Bridging the affective gap to make news felt: spaces of aestheticized public voice

Abstract

We report our experiences of how public voice, news reporting, and sensor information can be blended and mediated digitally in ways different from the traditional formats of civic debate. We use Klimatrends (Climate Trends), an iPhone app and related infrastructure, as a probe to understand how citizens, journalists, and other stakeholders can engage in conversations and reflections on an important topic or event understood as a space for aestheticized public voice. By attempting to make news "felt" through bridging an "affective gap" between readers/consumers and news/information providers we offer a tentative design strategy for public engagement with civic debate.