Deliberation

In the context of political communication, deliberation refers to a process of reasoning and discussion about political matters. Deliberation takes place in parliamentary debate, expert panels, deliberative decision-making bodies, news media content, political talk shows, online discussion forums, civil society organizations, and everyday political talk among citizens.

Normative theories of deliberative democracy place particular emphasis on the democratic value of deliberation. Although by no means a uniform group, deliberative democratic theorists agree on the centrality of argumentative exchange in political communication in order to foster both the cognitive quality of political judgment (rationality) and mutual respect [Page 168]and cohesion among deliberators (social integration). Deliberation is usually considered to be an alternative to both bargaining and rhetoric. Although bargaining involves the pursuit of particularistic interests by means of offering incentives and applying threats, deliberation relies on the persuasive power of voluntarily accepted reasons. Whereas rhetoric can include polemics, humor, emotional appeals, and the like, deliberation is predicated on the literal use and understanding of arguments.

One problem of deliberative democratic theory is how to transpose the benefits of deliberation from small-scale deliberative settings into large-scale societal communication. Bruce Ackerman and James S. Fishkin have proposed a “deliberation day” to bridge the gap: establishing a national holiday one week before major national elections on which citizens would be paid for participating in deliberation groups as well as voting 1 week later. A more mundane possibility lies in measuring deliberative qualities of the mass news media and investigating the conditions under which such deliberative media content has normatively desirable effects on political decision makers and citizens. Vis-à-vis decision makers, mediated deliberation can be thought to foster active justification of political claims and decisions, thus enhancing the quality of decisions or at least avoiding egregious mistakes. In relation to the citizenry, deliberative media content may serve as a repository of arguments and justifications (thus reducing citizens' information costs drastically) and as a model for deliberative behavior in everyday political talk.

So far, there are only a few empirical studies directed at measuring the deliberative qualities of mass media content. In the print media, argumentative exchange is achieved for example in commentary, news analysis, or debate-style articles, with journalists apparently playing a particularly important role for enhancing deliberativeness. In political talk shows, the host can foster argumentation by eliciting justifications from discussants and confronting them with opposing claims. In citizen deliberation, argument repertoire has been shown to be a valid measure of deliberativeness; that is, the number of arguments a person can give for his or her own position and the number of arguments a person can imagine opponents will use to support the counter-position. Exposure to disagreement enhances argument repertoire and political tolerance but discourages political participation, suggesting that deliberative and participative behavior cannot be optimized at the same time. Critical accounts of political deliberation sometimes feature claims of decay over time, but longitudinal evidence to support such claims is scarce at best.