International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

Deliberativeness denotes a specific quality of political communication that centers around argumentative exchange in a climate of mutual respect and civility. Empirically, deliberativeness is a variable feature of political debate or discussion. From a normative point of view, the standard of deliberativeness can be used to evaluate political communication processes and settings, and to suggest possible ways to improve them. Deliberativeness has been studied in very different communicative settings, including parliamentary debate ( Steiner et al. 2004 ), news media content and television talk shows ( Ferree et al. 2002 ; Wessler & Schultz 2007 ), online discussion forums ( Price et al. 2002 ), civil society organizations ( Ryfe 2002 ), as well as everyday political talk among citizens ( Mutz 2006 ). When deliberative discussion is not confined to arcane settings, such as decision-making behind closed doors, or private settings, such as the family, it is also called public deliberation or public discourse (for an overview of the empirical literature, see Delli Carpini et al. 2004 ; Ryfe 2005 ). Standards of deliberativeness are an important ingredient in normative theories of deliberative democracy (for an overview, see Fishkin and Laslett 2003 ). Although it is by no means a uniform body of theory, deliberative democratic theorists agree on the central value of argumentative ... log in or subscribe to read full text