Designing Deliberation Systems

Jeremy Rose, Øystein Sæbø

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

34 Citations (Scopus)
1110 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

In a liberal democracy, the evolution of political agendas and formation of policy involves deliberation: serious consideration of political issues.  Modern day political participation is dependent on widespread deliberation supported by information and communication technologies, which also offer the potential to revitalize and transform citizen engagement in democracy.  Although the majority of web 2.0 systems enable these discourses to some extent, government institutions commission and manage specialized deliberation systems (information systems designed to support participative discourse) intended to promote citizen engagement.  The most common examples of these are political discussion forums.  Though usually considered trivial adaptations of well-known technologies, these types of deliberative systems are often unsuccessful, and present a distinct set of design and management challenges.  In this article we analyze the issues involved in establishing political deliberation systems under four headings: stakeholder engagement, web platform design, service management, political process re-shaping and evaluation and improvement.  We review the existing literature and present a longitudinal case study: the Norwegian Demokratitorget (Democracy Square).  We define key issues in each of the four areas which need to be understood in order to design and manage a successful net-based deliberation forum.
Original languageEnglish
JournalThe Information Society
Volume26
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)228-240
ISSN1087-6537
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2010

Keywords

  • eParticipation
  • deliberation systems
  • political discussion forums
  • system management
  • system design

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