An Online Environment for Democratic Deliberation: Motivations, Principles, and Design

ONLINE DELIBERATION: DESIGN, RESEARCH, AND PRACTICE, pp. 275-292, Todd Davies, Seeta Peña Gangadharan, ed., CSLI Publications/University of Chicago Press, October 2009

18 Pages Posted: 27 Feb 2013 Last revised: 4 Jul 2014

See all articles by Todd Davies

Todd Davies

Stanford University - Symbolic Systems Program; Center for the Study of Language and Information

Brendan T. O'Connor

Carnegie Mellon University

Alex Cochran

Stanford University

Jonathan Effrat

Stanford University

Andrew Parker

Stanford University

Benjamin Newman

Stanford University

Aaron Tam

Stanford University

Date Written: October 15, 2009

Abstract

We have created a platform for online deliberation called Deme (which rhymes with 'team'). Deme is designed to allow groups of people to engage in collaborative drafting, focused discussion, and decision making using the Internet. The Deme project has evolved greatly from its beginning in 2003. This chapter outlines the thinking behind Deme's initial design: our motivations for creating it, the principles that guided its construction, and its most important design features. The version of Deme described here was written in PHP and was deployed in 2004 and used by several groups (including organizers of the 2005 Online Deliberation Conference). Other papers describe later developments in the Deme project (see Davies et al. 2005, 2008; Davies and Mintz 2009).

Keywords: online deliberation, groupware, social software, collaboration, group decision making

Suggested Citation

Davies, Todd R. and O'Connor, Brendan T. and Cochran, Alex and Effrat, Jonathan and Parker, Andrew and Newman, Benjamin and Tam, Aaron, An Online Environment for Democratic Deliberation: Motivations, Principles, and Design (October 15, 2009). ONLINE DELIBERATION: DESIGN, RESEARCH, AND PRACTICE, pp. 275-292, Todd Davies, Seeta Peña Gangadharan, ed., CSLI Publications/University of Chicago Press, October 2009, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2222850

Todd R. Davies (Contact Author)

Stanford University - Symbolic Systems Program ( email )

Stanford, CA 94305-2150
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.stanford.edu/~davies

Center for the Study of Language and Information ( email )

Stanford, CA 94305-4115
United States

Brendan T. O'Connor

Carnegie Mellon University ( email )

5000 Forbes Avenue
Gates-Hillman Center
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
United States

HOME PAGE: http://brenocon.com

Alex Cochran

Stanford University ( email )

Stanford, CA 94305
United States

Jonathan Effrat

Stanford University ( email )

Stanford, CA 94305
United States

Andrew Parker

Stanford University ( email )

Stanford, CA 94305
United States

Benjamin Newman

Stanford University ( email )

Stanford, CA 94305
United States

Aaron Tam

Stanford University ( email )

Stanford, CA 94305
United States

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