Tunisian Idol: Web Debates Version

I recently wrapped up a whirlwind week in Tunis including initial planning for the upcoming election monitoring effort with our partner Mourakiboun and data managment meetings with the ruling and opposition parties. NDI's partnering with a savvy CSO named Munathara which is not just arranging one-off debates but building an entire debating culture in Tunisia.

It's pretty cool to be dealing with an organization that is doing its job so effectively you have a hard time suggesting areas for them to improve, though I'm not sure what it means for my employment prospects.

I love their approach. It's incredibly small-d democratic from beginning to end.

First, they start the process by soliciting ideas for what the next topic of debate should be. Vibrant conversations on their Facebook page are distilled into a handful of motions. These top topics are then posted as polls, and the community again weighs in to pick the debate subject for the next round.

Interested people then dive in to creating 33-second videos where they articulate the reasons they are for or against the motion. They've got a couple weeks to do so. Tunisian youth have created scores of videos for the site already.

When all the videos are released, viewers can dive in. After watching a video they get a chance to rate it. A dynamic algorithm determines the videos presented to a site visitor, giving them a chance to see pieces that are new and old, popular and less so. This has been really popular. The video creators use their personal social media networks to promote their contents, but by doing also share the concept of debating in the first place. When the voting period closes, the top 4 pro and con are declared first-round winners.

Now it gets really interesting.

Those winners are gathered in Tunis for in-depth, in-person training in debating skills and concepts by professionals. Working together - with 50% of the participants being ones who completely disagree with each other - they learn the fundamentals of effective debate and video presentation.

Then the group is given a completely new topic, something entirely unrelated to the last. Again they produce videos - this time 99 seconds - laying out their case pro or con, and back to the public it goes. After this final round of voting, one winner emerges from each of the pro and con camps of 7.

Now it gets really, really interesting.

These two go back for training on live debates and appearing on TV. Afterwards, each is matched up with a Tunisian VIP, potentially a Member of Parliament, and the pair will return to the original question selected by the community. The four - one youth debator, one MP on each side, pro and con - then engage on TV on these hot topics of the day, presided over by an impartial moderator. This will then be broadcast across Tunisia - and of course, via their social media channels as well.

Questions to the panelist will come from the moderator, the audience and from those watching live on the internet from their Facebook page and from Twitter.

Pretty impressive stuff, and a great model for other organizations.

There's one round under way now, with the window to submit videos having just closed. The culminating broadcast is coming up on March 14th - keep your eyes out for it!