IPMZ – Institut für Publizistikwissenschaft und Medienforschung Dr. Ulrike Klinger IPMZ - Institute for Mass Communication and Media Research, Abteilung «Media & Politics», University of Zurich FH-Prof. Mag. Dr. Uta Rußmann Endowed Professorship for Strategic Communication Management & New Media, FHWien University of Applied Sciences of WKW An empirical analysis of the Zurich Online Debate of 2011 CeDEM13, 22./23. May 2013, Danube University Krems
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Ulrike Klinger, Uta Russmann: Online Deliberation in Local Politics. An empirical analysis of the Zurich Online Debate of 2011
#CeDEM13 day 2, Track: Bottom-Up Movements, Main Hall, Chair: Rosanna De Rosa Relations of power within a field of contemporary
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IPMZ – Institut für Publizistikwissenschaft und Medienforschung
Dr. Ulrike Klinger
IPMZ - Institute for Mass Communication and Media Research,
Abteilung «Media & Politics», University of Zurich
FH-Prof. Mag. Dr. Uta Rußmann Endowed Professorship for Strategic Communication Management & New Media,
FHWien University of Applied Sciences of WKW
An empirical analysis of the Zurich Online Debate of 2011 CeDEM13, 22./23. May 2013, Danube University Krems
Objectives
Examining online deliberation in local politics
• Administrations increasingly use the internet to improve citizens’ participation in political processes.
• Online communication is expected to deliver a more inclusive, richer and more dialogue-oriented form of political representation.
• Possibility to strengthen the legitimacy of democratic decision-making.
• Specific quality of public online communication?
Quality of Understanding: Differences between the five fora are small.
Statement of reasons: Participants hardy justified their positions with specific arguments.
Proposals of Solutions: Participants tended to voice simple ideas without any specifications on implementation or time frame. Mostly lay people participated in the forum, i.e. they had little expert
knowledge on formal implementation procedures or the status of public projects.
Respect: Only a few postings contained disrespectful expressions. The debate was moderated and all participants had to register with
their full names, which also appeared in the debate. None of the 1991 postings had to be cautioned or censored by the moderators.
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Conclusion & Discussion
Doubts: The share of the sub-index doubts in IQU Online is the smallest of all the sub-indices & the level of doubts varies significantly among the thematic sub-fora.
Discussing the borders of Zurich, participants voiced almost twice as many doubts as they did when debating traffic policies. Zurich’s growth is a topic with conflict and polarisation potential: as the city growth rapidly, conflicts with neighbouring municipalities are increasing.
Reciprocity: Although most postings do not refer to a previous posting or start a new discussion, the data show that in three sub-fora, the online political discourse is based on interaction between participants.
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Discussion
• Remaining question: Do these results suggest low deliberation levels? Where are the thresholds between low, medium or high deliberation?
Future research is needed to have comparable data.
• With deliberation being an inherently normative concept, it is also debatable how much deliberation can be realistically expected.
Future research is needed to find out whether deliberation needs a spark of conflict, a topic that polarises and challenges participants into reasoning.
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Thank you!
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