by both Republican and Democrat presidential nominees. Using content pulled from both traditional news and online reporting, we will deliver opinions and facts from both sides of the argument.
The attribution will be initially hidden so users read the content and don’t pre-judge it based on the bias of the news brand it’s pulled from. Content will be monitored to ensure headlines are read, using a timed system based on average reading speed. Once all pieces have been viewed the user will then be asked to vote; yes, no, or not sure.
After voting, the sources of the opinions are revealed and Level 2 will be unlocked. Content can be shared at any time to social networks with full attribution to the original sources, actively encouraging further reading amongst the population at large.
There are five levels of content, each level adding progressively more depth to the debate. Always balanced from both sides of the argument, the levels will be designed to gradually deepen the user’s understanding of the topic, possibly swaying their vote, but also adding more sway to their final vote. The deeper the user goes the more influence they have.
LEVELS:
Level 1 – Headlines and key points
Level 2 – Brief articles or transcripts
Level 3 – Opinion pieces and broader context
Level 4 – Actual policy documents and key points
Level 5 – Studies and research from think tanks, academics or other expert sources
Sway has built in reward mechanics, which encourage users to understand a wide range of topics and to go as deeply as time or interest allows them. They are then rewarded with more sway and a series of badges that can be shared to celebrate their knowledge.
We will publish all our data after the U.S. elections on Nov 8th showing how, where and why individuals changed their opinions over each policy; which topics created the greatest engagement and ultimately what a conventional vote looks like against a weighted ‘sway’ vote.
