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

该项目是一项关于公民审议公共问题的试点研究，比较了基于互联网的交流和面对面的交流。 这项研究回应了学术界对公民参与公共问题日益增长的热情，通过有意义的公共讨论的新模式，目的是评估互联网的能力，以服务于审议功能。主要研究问题是：“在线公共审议过程与面对面环境中的公共审议过程有何不同？” 作为一个试点项目，该项目的方法是探索各种可能有助于回答这一问题的原型措施。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，态度和信任的措施。从心理学和社会学对小群体的研究中，本研究得出了一个分析小群体过程内容的框架。 通过对以计算机为媒介的沟通的研究，该研究得出了面对面和基于互联网的沟通之间差异的基线期望。 研究设计是实验性的，使用10组7名受试者。五人将就两个公共政策问题进行网上审议，五人进行面对面审议。 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，旨在衡量对政策问题的立场的量化变化，群体极化效应等。 第二种技术是直接观察和定性分析的群体过程，使用八维编码方案识别规范，角色，领导力，创新性，沟通风格和其他方面的小群体动态的出现。 第三种是两次审议后的情况汇报，一次是小组内的，一次是通过电话私下进行的，目的是了解参与者的反应、满意度等。 未来的研究将使用这项试点研究中出现的最可靠，有效和分析有用的措施，以检查更多的科目，有一套完整的控制，并具有更大的统计能力。

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.