Related Research Articles
Deliberative democracy or discursive democracy is a form of democracy in which deliberation is central to decision-making. It often adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule. Deliberative democracy differs from traditional democratic theory in that authentic deliberation, not mere voting, is the primary source of legitimacy for the law. Deliberative democracy is closely related to consultative democracy, in which public consultation with citizens is central to democratic processes.
Social software, also known as social apps or social platform includes communications and interactive tools that are often based on the Internet. Communication tools typically handle capturing, storing and presenting communication, usually written but increasingly including audio and video as well. Interactive tools handle mediated interactions between a pair or group of users. They focus on establishing and maintaining a connection among users, facilitating the mechanics of conversation and talk. Social software generally refers to software that makes collaborative behaviour, the organisation and moulding of communities, self-expression, social interaction and feedback possible for individuals. Another element of the existing definition of social software is that it allows for the structured mediation of opinion between people, in a centralized or self-regulating manner. The most improved area for social software is that Web 2.0 applications can all promote co-operation between people and the creation of online communities more than ever before. The opportunities offered by social software are instant connections and opportunities to learn.An additional defining feature of social software is that apart from interaction and collaboration, it aggregates the collective behaviour of its users, allowing not only crowds to learn from an individual but individuals to learn from the crowds as well. Hence, the interactions enabled by social software can be one-on-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many.
Participatory democracy, participant democracy or participative democracy is a form of government in which citizens participate individually and directly in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, rather than through elected representatives. Elements of direct and representative democracy are combined in this model.
Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is defined as any human communication that occurs through the use of two or more electronic devices. While the term has traditionally referred to those communications that occur via computer-mediated formats, it has also been applied to other forms of text-based interaction such as text messaging. Research on CMC focuses largely on the social effects of different computer-supported communication technologies. Many recent studies involve Internet-based social networking supported by social software.
New media is described as communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for the influx of interactive CD-ROMs for entertainment and education. The new media technologies, sometimes known as Web 2.0, include a wide range of web-related communication tools such as blogs, wikis, online social networking, virtual worlds, and other social media platforms.
Science and technology studies (STS) or science, technology, and society is an interdisciplinary field that examines the creation, development, and consequences of science and technology in their historical, cultural, and social contexts.
The spiral of silence theory is a political science and mass communication theory proposed by the German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. It states that an individual's perception of the distribution of public opinion influences that individual's willingness to express their own opinions, which in turn affects the perceptions and, ultimately, willingness of others to express their opinions. The main idea is that people influence each other's willingness to express opinions through social interaction. According to the spiral of silence theory, individuals will be more confident and outward with their opinion when they notice that their personal opinion is shared throughout a group. But if the individual notices that their opinion is unpopular with the group they will be more inclined to be reserved and remain silent. In other words, from the individual's perspective, "not isolating himself is more important than his own judgement", meaning his perception of how others in the group perceive him is more important to himself than the need for his opinion to be heard.
E-democracy, also known as digital democracy or Internet democracy, is the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in political and governance processes. The term is believed to have been coined by digital activist Steven Clift. E-democracy incorporates 21st-century information and communications technology to promote democracy; such technologies include civic technology and government technology. It is a form of government in which all adult citizens are presumed to be eligible to participate equally in the proposal, development and creation of laws.
Online consultations or e-consultations refer to an exchange between government and citizens using the Internet. They are one form of online deliberation. Further, online consultation consists in using the Internet to ask a group of people their opinion on one or more specific topics, allowing for trade-offs between participants. Generally, an agency consults a group of people to get their thoughts on an issue when a project or a policy is being developed or implemented, e.g. to identify or access options, or to evaluate ongoing activities. This enables governments to draft more citizen-centered policy.
A deliberative opinion poll, sometimes called a deliberative poll, is a form of opinion poll that incorporates the principles of deliberative democracy. Professor James S. Fishkin of Stanford University first described the concept in 1988. The typical deliberative opinion poll takes a random, representative sample of citizens and engages them in deliberation on current issues or proposed policy changes through small-group discussions and conversations with competing experts to create more informed and reflective public opinion. A typical polling utilizes participants drawn from a random and representative sample to engage in small-group deliberations to create more informed and reflective public opinion. Deliberative polls have been tested around the world, including in the European Union, the United States, China, and Australia.
Electronic participation (e-participation) is ICT-supported participation in processes involving government and citizens. Processes may concern administration, service delivery, decision making and policy making. E-participation is hence closely related to e-government and e-governance participation. The need for the term has emerged as citizen interests and interaction with political service providers have increasingly become digitized due to the rise of e-government.
Radical democracy is a type of democracy that advocates the radical extension of equality and liberty. Radical democracy is concerned with a radical extension of equality and freedom, following the idea that democracy is an unfinished, inclusive, continuous and reflexive process.
Mediated deliberation is a form of deliberation that is achieved through the media which acts as a mediator between the mass public and elected officials. The communication professionals of the media relay information, values, and diverse points of view to the public in order for effective public deliberation to occur. Benjamin Page proposes mediated deliberation be a "division of labor" with the idea of using the media to deliver information between the elected officials and the public because modern problems make it impossible to rely on the elected officials to deliberate for the public. The role of the media is to encourage discussion amongst the citizens to keep them engaged with their elected officials.
Brian D. Loader is currently Co-Director of the Centre for Political Youth Culture and Communication (CPAC) at the University of York, UK. Brian joined the Department of Sociology at York in January 2006 to pursue his scholarly interests into digital media communication and democratic governance. His overarching interest is in new media communications technologies, and the social, political and economic factors shaping their development and diffusion, and their implications for social, economic, political and cultural change. He has published widely in these areas and is the founding Editor of the international journal Information, Communication and Society whose aim and scope is to critically explore these issues in depth.
Liquid democracy is a form of delegative democracy, whereby an electorate engages in collective decision-making through direct participation and dynamic representation. This democratic system utilizes elements of both direct and representative democracy. Voters in a liquid democracy have the right to vote directly on all policy issues à la direct democracy; voters also have the option to delegate their votes to someone who will vote on their behalf à la representative democracy. Any individual may be delegated votes and these proxies may in turn delegate their vote as well as any votes they have been delegated by others resulting in "metadelegation".
A citizens' assembly is a randomly-selected group of people who deliberate on important public questions.
Face-to-face interaction is social communication carried out without any mediating technology. It is defined as the mutual influence of individuals’ direct physical presence with their body language and verbal language. It is one of the basic elements of a social system, forming a significant part of socialization and experience throughout an individual's lifetime. It is also central to the development of groups and organizations composed of those individuals. Face-to-face interaction not only allows people to communicate more directly, but has been shown to improve mental health and can reduce various mental illnesses, most commonly, depression and anxiety.
John Gastil currently holds a joint appointment as Professor of Communication Arts & Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Penn State University. He is known for his research on deliberative democracy and group decision making.
An online discussion platform is an online platform that allows for, or is built specifically for, online discussion.
Oral democracy is a talk-based form of government and political system in which citizens of a determined community have the opportunity to deliberate, through direct oral engagement and mass participation, in the civic and political matters of their community. Additionally, oral democracy represents a form of direct democracy, which has the purpose of empowering citizens by creating open spaces that promote an organized process of discussion, debate, and dialogue that aims to reach consensus and to impact policy decision-making. Political institutions based on this idea of direct democracy seek to decrease the possibilities of state capture from elites by holding them accountable, to encourage civic participation and collective action, and to improve the efficiency and adaptability of development interventions and public policy implementation.
References
- 1 2 Bächtiger, A., Dryzek, John S., Mansbridge, Jane J., & Warren, Mark. (2018). The Oxford handbook of deliberative democracy (First ed., Oxford handbooks online). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Halpern, Daniel; Gibbs, Jennifer (2013-05-01). "Social media as a catalyst for online deliberation? Exploring the affordances of Facebook and YouTube for political expression". Computers in Human Behavior. 29 (3): 1159–1168. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2012.10.008. ISSN 0747-5632.
- ↑ Davies, Todd & Chandler, Reid (2012). "Chapter 6: Online Deliberation Design". Democracy in Motion. Oxford University Press. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-19-989928-9.
Online deliberation is a relatively new field. Although the concept of public deliberation via electronic means was discussed as early as the 1970s,25 and there was some early empirical work on deliberation online in the 1980s and 1990s,26 studies of structured or public online deliberation appear to have begun with work by Stephen Coleman and colleagues,27 Lincoln Dahlberg,28 and Vincent Price29 around a decade ago.
- ↑ Eveland, William P; Hively, Myiah Hutchens (2009-06-01). "Political Discussion Frequency, Network Size, and "Heterogeneity" of Discussion as Predictors of Political Knowledge and Participation". Journal of Communication. 59 (2): 205–224. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2009.01412.x. ISSN 0021-9916.
- 1 2 Esau, Katharina, Friess, Dennis, & Eilders, Christiane. (2017). Design Matters! An Empirical Analysis of Online Deliberation on Different News Platforms. Policy and Internet, 9(3), 321-342.
- ↑ Considered Opinions on U.S. Foreign Policy: Face-to-Face versus Online Deliberative Polling*, 2004, CiteSeerX 10.1.1.493.3597
- ↑ Wojcik, Stéphanie; Monnoyer-Smith, Laurence (2012). "Technology and the quality of public deliberation: a comparison between on and offline participation". International Journal of Electronic Governance. 5 (1): 24–49. doi:10.1504/IJEG.2012.047443.
- ↑ Friess, Dennis, & Eilders, Christiane. (2015). A Systematic Review of Online Deliberation Research. Policy and Internet, 7(3), 319-339.
- ↑ Noveck, Beth (2009). Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful. Brookings Institution Press.
- ↑ Kiesler, Sara; Siegel, Jane; McGuire, Timothy W. (1984). "Social psychological aspects of computer-mediated communication". American Psychologist. 39 (10): 1123–1134. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.39.10.1123.
- ↑ Davis, Richard (1999). The web of politics : the internet's impact on the American political system. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195114843. OCLC 38879177.
- 1 2 Yildiz, Mete (2007). "E-government research: Reviewing the literature, limitations, and ways forward". Government Information Quarterly. 24 (3): 646–665. doi: 10.1016/j.giq.2007.01.002 .