Citizen Deliberation of Public Issues: The Internet Versus Face to Face Contact

该项目是公民审议公共问题的试点研究，比较了基于互联网的沟通和面对面的沟通。这项研究回应了学术界对公民通过新的有意义的公共讨论模式参与公共问题日益增长的热情，目的是评估互联网发挥审议功能的能力。主要的研究问题是：在线公众审议过程与面对面的公众审议过程有何不同？作为试点，该项目的方法是探索各种可能有助于回答这个问题的原型措施。这项研究借鉴了政治哲学的研究，描绘了民主国家政治审议性质的规范性概念。从政治学的调查研究中，这项研究得出了意见、态度和信任的衡量标准。从心理学和社会学对小群体的研究出发，本研究为分析小群体过程的内容提供了一个框架。通过对计算机媒介交流的研究，这项研究得出了面对面交流和基于互联网的交流之间的差异的基线预期。研究设计为实验设计，共10组，每组7名受试者。五人将进行网上审议，五人将面对面审议两个公共政策问题。将使用三种探索性测量技术。第一种是审议前和审议后的个人意见调查，旨在衡量在政策问题、群体两极分化效应等问题上立场的可量化转变。第二种技术是对小组过程的直接观察和定性分析，使用八维编码方案来识别小小组动态的规范、角色、领导力、创新性、沟通方式和其他方面的出现。第三次是两次审议后的汇报，一次是小组内的，一次是私下通过电话进行的，旨在收集参与者的反应和满意度等。我们计划在这项初步研究完成后，设计和进行另一项后续研究。未来的研究将使用从这项初步研究中产生的最可靠、最有效、在分析上最有用的测量方法，通过全套对照和更大的统计能力来检查更多的受试者。

This project is a pilot study of citizen deliberation of public issues, comparing Internet-based and face-to-face communication. The study responds to growing scholarly enthusiasm about citizen engagement with public issues though new modes of meaningful public discussion, with the aim of assessing the capacity of the Internet to serve deliberative functions. The main research question is: `How are processes of public deliberation on-line different from processes of public deliberation in face-to-face settings?` The approach of this project as a pilot is to explore a variety of prototype measures potentially useful in answering this question. The study draws on research in political philosophy delineating normative conceptions of the nature of political deliberation in a democracy. From survey research in political science, the study draws measures of opinion, attitudes, and trust. From psychological and sociological research on small groups, the study draws a framework for analyzing the content of small group processes. From research on computer-mediated communication, the study draws baseline expectations for differences between face-to-face and Internet-based communication. The research design is experimental, using ten groups of seven subjects. Five will engage in on-line deliberation and five in face-to-face deliberation of two public policy issues. Three exploratory measurement techniques will be used. The first is pre-deliberation and post-deliberation surveys of individual opinion, designed to measure quantifiable shifts in positions on the policy problems, group polarization effects, and the like. The second technique is direct observation and qualitative analysis of group processes, using an eight-dimensional coding scheme for identifying the emergence of norms, roles, leadership, innovativeness, communication styles, and other aspects of small group dynamics. The third is two post-deliberation de-briefings, one in-group, and one privately by telephone, designed to capture participants' reactions, degree of satisfaction, and so on. A separate follow-up study is envisioned, to be designed and conducted after this pilot study is completed. That future study will use the measures that emerge from this pilot study as the most reliable, valid, and analytically useful, to examine more subjects, with a full set of controls, and with greater statistical power.