ABSTRACT
The idealized audience feedback forum serves as a space where one person can express his or her personal opinions to the masses. If the news media is going to focus on "both sides" in its news coverage, then perhaps it should turn over the work of debating both the fringes and the middle ground to their audiences. True virtual communities that are built upon broad audience participation can be messy and fascinatingly dynamic, and, for the most part, they also become self-policing and self-regulatory. In democracies around the world, election season is typically a busy time for all journalists, and that is especially true for opinion editors and forum managers. A superficial review of present-day feedback forums might lead one to believe that the participants are only talking past one another, when in fact they are doing the most important task of democratic society.
