Argument Quality in Public Deliberations

Steffensmeier, Timothy; Schenck-Hamlin, William J.

doi:10.1080/00028533.2008.11821693

Cited by 18 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Our concern with bold vs. polite disagreement involved a different kind of assessment, and it emphasizes the ways people express their views in dialogue with others whose views are not aligned. Analysis of civility requires a judgment about whether the expression has the intent or the effect of showing or failing to show respect for individuals or groups (Steffensmeier 2008). An expression of civil disagreement may be bold or polite.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Context and Medium Matter: Expressing Disagreements Online and Face-to-Face in Political Deliberations

Stromer‐Galley

Bryant

Bimber

2015

Journal of Deliberative Democracy

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Processes of disagreement are important to public deliberation, but research has not examined the dynamics of disagreement in deliberation of political topics with respect to effects of the channel of interaction. This study analyzes the discussions generated via an experiment in which discussants were randomly assigned either to deliberate online via synchronous chat or face-to-face. The study compares the initiation of disagreement, its qualities, and how long it is sustained in the two environments. Discourse analysis suggests that in the online environment initial expressions of disagreement were less frequent, less bold, and were not sustained as compared with the face-to-face discussions. Reasons include the lack of coherence in synchronous chat, which may challenge interlocutors and prevent them from pursuing a disagreement over multiple turns. Implications of these findings for scholars and practitioners are discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Context and Medium Matter: Expressing Disagreements Online and Face-to-Face in Political Deliberations

Stromer‐Galley

Bryant

Bimber

2015

Journal of Deliberative Democracy

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“…Nonetheless, there is not yet a strong research base for how to best structure such engagements for specific purposes or to achieve specific outcomes (e.g., see review by PytlikZillig & Tomkins, 2011). The communicative choices and arguments that lead to high-quality deliberations are also relatively unexamined (Steffensmeier & Schenck-Hamlin, 2008), and some negative outcomes even have been reported (e.g., Sanders, 1997).…”

Section: Theme 2: Deliberative Formatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fostering Climate Change Education in the Central Great Plains: A Public Engagement Approach

PytlikZillig¹,

Steffensmeier²,

Hibbs³

et al. 2013

The International Journal of Sustainability Education

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Despite its increasing importance for sustainability, building widespread competency in the basic principles of climate literacy among the United States general public is a great challenge. This article describes the methods and results of a public engagement approach to planning climate change education in the Central Great Plains of the United States. Our approach incorporated contextual and lay expertise approaches to public engagement with a focus on supporting the self-determination of the specific stakeholder groups-rural producers, educators, and community members. An integration of results from the focus groups reveal that our approach was received positively and elicited a number of important themes describing stakeholders' concerns, interests, and needs pertaining to climate change education. Focus group participants were concerned about climate change, cautious regarding conflicting sources of information, and interested in learning more about climate science and climate change impacts. Across all stakeholder groups, participants consistently expressed a desire for trustworthy, personally-and locally-relevant, easy-to-access information that they could evaluate and use in applications as they saw fit. Although these findings do not yet provide a recipe for concrete educational programming, when viewed through the lenses of social, cognitive and educational theories, they suggest a number of important directions for future research and program implementation that are needed in order to advance the understanding of effective climate change education.

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“…This critique is not to say that scholars have not written about the "ideology of participation," but that little has described the actual practices of participation (Checkoway & Van Til, 1978, p. 35). However, more recent efforts have focused more closely on public participation messages (e.g., Beck, 2008;Buttny, 2010;Leighter & Black, 2010;Steffensmeier & Schenck-Hamlin, 2008;Tracy, 2007Tracy, , 2010.…”

Section: The Publicmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Citizens are not simply a bunch of rabble, spurting off random opinions. In fact, oftentimes people who participate in public hearings prepare and read their remarks to city officials (Steffensmeier & Schenck-Hamlin, 2008). However, the public is often asked by city officials to try to avoid repeating earlier comments, and to be brief in their responses.…”

Section: The Publicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intergroup Argumentation in City Government Decision Making

Beck

Gronewold

Western

2012

Small Group Research

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Intergroup argumentation is an important aspect of civic activism, but it has yet to be studied from an interaction perspective. Using group argumentation research as a foundation, this study analyzed intergroup argumentation complexity and strategy by applying the Conversational Argument Coding Scheme (Canary, Ratledge, & Seibold, 1982) to a Lawrence, KS, USA, city commission meeting. Analysis found that Wal-Mart officials spent the majority of their speaking time framing their positions (i.e., delimitors), whereas city commissioners spent most of their time seeking convergence, and the public spent more time than the other groups using generative mechanisms. Findings suggest the need to distinguish between argument effectiveness and argument complexity, an important theoretical implication for argumentation research.

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Argument Quality in Public Deliberations

Cited by 18 publications

References 23 publications

Context and Medium Matter: Expressing Disagreements Online and Face-to-Face in Political Deliberations

Context and Medium Matter: Expressing Disagreements Online and Face-to-Face in Political Deliberations

Fostering Climate Change Education in the Central Great Plains: A Public Engagement Approach

Intergroup Argumentation in City Government Decision Making

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