| Abstrakt: |
Although research and theorizing on democratic deliberation has burgeoned, little systematic work has been done on the effects of communication content. This paper examines how expressed agreement and disagreement during online deliberation affects participant evaluations of their experience, including satisfaction, perceived reevaluation of opinions, and expected future participation. Also, the effect of these evaluations on perceived legitimacy and opinion ambivalence are considered. A number of alternative hypotheses are entertained, including a "balance" hypothesis that suggests that a balance of agreement and disagreement would yield the most favorable evaluations, a "sociability" hypothesis in which high agreement enhances evaluations, an "avoidance" hypothesis in which high disagreement reduces evaluations, a "reevaluation" hypothesis in which high disagreement enhances evaluations, and a "disequilibrium" hypothesis that indicates that high agreement with low disagreement and the reverse yield good evaluations. The hypotheses are tested with data from pre- and post-surveys and a discussion content analysis of a representative sample of 179 Pittsburgh residents who participated in a deliberation experiment. Analysis proceeds with confirmatory factor analyses and OLS with non-linear terms and group-robust p-values. Findings indicate that deliberation evaluations are important for decision legitimacy, reported likelihood of future engagement, and decision ambivalence. Also, the sociability hypothesis is strongly confirmed for deliberation satisfaction. The disequilibrium hypothesis is confirmed for future engagement. The avoidance hypothesis is not supported, which weighs against the hypothesis that people seek to avoid disagreements in these political discussions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
