Process
Aimed not just to “talk” about problems, the NIF is a way for people to deliberate, or to have serious discussions on issues. In its early years, NIF depended on Public Agenda Foundation, an agency found by Dan Yankelovich, to select issues for the deliberation of NIF. But now, various groups and individuals have been able to frame issues for discussion.
NIF forums have moderators to moderate the discussion, (Melville, Willingham, Dedrick, 2005). While the moderator may not be expert in the issue being discussed, his/her function is nonetheless important to the discussion. NIF moderators do 5 things:
1. Lay out ground rules for discussion.
2. Introduce issues.
3. Draw participants into discussion by keeping a healthy atmosphere for discussion (i.e., ask participants questions).
4. Encourage participants to consider alternatives carefully.
5. Lead the final segment of a discussion, to “reflect” upon the experience.
Also, some forums would publish a report on what they have deliberated at the forums. These reports usually come from the forum moderators based on the deliberations at the forums. For information on these reports, visit this link: http://www.nifi.org/reports/issues.aspx. It is unsure whether any decision maker would read these reports. But these documentations are available to the public. And they are valuable insights into the society’s perception on various issues.
Read more about this topic: National Issues Forums
Famous quotes containing the word process:
“By Modernism I mean the positive rejection of the past and the blind belief in the process of change, in novelty for its own sake, in the idea that progress through time equates with cultural progress; in the cult of individuality, originality and self-expression.”
—Dan Cruickshank (b. 1949)
“Any balance we achieve between adult and parental identities, between children’s and our own needs, works only for a time—because, as one father says, “It’s a new ball game just about every week.” So we are always in the process of learning to be parents.”
—Joan Sheingold Ditzion, Dennie, and Palmer Wolf. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 2 (1978)
“That which endures is not one or another association of living forms, but the process of which the cosmos is the product, and of which these are among the transitory expressions.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)