Public Participation Through Online Deliberations
Public Participation Through Online Deliberations
Online deliberations enable a broader mix of people to participate, contribute and develop recommendations for future policies. Online deliberations can be small group online deliberations and online mass participation tools.
Small group online deliberations provides a platform in which the members had the opportunity to express their viewpoint on the subject over a period. The topic selected provides a common starting point and help the participants to consider a number of viewpoints. The discussions need a moderator, who at the end of the discussion summarise the viewpoints of the deliberation.
Advantages of the small group online deliberations
This type of deliberations allows its participants to express their views in a comfortable and informal manner. "As Aristotle said ‘we deliberate not about ends but about the means to attain ends’ ". Small group online deliberations will not end in decisions, but a common understanding can be emerged that can open an acceptable path to action. According to Scott London, "small group deliberative dialogues establish a framework for mutual understanding and a common purpose that transcends more ideas and opinion". "While it cannot produce a consensus, it can produce a collective insight and judgement reflecting the thinking of the group as a whole notwithstanding the personal disagreement". Apart from establishing trust and cohesion in the group, it allows the group to collectively identify the issues surrounding the subject. Another advantage of Small group online deliberations is that the participants can learn from others perspective and develop new insights along with expanding their own knowledge. Project sponsors can identify potentially innovative and practical solutions to real world issues. Small group online deliberations enable participants and project sponsors to have an in depth exploration of different perspectives and deep learning. The project sponsors can reframe the issue. Small group online deliberations allow participants to weigh the benefits and consequences of the potential options
Disadvantages of Small group online deliberations
One disadvantage of Small group online deliberations, which is a text based consultation process is that members who are not used to typing or those who do not have keyboard knowledge may find it difficult to participate. Moreover, participants need a common element to bind them. Otherwise, communication can be misunderstanding. Sometimes irony or colloquial statements in one community may have a different meaning in other community, so participants must be very careful in their phrasing to reduce this problem.
To have effective small group online deliberations participating members need to listen to others views and express their views along with commenting on others view. So another disadvantage is that participants need to be with the discussions frequently otherwise can move out of the discussion or the logical sequences of the thread can be broken. Another drawback is that participants who are effective communicators can set the direction of the talk in their own way. On the contrary some people who are influenced by others viewpoint may use others decisions and viewpoints to arrive at their own.
The disadvantages in a tool sponsor’s viewpoint are that when there is large volume of messages, it is hard to follow both for the participants and the sponsors. It needs time and attentiveness to follow the thread of the conversation. Many time questions can remain unanswered which can affect the logical flow of the discussion. Another disadvantage in the viewpoint of a tool sponsor is that, if by coincidence, all the participants selected in the group have the same outlook on a subject, diverse views cannot emerge.
Advantages of Mass online participation tool
Mass participation tools as in 'polis' are designed to handle groups having more than 200 people along with staying coherent. It helps to frame issues and raise awareness on a topic. The advantage of this tool is that the participants are flexible to join the discussion at any time within the time frame. Another benefit is that it is convenient, that is large number of participants can voice their opinion about an issue by just clicking agree, disagree or pass/ unsure options. Another advantage is that multiple threads can be discussed at one time. Unlike small group online deliberations, dominant characters cannot interrupt the thread of the discussion.
The advantage of mass participation tool in the viewpoint of project sponsors is that, it helps to identify a group of people interested in an issue. Furthermore, it helps to collect open ended feedbacks from a group of people. Moreover Mass participation tool helps project sponsors to collect a lot of data and also identify the points of commonalty in the group.
The disadvantage of online mass participation tool
The disadvantage of mass participation tool for participants is that topic’s direction is restricted by project sponsors. Discussion thread moves only in the direction set by the project tool sponsor. There is also a lack of coordination between the participants in the mass participation online tool. Since the options are standardised to accommodate the whole participants, it may not suit to all the participant’s preferences. So participants are not encouraged to provide an accurate and honest opinion. From a project sponsor's view also, it is a disadvantage. Further, from a tool sponsors view, data collection errors can occur due to careless answering. Moreover, participants may answer the options without any reasons thereby leading to error in data analysis.
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