Nation: Connecting Americans to Our Leaders    
 
SNAP SNAP 2003

SNAP is an extraordinary pilot series InterAct co-produced in August 2003 that fully integrated webcams into a live television environment for the first time. SNAP may be an historic first: live Internet video, a live satellite feed, and live viewer call-ins integrated into a nationally broadcast, professional-quality live television program. An especially significant step was the inclusion of genuine webcammers, because webcam technology is used predominantly by the young and is projected to grow exponentially among them. The enthusiastic response from webcammers to being 'on television' suggests a new kind of reality TV program: one that lets real people have a voice on television, still the most powerful medium of our time.

Watch the SNAP demo.



yvote04 YVote04 2004

Link TV Youth Vote Election Series. Activists on webcams across the US joined callers , connecting to live guests in the TV studio:

ROTC candidate John Anderson, 21, Durham, North Carolina, who enlisted to pay for college.

Working single mother Theresa Pardo, 29, Houston, Texas, who can't afford healthcare for her daughter.

Hassan Amin, 23, San Jose, California - a college student who may be deported from the US for a faulty visa.

Hosted by Nzinga Moore of Youth Radio. Special appearances by: Dave Matthews, Reese Witherspoon, Doug E. Fresh, Russell Simmons, and the Declare Yourself Poetry Slam.



interactive election Interactive Elections 1998 & 2000

Minnesota Elections '98
InterAct co-produced an innovative debate among candidates for governor of Minnesota. Diners at Lucille's Kitchen Restaurant, a group of farm families in the town of Crookston, community members in Duluth and a studio audience in St. Paul questioned candidates about welfare reform, education, crime and taxes. Co-produced with Twin Cities Public Television and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the debate was broadcast live on CSPAN and Minnesota Public Radio. For more see here.


KVIE-TV CapitolWeek 2000
InterAct worked with Sacramento public television station KVIE-TV on two model interactive citizens' discussion programs. The programs aired as specials throughout the state. The programs allowed Californians to participate in televised political dialogue by connecting doctors and patients at a community clinic, and a teacher and parent at an elementary school, to state officials in the television studio.