The initially much-lauded vision of the Internet as a means of returning political power to the citizens, engaging public deliberation, and improving civil rights worldwide has, over the past 15 years, produced lackluster results and has been subject to considerable criticism. Still, the hope for a socially conscious, egalitarian solution remains. A major impediment is that the challenge is exceedingly complex, involving many disciplines that conceptualize the issue in disparate terms. The text explores the principles and methdologies of human systems design to create a comprehensive, transdisciplinary framework for technologically enhancing the the structures of web-based public discourse. This book thus offers a coherent image of how large-scale public dialogue in modern global society can be conducted in a way that will mitigate and counterbalance the machinations of governmental and societal power and enable the public will to operate in a manner consistent with democratic theory. This image offers change agents a guiding design for integrating emerging web 2.0 solutions, many of which are free or low cost, into a powerful platform for scaling societal change.
