Public opinion channel for communities in the information age

In this paper, we propose as a new challenge a public opinion channel which can provide a novel communication medium for sharing and exchanging opinio ns in a community. Rather than simply developing a means of investigating p ublic opinion, we aim at an active medium that can facilitate mutual unders tanding, discussion, and public opinion formation. First, we elaborate the idea of public opinion channels and identify key issues, Second, we describ e our first step towards the goal using the talking virtualized egos metaph or. Finally, we discuss a research agenda towards the goal.