Election 2012 |

React Labs made its debut during the 2012 Election debates.

See the Press link, above, for relevant stories in the media.

React Labs: Educate. In collaboration with political scientists Amber Boydstun (University of California, Davis) and Rebecca Glazier (University of Arkansas at Little Rock), and Matthew Pietryka (University of California, Davis), React Labs deployed an educational package for use by instructors during the October debates. React Labs: Educate signed up about 175 instructors in 45 states. Their participating classes add up to about 12,000 students, of whom about 3800 participated during the October 3 debate, with numbers in the 2000 range for the remaining debates. See this nice video of Prof. Boydstun describing how political scientists will be able to use React Labs to improve our understanding of the political process, and see the React Labs: Educate page for links to debate analysis by Prof. Boydstun’s team.

ABC7/React Labs Instant Reaction. React Labs partnered with ABC7/WJLA in Washington DC to offer ABC7/React Labs Instant Reaction — viewers watching the four debates on ABC7 got the chance to see their reactions and the responses of the other Instant Reaction participants in a real-time, flowing chart on the station’s Web site. Justin Karp, Digital Operations Manager at WJLA, observed: “The American population has a freedom to respond and react to our political discourse like never before, and in such a contentious election year, our station is looking to engage our audience in ways that have never been seen before. The partnership between ABC 7 News and React Labs is something that we’re excited to watch develop. It will benefit and engage our audience in an incredibly unique fashion.”

October 3 University of Maryland Debate Watch. Since React Labs originated as a University of Maryland research project, what could be more appropriate than a UMD debate watching event in which it was featured, as part of React Labs: Educate, along with another cool piece of technology, the “Terrapin Electronic Voter Registration System”? See the UMD press release and W*USA Channel 9 news story covering the event.