Summary

About

The US onAir Network has this central Hub and 50 separate state Hub sites with content that is shared with this US onAir Hub. State Hubs are where US residents can learn about and discuss with their elected officials and candidates for office and engage in supporting a more civil and vibrant democracy in their state. US onAir is focused on elections and governance – “governance” being how laws are made and executed.

US onAir also oversees the onAir chapters based in public universities in each state. The Virginia onAir Hub has been the pilot and model for the other 49 state Hubs. State Hubs will start by curating content on US Senators and US House members and Governors and upcoming elections. As our pool of curators in a state increases, each state will expand to cover state and local elections and governance.

All Hub content is under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license which permits content sharing and adaptation as long as proper attribution is given to its author(s) and is used for non-commercial purposes. Content and moderation guidelines reinforce our commitment to fact-based, comprehensive content and civil and honest discourse.  See Terms of Use for more information.

Simply visiting a Hub does not expose your identity publicly. When you submit your email addresses, phone numbers, and addresses for any purpose, that data will only be used by Democracy onAir, the non-profit organization that hosts the USA onAir Hubs. Democracy onAir will not sell your information. See our Privacy Policy for more information.

Open to all US residents

Any resident of a state can participate in a USA onAir Hub. We particularly focus on educating and engaging college students.

Each state Hub’s elections and governance content will be curated by students and members of democracy supporting organizations.  Students will be members of the onAir chapter based in colleges and universities in each state.  Students can be majoring in any academic discipline although government, political science, communication, and multi-media/broadcasting are the most relevant areas of study. Students can participate via internships, experiential courses, research projects, student clubs, and their student governments. Democracy onAir is committed to ensuring that all interested students and residents have the opportunity to engage in politics regardless of their time constraints or location.

Benefits to Students

Young people represent one of the major source of curators that help Democracy onAir develop and maintain the state Hubs. College students will have the opportunity to curate information about the politicians who represent them as well as other politicians they are interested in learning about and networking with. One key benefit is having the opportunity to conduct online and in person video interviews with these politicians.

While moderating discussions students will be able to learn about issues and communicate with the leading advocates of issues they are interested in.  As a Curator and onAir university chapter member, students will receive a member post where they can include their resume, projects, video interviews, and other information about their interests, skills, and experience helpful to gaining employment and networking opportunities.

Interested students need to contact the lead onAir university in their state. Any and all level of involvement is invited.

Benefits to Politicians

Twitter, Facebook, and other social media and online platforms provide an interface between candidates/representatives and voters/residents, though often those interactions are polarized and do little to promote quality communication. Voters and residents are not interest groups, are rarely concerned only about a single issue, and are not well represented by the brief and often detached interactions of social media. Politicians rarely have an opportunity to fully engage outside of in person events that tend to draw only the most engaged individuals.

USA onAir hubs will encourage and enable a wider range of participation and offer politicians an opportunity to listen to those constituents and talk about how their proposals and votes relate to their principles and needs of constituents. These interactions are mediated by curated forums and moderated live Q&A sessions.

This will clearly benefit politicians with limited resources and/or limited knowledge regarding social media, but it also benefits politicians and constituents who already have social media presence but are looking for a higher quality of discourse and engagement to understand their constituents and express their positions.

Benefits to Residents

One critical problem for voters is that they must go online to multiple sources and forums to build political knowledge and interact with politicians. Democracy onAir hubs provide one go-to online platform that aggregates information from many sources AND enables multiple ways to interact with representatives and candidates.

We provide the following tools and benefits:

• Residents can find the information relevant to them through their preferred interface, including featured posts, the “Who Represents Me?” tool, a full menu of districts and issues, hub search, and interactive district maps (coming soon).
• Hubs host streams and archived videos produced by the state’s onAir media team as well as from public sources including General Assembly sessions and committee hearings, town halls, candidate debates and forums, and other events.
• Hubs are designed for both computer screens and smart phones with an easy to user interface – select the teal buttons with white text, icons, and numbers to activate Hub features and selected bolded teal text to view information.
• A curation interface enables curation by anyone with very little training.
• Moderated discussion forums that encourage healthy discussion of values, issues, and interests.
• Coming soon – live streaming moderated Q&A sessions with candidates and representatives.

Benefits to Advocates

Advocates of various issues important to US residentss will have an opportunity to contribute position papers, reviews, videos, and other types of content related to an issue. As premium members, they will be able to author new posts on issues and co-author existing posts on issues.

Advocates can sign up through an existing organization or individually.

LEARN

From your home, office, or library’s computer and from your phone, US onAir network of state Hubs will enable you to more quickly, easily, and effectively LEARN more about your representatives, candidates, and issues important to you and your fellow citizens; DISCUSS your interests, concerns, opinions, and suggestions; and ENGAGE in supporting a more civil, and vibrant democracy in your state and in the United States.

Learn about politicians and issues

USA onAir Hubs will have curated posts on all current federal representatives and candidates for election in 2020. The posts on politicians aggregate information from a variety of sources including, where applicable, their campaign and government websites, wikipedia entry, Vote Smart, BillTrack50, and YouTube. Each state Hub will also have posts on their Governor and candidates for governorships in 2020. Over time with additional curators, state Hubs will curate information on other state executives, state senators and house members, and state and local elections.

Posts on politicians, issues, and most of other US onAir content is curated by college students who are members of an onAir chapter, by members of affiliated organizations, and, in some posts, by politicians. All content in these posts is under a Creative Commons non-commercial license. All other posts are copyrighted by Democracy onAir or by the authors of posts on issues.

We have designed this Hub to be easy and intuitive as possible to use.  All viewers need to remember is to:

1. Select the buttons or menu items that have a dark turquoise background with white text or icons to view a drop down selection or a specific post and to
2. Select text that is dark teal or blue to go to a post within the Hub or, if underlined to another website’s content

OnAir Media

Each Hub has a special emphasis on “OnAir” media most of which is aircasted i.e. livestreamed with members having an opportunity to ask questions and comment through a live chat feature. Each Hub supports the same conferencing and streaming technology. Current technology supports up to 250 people with synchronous conferencing capability and up to 100,000 viewers with live chat capability.

Aircasted media are of five types:
1) Presentation– could be an update, speech, slide presentation

2) Interview – organized by curators with curator interviewers as well as press, experts, students, and other Hub members

3) Debate – between two or more politicians with 1 tor more moderators

4) Forum – with up to 9 people with 1 tor more moderators

5) Town Halls– with up to 250 members participating using conferencing technology

Become a Curator

GMU was the first university onAir chapter established in the fall of 2018. The GMU onAir chapter is the lead chapter for the state of Virginia and a model of how students in onAir chapters at universities in other states can manage and curate their states Hub.

To oversee the initial interviewing of US Senate and House members, USA onAir is organizing a teams of students from universities in and near the District of Columbia.DC onAir university chapters.

If you would like to be part of one of these interviewing teams as an interviewer (and curator of a representative and/or candidate’s post) or as an Aircaster. Aircasters are media students who have some experience and expertise with recording interviews and creating a onAir video from the recording.

Go to this post, to learn about how to become a curator of Hub posts.

DISCUSS

Every post has a feedback section where registered Hub members can, depending on the type of post:

• Ask a post’s Curator questions about the post
• Recommend edits and new content
• Ask questions and make suggestions to politicians communicated by the post’s curator
• Give endorsements for their favorite politician
• Participate in forum discussions

See Terms of Use for more information about our discussion guidelines.

Become a Member

All that is required to be a Democracy onAir member is your first and last name, an email address, and your zip code.

Your real name and any other profile information will NOT be displayed unless you choose to do so. Your personal information is NOT shared with any other website or organization.

Democracy onAir

Democracy onAir, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization provides the web technology and support to create, host, and sustain the state elections and governance hubs. Democracy onAir also develops and monitors the curation and moderation guidelines for the Hubs and manages the finances for each state hub.

We aim to address the current climate of divisiveness, tribalism, fact-free dialogue, and ad hominem attacks. We also see an opportunity to bring attention to the underserved area of state political issues and governance.

Our mission to promote a more informed, civil, and engaged civil citizenry is implemented by providing citizens in democratic societies easier, faster, and more efficient access to

• learn about their government, representatives, candidates, and local/regional issues,
• discuss with their fellow citizens and representatives in civil and dynamic forums, and then
• engage by voting, advocating for and shaping policy, participating in campaigns, and even running for office.

Democracy onAir was chartered in Virginia in 2018 and has obtained 510c3 status.  To learn more about the young directors leading Democracy onAir, go to this post.

Seeking:   Executive Director
Needs to live near DC with minimum 5 years experience with nonpartisan, civic-oriented nonprofit and with relationships with political leaders in the US Senate and House.
Contact:  todd.gillette@onair.cc

ENGAGE

There are four primary ways of engaging with a US onAir Hub:

1. Hub members can join for free and participate in live and asynchronous forum discussions.
2. Students and members of democracy promoting organizations can become curators of information, moderators of discussions; and producers of video interviews and live shows;
3. Organizations can become sponsors of this Hub and individual posts on this Hub;
4. Individuals and organizations can donate to Democracy onAir and to specific state Hubs.

Become a Donor

Donations can made by any individual or foundation that wishes to support the mission of Democracy onAir. Donors can choose to support the entire organization or state Hub, as well as specific operations, such as a District and all the posts within it, an individual politician Post, or a specific Issue Post. Donations, at the donor’s request, can be displayed on the Virginia onAir with links to social networks and/or websites.. Anonymous donations are accepted as long as they are verified as US residents or US-based foundations with no foreign affiliations.

Go to this post, to learn about how to become a Democracy onAir donor of the US onAir network and/or a specific state Hub.

Become a Sponsor

Any organization or business can become a sponsor of this Hub and/or any state Hub. This Hub’s administrator has the option to deny and cancel any sponsor especially if they are not related in any way to a Hub’s focus. Sponsors can choose to support the entire organization or state Hub, as well as specific operations, such as a District and all the posts within it, an individual politician Post, or a specific Issue Post. We are particularly interested in sponsoring organizations that seek to support student civic engagement, democratic and civil discourse, and the intersection of technology and government. Foreign owned or affiliated organizations are not permitted to be sponsors of any US onAir Hub.

Go to this post to learn more about becoming a sponsor.

Supporters of democracy

We also recognize and highlight in each state Hub the organizations that share our mission of promoting a more civil and engaged democracy especially those organizations active in a particular state.

In each post there is a bar that contains a “Discuss” and a “Share” icon. Between these icons, we will be featuring these organizations with a link to a post about their activities. When these organizations are also sponsors an/or parters of the US onAir network, we will clearly identify them and the nature and extent of their relationship with a Hub.