Past ADDI Events


Annenberg Digital Debates

debatehall-screen

 

The Annenberg Digital Debates were hosted in April of 2011 and were the first ever invitational intercollegiate debate tournament to be completed online. The Annenberg Digital Debates are the immediate predecessor to the Trojan Web Debates – a series of online debate tournaments hosted throughout the 2011-2012 academic year. Students were invited to join in a discussion of nuclear energy policy in the immediate aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster by debating the following resolution:

 

Resolved: Nations should reduce their commitment to nuclear energy.

 

Trojan Debate Squad hosted the event in partnership with DebateHall.com, an Internet based company that provides services for hosting debates asynchronously via video submissions. In DebateHall’s model, debaters take turns recording video responses and upload their responses to a Flash application hosted at DebateHall.com. Debates can be made public (wherein any user with a DebateHall.com account can respond or comment on the debate) or kept private such that only invited parties can participate.  DebateHall.com allows an infinite number of responses to a prompt or speech. As DebateHall is based around an Adobe Flash interface, it is largely platform independent and supports users of both Apple computers and PCs. To participate in the tournament, students required a broadband Internet connection, a computer, and a recording device. Each student was also asked to make a nominal $15 entry fee to HandsOn Tokyo, an outreach organization providing assistance to Japanese citizens following the 2011 earthquake and Tsunami.

To see learn more about this project, please visit the Annenberg Digital Debates site at http://bit.ly/AnnenbergDebates.  Debates from this tournament are available to the public. To watch a debate, click the link to the right of the debate you wish to watch in the tables below.

 

Week 1 – Round 1

Week 1 – Round 2

Week 2 – Round 1 (Elims)

Week 2 – Round 2 (Elims)

Trojan Web Debates

The Fall 2011 Trojan Web Debates are now complete.  Feel free to watch debates from this tournament or view results using the links below.


Tournament Announcements

Pairings (see who is debating who) 

NEW: Week 1 Results and Ballots

Submit a Video (Competitors Only)

Enter a Ballot (Judges Only)

List of Entered Competitors and Judges (including Judge Bios)

 Tournament Schedule, Rules, Format, and Frequently Asked Questions 

View All Week 1 Debates

View All Week 2 Debates


USC’s Trojan Debate Squad is proud to announce The Trojan Web Debates–a series of intercollegiate debate tournaments hosted online throughout the 2011-2012 academic year, and open to all college and university students. The first of these debates will take place from October 17th-30th.  We invite you to take part in this exciting event in an innovative and emerging forum for competitive academic debate.  The goal of the Trojan Web Debates is to provide as many students as possible with opportunities to debate in competitive academic settings and receive feedback from experts and professionals, while also generating better and richer public discourse about important social issues.

As October is LGBT History month, we have chosen to explore the issues facing the LGBT community today, and the spirit of progressive social activism embodied by LGBT communities struggling for equal rights.  The Trojan Debate Squad supports LGBT movements in their struggles to engage in same sex marriages, freely adopt children, and to end discrimination and violence motivated by victims’ sexual preference or gender. We believe that debates about social movement methods, tactics and priorities are critical toward effective social action.  Thus we invite students from around the world to debate the following question:

Should same sex marriage be the top priority of the LGBT civil rights movement?

All competitors will engage in 2 debates in Week 1 (October 17-October 21).  In one debate, competitors will argue that same sex marriage should be the top priority of the LGBT movement.  In the second debate, competitors will refute the notion that same-sex marriage should be the top priority of the LGBT movement, and should propose a competing top priority issue for the LGBT community. Competitors will target their arguments toward a public audience and receive feedback and constructive criticism from experienced critics of argument. The top ten competitors will advance to a second week of debates (October 24th-28th) and will be eligible for Amazon.com gift cards between $25 and $100 in value.

In addition to enhancing the quality of public argument, every entry helps to stop violence and discrimination against individuals because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.  Entry fees for this tournament are a $10 donation to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

We invite everyone to follow the debates via our website, and our Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/USCDebate We hope that you will join us as we break ground on a new and exciting project that encourages students worldwide to engage and debate current events and important social and political questions. Questions?  Please do not hesitate to contact us!

Please note:  Registration for this event closed on 10/15/2011.  We are no longer accepting entries for competitors or volunteer judges.

 

© 2014 University of Southern California. All Rights Reserved.