What’s New
Meet Boston, Unscripted: realtalk@Boston Portal Goes Live
Hearing Boston’s people, in their own voices, is a first step toward rebuilding trust in public discourse
What does Boston sound like when you stop to listen? Today, realtalk@Boston invites you to do just that—with the launch of a new public-facing portal where you can listen to hundreds of Bostonians, in their own voices, share stories about their neighborhoods, hopes, frustrations, and dreams for the future of their city.
News
FORAGe
Understanding Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)-based Sensemaking for Community Conversations
FOra Retrieval-Augmented GEneration (FORAGE) is a search engine that allows you to explore conversational data more deeply than with standard keyword search. Pose queries in natural language to explore relevant excerpts and an analysis, complete with citations, that synthesizes insights to answer your question.
Natural Language Processing
Sensemaking
Generative AI
FRONTLINE Engages the Next Generation of Storytellers
Now, two years into the Youth Civic Voices Initiative, a collaborative fellowship with MIT’s Center for Constructive Communication (CCC) and the non-profit Cortico, FRONTLINE is breaking new ground at the intersection of journalistic storytelling, AI learning, and civic dialogue.
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Reimagining Civil Discourse for the Next Generation
Summer fellowship program engages Boston youth in dialogue through journalistic storytelling, emerging technologies, and public conversations
This past summer, the MIT Center for Constructive Communication, its closely affiliated non profit, Cortico, and GBH’s FRONTLINE hosted 11 Boston students, ages 16 -21 as FRONTLINE fellows for a six-week paid fellowship at MIT’s Media Lab.
News
Checking in on realtalk@Boston, one year in
The realtalk@Boston cohort has hosted dozens of conversations across the city – what’s next?
The MIT Center for Constructive Communication, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has been training local community leaders to host facilitated conversations and learn about the needs of their diverse communities. We recently passed our sensemaking milestone: the conversations have been recorded, highlighted, and thematically categorized, with support from AI tools developed by
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CCC hosts its second Tech-Enhanced Student Assembly
MIT undergraduates use a Citizens’ Assembly format to draw on their individual values and experiences to offer options for improved sustainability efforts on the MIT campus
MIT undergraduates use a Citizens’ Assembly format to draw on their individual values and experiences to offer options for improved sustainability efforts on the MIT campus
News
CCC launches a inaugural student advisory board
These seven undergraduate MIT students will be among those advising CCC on its research areas and programs.
MIT CCC is launching a student advisory board to help shape its ongoing research as well as student programming via realtalk@MIT. This group of undergraduates will contribute to the development of student-facing initiatives, provide input on outreach efforts, and help create environments where their peers feel comfortable engaging in deep and honest conversation.
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CCC and DemNext take the first step towards developing a more transparent, inclusive democratic process
By audio recording and analyzing the entirety of the citizens’ assembly process, researchers make strides in understanding what drives effective deliberation
In a landmark achievement, MIT CCC and DemocracyNext have collaborated on the first-of-its-kind, tech-enhanced citizens’ assembly in Deschutes County, Oregon. 12,750 invitation letters were mailed to residents across Central Oregon. Of the respondents, 30 delegates were chosen via sortition (lottery), to be broadly representative of the area.
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PBS’s FRONTLINE, Cortico, and CCC to engage youth in new Youth Civic Voices initiative
A new collaboration with the MIT Center for Constructive Communication empowers young people to shape the future of journalism and civic dialogue through AI and storytelling.
FRONTLINE, the acclaimed PBS documentary series produced at GBH in Boston, has announced the launch of a two-phase Youth Civic Voices Initiative designed to engage young people in civic dialogue through journalistic storytelling, emerging technologies, and public conversation.
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Our Work
Our work spans foundational research, innovative prototypes, and field programs — all aimed at promoting shared understanding and trust within and across communities
Research
Voice to Vision
Supporting decision makers in effective and efficient constituency-informed, AI-supported decision-making. Communicating how constituen…
Research
Dialogue to Decision
An LLM-Powered Framework for Analyzing Collective Idea Evolution and Voting Dynamics in Deliberative Assemblies
Research
Person Over Position
Unpacking the Impacts of Experience-Sharing on Social Evaluations, Emotions, and Engagement in Opinionated Discourse
Research
DisCourse
A curated social experience that transforms dinner between strangers into an opportunity to reimagine how we listen, speak, and share
Research
Prototypes
FORAGe
Understanding Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)-based Sensemaking for Community Conversations
Prototypes
Coalesce
An Accessible Mixed-Initiative System for Designing Community-Centric Questionnaires with Generative AI
Prototypes
Sensemap
Connecting Voices Across Conversations
Prototypes
Bridging Dictionary
Identify how words in American political discourse differ across the political divide
Prototypes
Pilots & Programs
realtalk@Boston
A new civic infrastructure in Boston grounded in dialogue as a way to building “civic muscle” of democracy
Pilots & Programs
realtalk@MIT
Hear – and be heard. Building an MIT culture of listening and shared understanding.
Pilots & Programs
MIT Student Assembly
Tech-enhanced & Student-Focused Deliberative Assemblies
Pilots & Programs
