Public Deliberation as the Organizing Principle of Political Communication Research

Journal of Public Deliberation Vol. 4, Iss. 1 Article 3

49 Pages Posted: 17 Feb 2016

See all articles by John Gastil

John Gastil

Pennsylvania State University

Laura Black

Ohio University

Date Written: December 14, 2007

Abstract

During the past fifteen years, public deliberation has become an important focus of research, theory, and public practice. This has sometimes led to a variety of narrow conceptualizations that limit deliberation to particular forms of interaction, such as small group discussion, or to divergent conceptualizations deployed in different contexts, such as for media systems versus face-to-face discussions. To address this problem, we advance a flexible yet precise definition of deliberation that has the power to organize not only deliberation theory and research but also much of the larger body of work in political communication. As defined herein, deliberation includes both analytic and social processes and provides a unifying conceptual and critical framework for studying nearly the full range of political communication topics, including informal conversation, media and public opinion, elections, government institutional behavior, jury decision making, public meetings, and civic and community life. Using our flexible conceptualization, each of these research contexts amounts to a kind of deliberative critique and empirical analysis of public life.

Keywords: community, democracy, deliberation, discussion, elections, jury decision making, media system, political communication, public opinion, public meetings

Suggested Citation

Gastil, John and Black, Laura, Public Deliberation as the Organizing Principle of Political Communication Research (December 14, 2007). Journal of Public Deliberation Vol. 4, Iss. 1 Article 3, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2732725

John Gastil (Contact Author)

Pennsylvania State University ( email )

University Park, PA 16802
United States

Laura Black

Ohio University ( email )

Athens, OH 45701-2979
United States

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