A Virtual Seat in the Gallery
Congress On Demand is an innovative tool of civic engagement conceived to better empower an accountable public in the actions of our democracy. While much of what members of Congress do is behind closed doors all their floor proceedings and many hearings are public and filmed — paid for by the taxpayer. Though proceedings are filmed, the video has not before been curated and distributed in the short, single-click and on-demand format to which we’ve all grown accustomed. Congress On Demand will fill that gap so that what is public can finally reach the public in a familiar and engaging way.
Congress On Demand will provide the access to Congressional proceedings imagined and granted in the Constitution: a virtual seat in the House and Senate Gallery. Congress On Demand creates a user-friendly gateway facilitating any user to become more expert in the workings of Congress and the Congress members directly impacting their lives and votes. A better informed citizenry will yield a stronger democracy.
“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governours must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives.”
James Madison
About the Videos
Every video on the site was created by Congress On Demand for the specific purpose of this platform. All that is otherwise available is video of an entire proceeding which can be as many as 15 hours in length. These videos of each individual appearance were researched and then created from the much lengthier videos found at the .gov U.S. Congress site — whenever possible. This would include most all floor appearances in both the House and Senate. However, most committees at the time did not make available the video of their hearings in any other format other than real time video of the entire proceeding (users could not drag the cursor to the often delayed beginning of a hearing, nor drag to any location in a video, nor watch from where they left off, as attempting to do so returned the user to the very beginning of what are very long videos). Therefore the segmented committee appearances at this site were researched and then created from the much lengthier videos available at C-Span (per their requirements). The challenges of viewing even the very lengthy videos of the entire proceedings — which is all that is currently available — is further indication of the need and value of Congress On Demand and its platform which will create and make available each segmented appearance to be witnessed on-demand.
About this Site
This site was created as an experiment and proof-of-concept for the larger project that is Congress On Demand. It functions as an introduction to the basic element of Congress On Demand while alluding to some of the many more features the platform will ultimately offer.
In addition to the ability to respond and correspond directly to Congress-members — other interface mechanisms and routes of navigation will be deployed to further engage the user, nurture curiosity and enable understanding in the witnessing of this democracy.