Online deliberation

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Online deliberation is a broad term used to describe many forms of non-institutional, institutional and experimental online discussions. [1] The term also describes the emerging field of practice and research related to the design, implementation and study of deliberative processes that rely on the use of electronic information and communications technologies (ICT).

Contents

Although the Internet and social media have fostered discursive participation and deliberation online through computer-mediated communication, [2] the academic study of online deliberation started in the early 2000s. [3]

Effective support for online deliberation

A range of studies have suggested that group size, volume of communication, interactivity between participants, message characteristics, and social media characteristics can impact online deliberation. [4] [2] and that democratic deliberation varies across platforms. For example, news forums have been shown to have the highest degree of deliberation followed by news websites, and then Facebook. [5] Differences in the effectiveness of platforms as supporting deliberation has been attributed based on numerous factors such as moderation, the availability of information, and focusing on a well defined topic. [5]

A limited number of studies have explored the extent to which online deliberation can produce similar results to traditional, face-to-face deliberation. A 2004 deliberative poll comparing face-to-face and online deliberation on U.S. foreign policy found similar results. [6] A similar study in 2012 in France found that, compared to the offline process, online deliberation was more likely to increase women’s participation and to promote the justification of arguments by participants. [7]

Research on online deliberation suggests that there are five key design considerations that will affect the quality of dialogue: asynchronous communication vs synchronous communication, post hoc moderation vs pre-moderation, empowering spaces vs un-empowering spaces, asking discrete questions vs broad questions, and the quality of information. [8] Other scholars have suggested that successful online deliberation follows four central rules: discussions must be inclusive, rational-critical, reciprocal and respectful. [1]

In general, online deliberation require participants to be able to work together comfortably in order to make the best possible deliberations which can often require rules and regulations that help members feel comfortable with one another. [9]

Challenges

Researchers have questioned the utility of online deliberation as an extension of the public sphere, arguing the idea that online deliberation is no less beneficial than face-to-face interaction. [2] Computer-mediated discourse is deemed impersonal, and is found to encourage online incivility. [10] Furthermore, users who participate in online discussions about politics are found to make comments only in groups that agree with their own views, [11] indicating the possibility that online deliberation mainly promotes motivated reasoning and reinforces preexisting attitudes.

Scholarly research into online deliberation is interdisciplinary and includes practices such as online consultation, e-participation, e-government, [12] [2] Citizen-to-Citizen (C2C), [12] [2] online deliberative polling, crowdsourcing, online facilitation, online research communities, interactive e-learning, civic dialogue in Internet forums and online chat, and group decision making that utilizes collaborative software and other forms of computer-mediated communication. Work in all these endeavors is tied together by the challenge of using electronic media in a way that deepens thinking and improves mutual understanding.

See also

Related Research Articles

Deliberative democracy or discursive democracy is a form of democracy in which deliberation is central to decision-making. Deliberative democracy seeks quality over quantity by limiting decision-makers to a smaller but more representative sample of the population that is given the time and resources to focus on one issue.

Participatory democracy, participant democracy, participative democracy, or semi-direct 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 are 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Science and technology studies</span> Academic field

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spiral of silence</span> Political science and mass communication theory

The spiral of silence theory is a political science and mass communication theory which states that an individual's perception of the distribution of public opinion influences that individual's willingness to express their own opinions. Also known as the theory of public opinion, the spiral of silence theory claims 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 themself is more important than their own judgement", meaning their perception of how others in the group perceive them is more important to themself than the need for their opinion to be heard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">E-democracy</span> Use of information and communication technology in political and governance processes

E-democracy, also known as digital democracy or Internet democracy, uses information and communication technology (ICT) in political and governance processes. The term is credited to digital activist Steven Clift. By using 21st-century ICT, e-democracy seeks to enhance democracy, including aspects like civic technology and E-government. Proponents argue that by promoting transparency in decision-making processes, e-democracy can empower all citizens to observe and understand the proceedings. Also, if they possess overlooked data, perspectives, or opinions, they can contribute meaningfully. This contribution extends beyond mere informal disconnected debate; it facilitates citizen engagement in the proposal, development, and actual creation of a country's laws. In this way, e-democracy has the potential to incorporate crowdsourced analysis more directly into the policy-making process.

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 taken before and after significant deliberation. 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. Deliberative polls have been run around the world, including recent experiments to conduct discussions virtually in the United States, Hong Kong, Chile, Canada and Japan.

Electronic participation (e-participation) refers to the use of ICT in facilitating citizen participation in government-related processes, encompassing areas such as administration, service delivery, decision-making, and policy-making. As such, e-participation shares close ties with e-government and e-governance participation. The term's emergence aligns with the digitization of citizen interests and interactions with political service providers, primarily due to the proliferation of e-government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public consultation</span> Process to get public input

Public consultation, public comment, or simply consultation, is a process by which members of the public are asked for input on public issues. This can occur in public meetings open to all in written form, as well as in deliberative groups. Surveys and deliberative groups can be conducted with self-selected citizens or with statistically representative samples of the population which enables the identification of majority opinion. Its main goals are to improve public involvement and influence, as well as the transparency and efficiency of government projects, laws, or regulations.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sortition</span> Selection of decision-makers by random sample

In governance, sortition is the selection of public officials or jurors at random, i.e. by lottery, in order to obtain a representative sample.

A citizens' assembly is a group of people selected by lottery from the general population to deliberate on important public questions so as to exert an influence. Other types of deliberative mini-publics include citizens' jury, citizens' panel, people's panel, people's jury, policy jury, consensus conference and citizens' convention.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LiquidFeedback</span> Software

LiquidFeedback is free software for political opinion formation and decision making. The software incorporates insights from social choice theory in order to aggregate opinions more effectively.

Tali Mendelberg is the John Work Garrett Professor in Politics at Princeton University, co-director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics, and director of the Program on Inequality at the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, and winner of the American Political Science Association (APSA), 2002 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Book Award for her book, The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality.

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. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. ↑ 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.
  4. ↑ 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.
  5. 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.
  6. ↑ Considered Opinions on U.S. Foreign Policy: Face-to-Face versus Online Deliberative Polling*, 2004, CiteSeerX   10.1.1.493.3597
  7. ↑ 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.
  8. ↑ Friess, Dennis, & Eilders, Christiane. (2015). A Systematic Review of Online Deliberation Research. Policy and Internet, 7(3), 319-339.
  9. ↑ Noveck, Beth (2009). Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful. Brookings Institution Press.
  10. ↑ 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.
  11. ↑ 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.
  12. 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.

Conferences

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