This guide from Bang the Table walks you through the common challenges, opportunities and pitfalls you may face while providing practical strategies and advice to help you build a successful digital-first engagement practice for your organization.

About Bang the Table
Bang the Table was founded because, no matter how well-designed the off-line consultation process, inevitably it only reaches a small segment of a community. The online space provides the opportunity to give vastly more people access to information and enable them to have their say. It drives inclusive, transparent, and measurable community engagement processes that empower collaborative learning, discussion, and debate.

Resource link: www.bangthetable.com/blog/how-to-approach-digital-first-community-engagement/

The following meeting facilitation tips were submitted by John Godec of The Participation Company. As public sector consultants, The Participation Company helps government agencies manage public issues to accomplish agency objectives. Their private sector business clients are able to maintain or improve their relationships with the public and gain support for their projects.

Facilitating meetings can be both an art and a science when the issues being discussed are comparably complex. Getting the right people involved in the discussion from the start can go a long way in your being able to facilitate successfully. Inviting those “right” people is key to reaching consensus. But how to craft an effective invitation is not always a skill everyone has. Here are some meeting facilitation tips to help when creating meeting invitations:

Build Excitement
You want your invitation to create anticipation in the recipient. Craft an announcement to your event in a way that will make it feel more like an invitation to a special event. Those invited will be excited to attend and will feel honored to have been included.

Help People Decide
A successful invitation also gives those who are not interested in your event permission to miss it. Knowing those who do actually show up are those who really wanted to be there and that those who chose not to be there didn’t attend is sure to be a relief. Design your invitation to help people easily decide if they even want to be a part of the facilitation process. Facilitating such meetings is made easier when those who want to be there are the ones who attend.

Explain the Way it Works
If you’re trying to figure out how to facilitate a meeting or if you’re planning to host a series of events, describe the order in a way that lets people choose when they want to become engaged. Describing each event will help them feel like they aren’t missing opportunities along the way.

An example of how to accomplish this could be to:

• explain how the event will affect the invited person, their family, and their community;
• how the event will give those invited the chance to have a say in the way the project turns out, and which days they’ll need to attend in order to present their opinion or solution;
• what the objective of each meeting will be, whether it will be a stating of the problem, a brainstorming session with others, or a resolution meeting.

Continue the Engagement
Just because the invitations have been sent doesn’t mean the excitement should end. Restating the purpose of the event during the opening remarks will help focus the discussions you as facilitator anticipate. Reminding attendees of the intended purpose of the event will also make it easier to refocus everyone if people stray off topic.

Happy Successful Facilitating
These meeting facilitation tips should help you create engaging invitations to public participation events, resulting in your facilitating successfully. No matter how effective a facilitator you are, invitations are an important way to make those events even more successful from the beginning.

From the introduction…

Developments in research and innovation (R&I) are often created through collaboration between diverse actors, and the innovations created can affect actors far beyond the innovation process itself. Through deliberation, all affected actors can be brought together. Deliberation among actors of research and innovation is not something new, yet the current policy initiatives promoting deliberation in EU-led research has an interesting potential to mainstream deliberation in larger R&I projects in Europe. There has been a push within the EU to increase dialogue among all actors of research and innovation, including public administration, businesses, and civil society organizations. The dialogue is promoted as part of the objective to create responsible research and innovation (RRI1 ) in Europe. The promotion of RRI creates new opportunities for deliberation and at the same time defines a context and aim for such deliberation. One key aim is to achieve responsiveness among actors of research and innovation.

The article will examine how existing theory and practical experience with stakeholder workshops can inspire dialogue processes working toward the aim of responsiveness. Thus, both the theoretical literature based on practitioner experiences and the literature on democratic ideals will be applied to explore the complexity of deliberation processes in R&I. To highlight gaps between theoretical work and dialogue practices, the article will use a case, which illustrates the challenges of organizing stakeholder workshops. Through the illustration, the article aims to move discussions of stakeholder workshops to the muddy center, where difficult decisions and practical trade-offs have to be considered. Central to the success of dialogue initiatives is the ability to create a constructive dialogue among the participating stakeholders. The article discusses how something constructive can come out of something as imperfect as dialogue between strangers.

Download the full article from the Journal of Public Deliberation here.

About the Journal of Public Deliberation
Spearheaded by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium in collaboration with the International Association of Public Participation, the principal objective of Journal of Public Deliberation (JPD) is to synthesize the research, opinion, projects, experiments and experiences of academics and practitioners in the emerging multi-disciplinary field and political movement called by some “deliberative democracy.” By doing this, we hope to help improve future research endeavors in this field and aid in the transformation of modern representative democracy into a more citizen-friendly form.

Follow the Deliberative Democracy Consortium on Twitter: @delibdem

Follow the International Association of Public Participation [US] on Twitter: @IAP2USA

Resource Link: www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol13/iss2/art9/

From the introduction…

“There is nothing, nothing, nothing about politics. … You don’t know who strips to each [political] side. We never talk about that” (M. R., participant in a concejo abierto).1 Maria Rosa is a farmer who was engaged in a town meeting in a rural community in Araba (Basque Country, Spain). Two years before, she started attending meetings and acquired such extensive knowledge of the rules and the daily procedures that she was elected to the administrative board by her neighbors. Like Maria Rosa, other participants in this participatory institution believe it to be strictly non-political. In other settings of community engagement such as participatory budgeting assemblies and neighborhood associations, participants also believe that they are not playing politics (Baiocchi, 2005; Ball, 2005; Talpin, 2012). At the core of this belief is the idea that broader political issues should not be addressed in settings dedicated to small deliberation on community problems (Ganuza & Francés, 2012).

The political scope of participation, like the range of issues which are addressed, is not something that can be deduced only from the institutional design and the list of powers formally attributed to the participatory institutions. It also depends on the cultural frame assumed by participants. As Baiocchi (2005) noted regarding Porto Alegre’s participatory budget (PB) process, participants found it unacceptable to speak about political issues in assemblies, as they were committed to solving community problems in a practical sense. Talpin (2012) noticed the same thing in several European cases. In concejos abiertos (rural town meetings in Araba) most of the issues that come under the title of “politics” also sit uneasily with the participants. Like Maria Rosa, other participants think that politics should stay away.

Through a case-study in the concejos abiertos of Araba, we analyze the political scope of a community-based participatory institution. I will show how participants understand and confer meaning to this participatory setting, a highly empowered institution of rural governance. As we will observe, within the cultural framework of “politics-away,” participants distinguish themselves from party politics, making space for their own decision-making; they limit potential conflict, divisions, and promote inclusiveness; and they sustain collective action, even on broader political issues such as environmental concerns. The focal point of the paper is that participants use selective depoliticization as the best approach to sustain community engagement.

Download the full article from the Journal of Public Deliberation here.

About the Journal of Public Deliberation
Spearheaded by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium in collaboration with the International Association of Public Participation, the principal objective of Journal of Public Deliberation (JPD) is to synthesize the research, opinion, projects, experiments and experiences of academics and practitioners in the emerging multi-disciplinary field and political movement called by some “deliberative democracy.” By doing this, we hope to help improve future research endeavors in this field and aid in the transformation of modern representative democracy into a more citizen-friendly form.

Follow the Deliberative Democracy Consortium on Twitter: @delibdem

Follow the International Association of Public Participation [US] on Twitter: @IAP2USA

Resource Link: www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol13/iss2/art8/

From the introduction…

The literature on informal talk, political discussion and deliberation is growing at a rapid pace (Conover & Searing, 2005; Maia, 2012, 2017; Marques & Maia, 2010; Moy & Gastil, 2006; Walsh, 2004, 2007; Wyatt, Katz, & Kim, 2000). Conscious of this tendency, researchers are now quite cautious about specifying the features of different group-affiliations and the social conditions and circumstances enabling argumentative discussion (Black, 2008; Grölund, Bächtiger, & Setälä, 2014; Steiner, 2012; Wojcieszak & Mutz, 2009). The topic of authority is central to political theory. However, it is rarely operationalized in empirical research. Although important studies have looked at the dynamics of face-to-face group discussions involving unequal conditions (Gerber, 2015; Karpowitz & Mendelberg, 2014; Mendelberg, Karpowitz, & Oliphant, 2014; Pedrini, Bächtiger, & Steenbergen, 2013; Steiner, 2012; Steiner, Jaramillo, Maia, & Mameli, 2017; Walsh, 2007), these studies have not yet examined moments when conversation is shaped by hierarchical relationships. How authority is enacted in the flow of conversation remains poorly understood; and our knowledge of the sources of authority that constrain or enable dialogue is limited.

This paper contributes to filling this gap. Contrary to scholars who assume that authentic deliberation cannot be established between members of highly uneven authority, we argue that “moments” of constructive dialogue are possible and productive for deliberation. By focusing on intergroup communication between slum-dwellers and police officers in Brazil, we examine what sources of authority are mobilized in both deliberative and non-deliberative moments and how participants unequal in power can construct reciprocal relationships. To develop this study, we conducted six discussion groups with slums inhabitants and police officers in Brazil. This study applies the concept of “Deliberative Transformative Moments” (DTM) (Jaramillo & Steiner, 2014; Steiner et al., 2017), designed to assess how certain elements affect the flow of discussion.

This analysis contributes to explaining the complexity of the notion of equality in the dynamics of face-to-face group discussions. Against a static view of power relationships, our analysis clarifies a range of authority sources that serve to dynamically shape relationships in conversational contexts. Our findings reveal that sources of authority based on life experiences predominate when deliberation is at a high level, whereas functional credentials prevail when deliberation is low. We suggest that the role of authority on deliberation is far from straightforward; functional authority is not necessarily dominative or coercive, and it can be combined with behaviors (such as empathetic understanding, search for commonalities, and self-criticism) that lead to reciprocal interactions.

Download the full article from the Journal of Public Deliberation here.

About the Journal of Public Deliberation
Spearheaded by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium in collaboration with the International Association of Public Participation, the principal objective of Journal of Public Deliberation (JPD) is to synthesize the research, opinion, projects, experiments and experiences of academics and practitioners in the emerging multi-disciplinary field and political movement called by some “deliberative democracy.” By doing this, we hope to help improve future research endeavors in this field and aid in the transformation of modern representative democracy into a more citizen-friendly form.

Follow the Deliberative Democracy Consortium on Twitter: @delibdem

Follow the International Association of Public Participation [US] on Twitter: @IAP2USA

Resource Link: www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol13/iss2/art7/

From the introduction…

While the field of political communication has paid attention to the importance of entertainment media in the last decade (e.g., Hmielowski, Holbert, & Lee, 2011; Young, 2004), little research has focused on political documentary as an influential medium and source for public deliberation and meaning-making (Nisbet & Aufderheide, 2009). A few studies have shown that political documentary has the potential to influence public perceptions and behaviors. For example, Howell (2011) found that UK viewers became more pro-environmental after being exposed to a film depicting the negative effects of climate change. Stroud (2007) found that the viewers of the documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 were more likely to discuss politics with friends and family than were non-viewers. Related research has demonstrated that mass media generally, and political film and documentaries specifically, can enhance learning in the classroom (Krain, 2010; Sunderland, Rothermel, & Lusk, 2009) and influence the electorate (LaMarre & Landreville, 2009). Additional research has shown that combining media viewing with deliberative discursive engagement can further increase positive civic outcomes (Kern & Just, 1995; Rojas, Shah, Cho, Schmierbach, Keum, & Gil-De-Zuñiga, 2005). This may be in part due to the greater potential for collaborative sensemaking—the negotiated and discursive engagement in shared meaning making that happens during public deliberation (see Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005). However, opportunities for collaborative sensemaking and public deliberation centered on a popular text are rare. Thus, we were interested in exploring focus groups as a potentially rich context for discursive engagement following the shared viewing of a political documentary (i.e., 2016, Obama’s America). We argue that when placed within the context of viewing popular political documentary, focus group discussions offer a meaningful site for public deliberation and collaborative sensemaking and as such should be added to the toolbox of deliberative pedagogy.

Download the full article from the Journal of Public Deliberation here.

About the Journal of Public Deliberation
Spearheaded by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium in collaboration with the International Association of Public Participation, the principal objective of Journal of Public Deliberation (JPD) is to synthesize the research, opinion, projects, experiments and experiences of academics and practitioners in the emerging multi-disciplinary field and political movement called by some “deliberative democracy.” By doing this, we hope to help improve future research endeavors in this field and aid in the transformation of modern representative democracy into a more citizen-friendly form.

Follow the Deliberative Democracy Consortium on Twitter: @delibdem

Follow the International Association of Public Participation [US] on Twitter: @IAP2USA

Resource Link: www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol13/iss2/art6/

From the introduction…

As higher education continues to evolve in response to stakeholder demands, individuals associated with colleges and universities, from employees to students to alumni, find themselves needing to make difficult decisions about pressing problems based on sometimes competing interests. Funding changes, calls for increased transparency and accountability, and increasing competition have made such decisions more difficult and intense, shaping the ways in which colleges and universities make decisions about their vision, goals, resources, and practices.

In both commercial and educational organizations, administrators tend to be the ones making these decisions. This top-down approach to decision-making comes with at least two problems in higher education. First, it can lead members to lose trust in administrators if they feel that decision-makers do not care for or ask for outside viewpoints. Members can begin to feel as if they have no voice, thereby undercutting their connection to or concern for their organization. Second, even if administrators ask for others’ viewpoints, communication during the decisionmaking process tends to reflect a zero-sum, competitive orientation in that people tend to argue for and cling to their existing thought patterns and meaning systems rather than learn or explore new ones (Hurtado, 2007). Additionally, when communicating with someone from a different group over tightly held views, goals, and beliefs (such as where funding should go), such communication typically breaks down into entrenched argument, with individuals turning toward their ingroups to reify their opinions, beliefs, and worldviews (Pearce & Littlejohn, 1997; Theiss-Morse & Hibbing, 2005). In colleges and universities with increasing diversity and decreasing resources, such monologic communication is counterproductive individually and organizationally.

One approach to overcoming these problems can be found in the growing communication literature on deliberation and dialogue (Diaz & Gilchrist, 2010; Hurtado, 2007; Schoem, Hurtado, Sevig, Chesler, & Sumida, 2001; Thomas, 2010; Trevino, 2001). Grounded in theorizing on deliberative democracy (Delli Carpini, Cook, & Jacobs, 2004; Kim & Kim, 2008), deliberation involves community members coming together in a facilitated small group setting to make decisions on public issues (Bedinger, 2011; Burkhalter, Gastil, & Kelshaw, 2002; Cohen, 1997; Habermas, 2006; Ryfe, 2002). In an organizational context, deliberative decisionmaking can involve bringing people from diverse groups together in facilitated small group settings to foster mutual understanding and collaborative decisionmaking based on co-created goals regarding organizational issues and plans. During the deliberation process, the approach to communication can vary, from competitive, rationalistic argumentation to relationally sensitive dialogue that attempts to foster relational connections and create shared meaning through an exploration of one another’s personal assumptions about the world (Barge & Little, 2002; Bedinger, 2011; Eisenberg & Goodall, 2001; Isaacs, 1993; Kellett & Dalton, 2001; Pearce & Pearce, 2004; Yungbluth & Johnson, 2010). Deliberation grounded in principles of dialogue involves growing understanding and making decisions collaboratively while prioritizing empathic listening, open expression, and thoughtful inquiry of diverse viewpoints and experiences (Barge & Little, 2002; Bedinger, 2011; Black, 2008; Eisenberg & Goodall, 2001; Schoem et al., 2001; Spano, 2001).

On campus, the number of programs devoted to dialogue and deliberation has grown significantly over the past decade (van Til, 2011), particularly as colleges and universities have expressed heightened interest in civic engagement and diversity (Bedinger, 2011; Thomas, 2010). A growing body of research has investigated the outcomes of participation in these programs, which largely focus on off-campus community issues (in the case of deliberation programs) or social issues (in the case of dialogue programs) rather than on-campus decision-making (Burkhalter et al., 2002; Gurin, Nagda, & Lopez, 2004; Hurtado, 2001; Spano, 2001). While these outcomes are promising for participants, we still have only a limited understanding of who participates in these programs. Research to date has largely explored how participation is associated with individual-level factors (e.g., demographic factors such as race and psychographic factors such as need for cognition) (Goidel, Freeman, Procopio, & Zewe, 2008; Jacobs, Cook, & Delli Carpini, 2009; Neblo, Esterling, Kennedy, Lazer, & Sokhey, 2010). Given that deliberation is inherently social, it also is important to explore the influence of social factors, particularly regarding communicative and organizational characteristics, on interest in participating. Additionally, given the democratic orientation of deliberation, it is important to examine participation interest of people who do not hold traditional decision-making roles, such as students.

This study examines how undergraduate students’ interest in participating in campus-based deliberative programming and the perceived helpfulness of such participation are influenced by communication-related and organization-related factors. Communication-related factors consisted of perceptions of debate and dialogue as approaches to communication. Organization-related factors included openness to diversity and ability to effect change. The study addresses the pragmatics of organizational decision-making by examining the influence of communication-related and organization-related factors on deliberation participation. Additionally, the study extends research on motivation to participate in deliberative programming as well as the factors underlying perceptions of such programming in higher education. Study findings have implications for how colleges and universities can put democratic principles into practice in their decision-making policies and practices.

Download the full article from the Journal of Public Deliberation here.

About the Journal of Public Deliberation
Spearheaded by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium in collaboration with the International Association of Public Participation, the principal objective of Journal of Public Deliberation (JPD) is to synthesize the research, opinion, projects, experiments and experiences of academics and practitioners in the emerging multi-disciplinary field and political movement called by some “deliberative democracy.” By doing this, we hope to help improve future research endeavors in this field and aid in the transformation of modern representative democracy into a more citizen-friendly form.

Follow the Deliberative Democracy Consortium on Twitter: @delibdem

Follow the International Association of Public Participation [US] on Twitter: @IAP2USA

Resource Link: www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol13/iss2/art5/

From the introduction…

Effects on political efficacy, i.e. citizens’ perceptions that they have an influence on public issues, are of great interest in research on deliberative procedures (e.g. Delli Carpini, Cook & Jacobs, 2004; Fishkin & Luskin, 1999; Rosenberg, 2007). As a crucial predictor of political participation, efficacy is pivotal for striving democracies and thus a significant concept in respective theories (Conway, 2000; Pateman, 1970).

Theorists have claimed for a long time that participation in deliberative procedures would improve citizens’ political efficacy. Empirically, the results are mixed. Recent works have shown that deliberative procedures can affect political efficacy positively, negatively or not at all. Some studies detected an increase of political efficacy in deliberative procedures (Fishkin, 1995; Grönlund, Setälä, & Herne, 2010; Nabatchi, 2007), but Morrell (2005) and others noticed little or no impacts (e.g. Gastil, 1999; Morrell, 1998; Stromer-Galley & Muhlberger, 2009; Walsh, 2003). A few scholars even noticed decreased efficacy when people are confronted with disagreement (e.g. Mutz, 2008). Obviously, impacts of deliberative procedures on efficacy depend on specific factors.

Accordingly, scholars of deliberation have stressed the need to examine which factors influence the improvement of political efficacy (e.g. Geissel, 2009; Mutz, 2008; Thompson, 2008). Up to now research mainly focused on deliberative experiments or single events (Fishkin, 1995; Fung, 2004; Fung & Wright, 2003; Gastil et al., 2010; Grönlund, Setälä, & Herne, 2010; Gutmann & Thompson, 1996; Knobloch & Gastil, 2015; Nabatchi, 2007; Smith, 2009). Hardly any large-n studies have been conducted on variables influencing efficacy in real-life deliberative procedures, and generalizable results are missing altogether. This article will fill this gap and answer the following question: Under which conditions do real-life deliberative procedures enhance political efficacy?

Methodologically, we address the lack of (generalizable) findings by applying a rather novel method – the accumulation of “the intellectual gold of case study research” (Jensen & Rodgers, 2001, p. 235; see also Smith et al., 2015). Recently scholars have tried to summarize case study findings in narrative synopses (e.g. Delli Carpini, Cook, & Jacobs, 2004, p. 200; Goodin & Dryzek, 2006). In contrast, we intend to generate a quantitative large-n synopsis allowing for statistical calculation. By aggregating and integrating a large number of case study findings, we aim to test hypotheses and identify generalizable results (Borroso et al., 2003, p. 154).

Download the full article from the Journal of Public Deliberation here.

About the Journal of Public Deliberation
Spearheaded by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium in collaboration with the International Association of Public Participation, the principal objective of Journal of Public Deliberation (JPD) is to synthesize the research, opinion, projects, experiments and experiences of academics and practitioners in the emerging multi-disciplinary field and political movement called by some “deliberative democracy.” By doing this, we hope to help improve future research endeavors in this field and aid in the transformation of modern representative democracy into a more citizen-friendly form.

Follow the Deliberative Democracy Consortium on Twitter: @delibdem

Follow the International Association of Public Participation [US] on Twitter: @IAP2USA

Resource Link: www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol13/iss2/art4/

From the introduction…

A handful of leaders across for-profit, nonprofit, and government sectors, including a nationally recognized medical doctor and nutrition expert, and directors from Nike, Inc., and the U.S. Surgeon General’s office, coalesced in a collaborative partnership of decision-makers under the name Shaping America’s Youth (SAY). Given their view that the so-called experts had failed to influence change, they agreed that the solutions to childhood obesity must be found in collaboration with ordinary citizens—“nonexperts.” This assumption led to SAY’s partnership with the nonprofit, public deliberation pioneer, AmericaSpeaks, whose influential 21st Century Town Meeting® model facilitated engaging citizens in solutions. 1 In line with the growing trend of large-scale deliberation meetings, these partners brought together citizens from a crosssection of community stakeholder groups in a series of public dialogues that would ultimately influence changes related to childhood obesity. The mission of SAY was “to assure that the voices of families and communities are integrated into local and national policy to improve the nutrition, physical activity, and health of children and youth” (SAY meeting minutes). The present study commenced when SAY was in its fifth year of organizing, which was devoted to engaging communities toward this mission through a series of town meetings. As scholars and practitioners, we were interested in the organizing question, how would SAY carry out its commitment to engage nonexperts in solutions? What we found was an instructive case study that a) provides a heuristic for eliciting the voices of nonexperts, b) documents perceived outcomes linking dialogic process and product, and c) challenges theoretical assumptions about the wisdom of crowds as simply an aggregate of individually held knowledge.

This paper proceeds with a theoretical understanding of the wisdom of crowds including two schools of thought—one absent of a deliberative communicative model and one inclusive of a communicative model of gleaning meaningful input from nonexperts. The communicative model we introduce is grounded in literature on dialogue, public dialogue, and deliberation. This literature provides the context for our findings. We argue that SAY chose to engage nonexperts in solutions with a meeting method grounded in dialogic principles. After describing the methods of the study, and the findings that explicate how nonexperts were engaged, we introduce several outcomes that participants perceived as a result of the meeting process. These outcomes suggest implications for communicative models of engaging nonexperts in solutions. They demonstrate the how and why leaders of social change may choose to communicatively engage nonexperts.

Download the full article from the Journal of Public Deliberation here.

About the Journal of Public Deliberation
Spearheaded by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium in collaboration with the International Association of Public Participation, the principal objective of Journal of Public Deliberation (JPD) is to synthesize the research, opinion, projects, experiments and experiences of academics and practitioners in the emerging multi-disciplinary field and political movement called by some “deliberative democracy.” By doing this, we hope to help improve future research endeavors in this field and aid in the transformation of modern representative democracy into a more citizen-friendly form.

Follow the Deliberative Democracy Consortium on Twitter: @delibdem

Follow the International Association of Public Participation [US] on Twitter: @IAP2USA

Resource Link: www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol13/iss2/art3/

From the introduction…

There are many desirable potential outcomes of participating in public engagements. Learning outcomes are especially important because knowledge is a prerequisite to offering informed policy input, which may make the input more useful and influential (Guston, 2014; Muhlberger & Weber, 2006). Prior research suggests deliberative public engagements, in particular, may improve public understanding of science and technology by providing participants with opportunities to study relevant information as they form their preferences (e.g., Farrar et al., 2010). However, not all studies find positive effects of deliberation (Delli Carpini, Cook, & Jacobs, 2004; Ryfe, 2005), and even when effects are found, it is difficult for researchers to identify the mechanisms responsible (e.g., Sanders, 2012).

Experiments investigating the effects of specific features of public engagement are especially important for advancing theoretical understanding of what features of public engagements work for what purposes and why, and to guide the design of effective engagements (PytlikZillig & Tomkins, 2011). In addition, because of concerns relating to issues of equality and engagement (Benhabib, 2002), it is important to examine potential moderators. Not all publics have equal information or influence relating to political or policy issues, and little research has examined whether certain deliberative mechanisms favor some groups over others (Fraile, 2014; Hickerson & Gastil, 2008; Karpowitz, Mendelberg, & Shaker, 2012).

Deliberative engagements include features such as provision of balanced information, encouragement of deep cognitive engagement, and group discussion (Fishkin & Luskin, 2005). Theory suggests these features may promote increased knowledge and potentially more well-justified attitudes and policy preferences (Chambers, 2003; Mendelberg, 2002). However, there are numerous empirical gaps in these theorized connections. For example, despite the centrality of deep cognitive engagement to deliberative theory, few studies of deliberative practice explicitly measure cognitive engagement, or the variety of other ways people may engage. Even fewer attempt to causally connect different forms of individual engagement to specific deliberative design features and outcomes, such as increased knowledge or understanding.

To begin to fill this gap, in the present studies, we experimentally varied features of deliberation (information, instructions, and discussion), and measured the individual and combined impacts of these features on individual-level engagement and knowledge. Further, we examined potential moderation by two other variables: gender—which is a longstanding basis of political inequality (Benhabib, 2002)—and individual differences in need for cognition (the tendency to enjoy and use effortful and deep thinking processes (Cacioppo, Petty, Feinstein, & Jarvis, 1996)—a variable especially relevant to deliberation.

We conducted our studies in the context of engaging college science students in deliberations about potential ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) associated with nanotechnology. While the college classroom context is not representative of the majority of public engagement contexts, it is one such context, and one that facilitates controlled experimentation. In addition, findings from studies of the design of deliberative discussions in this context can specifically improve the use of deliberative practices when helping students consider ELSI implications of new science and technology developments—a practice which is increasingly encouraged (Barsoum, Sellers, Campbell, Heyer, & Paradise, 2013). Finally, findings in this context may suggest possibilities that should be investigated in other public engagement contexts.

Download the full article from the Journal of Public Deliberation here.

About the Journal of Public Deliberation
Spearheaded by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium in collaboration with the International Association of Public Participation, the principal objective of Journal of Public Deliberation (JPD) is to synthesize the research, opinion, projects, experiments and experiences of academics and practitioners in the emerging multi-disciplinary field and political movement called by some “deliberative democracy.” By doing this, we hope to help improve future research endeavors in this field and aid in the transformation of modern representative democracy into a more citizen-friendly form.

Follow the Deliberative Democracy Consortium on Twitter: @delibdem

Follow the International Association of Public Participation [US] on Twitter: @IAP2USA

Resource Link: www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol13/iss2/art2/