The role of blogging in public deliberation and democracy (original) (raw)
Related papers
Blogs as a Source of Democratic Deliberation
Cultural, Political and Geographical Aspects
This chapter examines the deliberative potential of blogs and blog users. It investigates whether heavy reliance on blogs promotes positive characteristics—political efficacy, political interest, and political involvement—needed to foster democratic deliberation, or whether it leads to negative attributes—low trust, selective exposure, and political partisanship—that hinder democratic deliberation. Results show that unlike those who rarely rely on blogs, heavily dependent individuals are more involved in current events and are more trusting of the government, but they are also more likely to practice selective exposure by reading ideologically consistent blogs. Further, heavy reliance predicts involvement and selective exposure. The deliberative potential of blogs is boosted by users’ involvement in political issues but impeded by their propensity to seek out blogs that contain agreeable information. Instead of evolving into a public sphere, blogs may be becoming issue-oriented zone...
Political debate on weblogs: a virtual public sphere for deliberation?
T HE debate about the power of the internet to transform political systems and democratic practices has been the subject of academic research and debate over the past two decades, both among sociology of media scholars and, more specifically, political communication researchers. Undergone a brief period marked by some disenchantment, from 7-8 years on that the idealism associated with the Internet has resurfaced with an added impetus, spurred by the emergence of a broad set of tools that include a range of activities available to the public communication nowadays. Crucially, it became the design of a new conceptualization of the dimensions of political participation online, in close connection with a phase in the history of the internet known as Web 2.0. This has been introduced as the second generation of Web tools, with participatory and interactive features. Along with the most popular modes of communication are the social spaces, which include YouTube, Facebook and the growing blogosphere, that among other modality are united by a common trait: the integration of the ordinary individual in the process of producing and distributing content. Is this multimodal communicative space that is the new global public sphere .
Web 2.0 and deliberation. The ongoing practice of political debate in weblogs
This article focuses on the critical analysis of the blogosphere, in order to question its potential technological and political uses. As a starting point, we hypothesize that the blogosphere constitutes a particular form of public sphere in a discursive space, with a political density, in which practices of deliberation can take place. We will evaluate the debate concerning the identification of the blogosphere with the concept of the public sphere in order to develop this argument. We will do it by referencing the normative requirements of the deliberative model and patterns of interaction between authors and readers of blogs. By means of this approach, it will be possible to 1) confront the conditions for the existence of deliberation with the critical points of the generalized use of the blogosphere; 2) identify the basic elements of a framework of analysis to assess the existence of deliberative practices in the blogosphere; and 3) summarize the results of empirical studies conducted on this subject. Concerning these issues, we will analyze the quality of the debate around the concept of "austerity” in two blogs that are politically connected with parties. Data showed the prevalence of homophily, which is embodied in a cyberbalcanization phenomenon. Therefore, all the discursive process is characterized by well-defined polarization patterns, supported in extreme views. We concluded that the concept of deliberation does not apply to the more general type of communication in these two political blogs. It could be applied to a concept of participation; however, from a deliberative standpoint, it could only be understood as a lighter form of social interaction, with little density in a political plan.
How deliberative is the Swedish political blogosphere?
Studies of public deliberation have thus far predominantly, although not exclusively, investigated deliberative processes in small-scale settings such as experiments and democratic innovations. One of the most pressing challenges for scholars is to bridge the gap between normative theories and empirical studies of deliberative democracy, answering the question of how processes of public deliberation can be given significance in large societies. The political blogosphere is of particular interest in light of this challenge, as it constitutes a medium for political communication that offers a low threshold for participation, low communication costs, and strong possibilities for mass communication in large networks. But to what extent can the political blogosphere transform its technological opportunity structure into a functional basis for wide spread public deliberation? This study has attempts to construct and employ a measurement of deliberative communication in order to evaluate the deliberative capacity of the Swedish political blogosphere. The measurement used is based on three criteria; 1) Occurrence of interactive communication, 2) Quality of deliberation, and 3) Inclusiveness of deliberation (N=204). The analyses show that a small minority of the blogs (N=19, 9,3%) satisfies all criteria in the measurement. These blogs hosts about a fifth (N=235, 21%) of the interactive communication between bloggers and blog readers in the sample (N=1118). On a whole the study can conclude that deliberative communication is sparse and isolated to a small number of blogs in the Swedish political blogosphere.
2008
Communication technologies have altered the way people engage in political discourse. In recent years the internet has played a significant role in changing the way people receive political information, news and opinion. Perhaps the most significant difference as a result of advancements in communication and internet technology is how people participate in discussions and deliberate issues that are important to them. The 2005 New Zealand General Election fell at a time when functionality and access to fast and affordable internet allowed people to develop their own information channels and also determine how, where and to what level they participated in debate and commentary on election issues. The aim of this thesis is to examine how blogs were used to discuss political issues during the 2005 New Zealand General Election campaign period through the use of three inter-related methodologies. The methodologies used in the research are content analysis, interviews and a case study. Four blogs and the comments sections are analysed by way of content analysis for adherence to the rules of communicative interaction within the public sphere. Interviews were conducted with a number of people who blogged during the 2005 election campaign, to develop an understanding of their experiences and perceptions of the role blogging played in the election. A case study of politician and blogger Rodney Hide examines the role blogs play as a communication tool for politicians and the how they change the relationship between politician and voter. An explosion of academic literature in recent years has looked at the participative and deliberative nature of the internet and blogs as having opened new spaces and what implications that may have for democracy. Jurgen Habermas' seminal book, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, provides the theoretical basis for this thesis and the foundation for academic writing in this area. Habermas developed the normative notion of the public sphere as a part of social life where citizens exchanged views and opinions on matters of importance to the common good, so that wider public opinion can be formed.
Open or closed? An assessment of how blogs can contribute to policy making
This paper analyses the processes and outcomes of communication by two Australian government departments that used blogs to consult with citizens on a policy that was under development: Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) and Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR). The researcher also interviewed managers of the blog process of both departments to secure their feedback. The findings indicate that closed community blogs create excellent conditions for rich policy input, while open blogs (available to all citizens) provide less specific and less useable policy input. This is partially because public blogs are easily skewed off topic by participants who wish to dictate a particular view or as a result of ‘the vibe’ in the public sphere, affected by media and other people’s commentary that can set the agenda for discussion. Nevertheless, open blogs can provide government with a litmus test of the immediate concerns of active members of the public.
Deliberating in Online Forums: New Hope for the Public Sphere?
2002
As we start our journey through the twenty-first century, we will continue to be faced with two divergent trends, the rise of the Internet and the steady decline in the public sphere, and in political participation in general. The hopes of many are that eventually the one trend will offset the other; that the rapid growth of the Internet will be tapped into in hopes of harnessing its potential to enhance and reinvigorate a fading and ailing public sphere. The question now becomes can this potential be translated into an enhancement for democracy, a remedy for an ailing public sphere? This thesis examines this potential more closely by using the deliberative model of democracy and its emphasis on a ‘well functioning’ public sphere as a lens for examination of Internet practices, particularly those practices taking place within online political forums. More specifically, this thesis has constructed a set of normative conditions of the ideal public sphere developed from the works of Habermas and other deliberative democrats, which were used as an evaluation scheme whereby these Internet practices were assessed - those being the process of understanding, sincerity, equality, and freedom. This thesis’ research question: to what extent do current online political forums correspond to the ideal notion of the public sphere advocated by Habermas and other deliberative democrats, was assessed at three levels. First, an examination was carried out by comparing the results from recent research, with regards to deliberating within online forums, to the set of normative conditions. Secondly, an examination of the methods used by these researchers was conducted, again using the set of normative conditions as the frame of analysis. Finally, an exploratory case study was conducted to assess current discursive practices within online political forums with the focus being placed on the testing of new methodological approaches for such an analysis. This case study focuses on exploring new methodological approaches for analyzing the normative condition of the process of understanding, more specifically the normative elements of rational-critical debate, reciprocity, and reflexivity, which when we consider the current state of research is much needed. The highlights of this exploratory case study consist of, first a visual mapping of the message flow within the discussion thread. Second, a ‘web of reciprocity’ approach was used to assessing discussion threads for their level of reciprocity as a whole. Finally, taking from argumentation theory, a three progressive level of analysis of reflexivity, which assessed messages for their use of counter-arguments and counter-evidence as a means of detecting the level of reflexivity present within a single message and within the messages as a whole.
Online Deliberation between the Weak and Strong Public Sphere
eJournal of eDemocracy and open government, 2015
The paper challenges the theoretical assumptions of deliberative communication in online contexts with two oppositional empirical case studies in the Slovenian web sphere: the governmental portal "Predlagam vladi" ("I propose to the government") and the citizen portal "Danes je nov dan" ("Today is a new day"). The common characteristics of both portals, which were intentionally developed for the online gathering of public proposals directly from the citizens, lie in their combination of public dialogue with polling that results in final decision-making. However, a more detailed analysis and comparison of both portals also helps explain the crucial differences between the institutional or strong public sphere on one hand and the civic or weak public spheres on the other, which consequently limit the democratisation of public engagement in a digital context.