News, Talk, Opinion, Participation: The Part Played by Conversation in Deliberative Democracy
Authors: Kim J.; Wyatt R. O.; Katz E.
Source: Political Communication, Volume 16, Number 4, 1 October 1999 , pp. 361-385(25)
Key:
- Free Content
- New Content
- Subscribed Content
- Free Trial Content
- Free Content
- New Content
- Subscribed Content
- Free Trial Content
Abstract:
Deliberative democracy can be defined as a political system based on citizens' free discussion of public issues. While most scholars have discussed deliberative democracy normatively, this study attempts to test the validity of a model of deliberative democracy through examining the interrelationships among its four components: newsmedia use, political conversation, opinion formation, and political participation. Sufficient empirical evidence was found to support the hypotheses that (a) news-media use is closely associated with the frequency of political conversation in daily life both at general and issue-specific levels; (b) willingness to argue with those who have different opinions is influenced by majority perceptions and by news-media use and political talk; (c) news-media use and political conversation have positive effects on certain measures of the quality of opinions (argument quality, consideredness, and opinionation) and perhaps on opinion consistency; and (d) news-media use and political conversation are closely associated also with participatory activities, but more so with "campaigning" than "complaining."Keywords: CONSISTENCY; DELIBERATIVE; DEMOCRACY; NEWS; MEDIA; USE; POLITICAL; CONVERSATION; POLITICAL; PARTICIPATION; PUBLIC; OPINION; QUALITY; WILLINGNESS; TO; ARGUE
Language: English
Document Type: Research article
Key:
- Free Content
- New Content
- Subscribed Content
- Free Trial Content
- Free Content
- New Content
- Subscribed Content
- Free Trial Content
Click here for Page Help