Constructing electronic interactions among citizens, issue publics, and elites

摘要

This paper describes a longitudinal experiment, now in the final stages of data collection, designed to better understand ways of increasing the effectiveness of web-based deliberations about public policy. Focused on health care reform, the project draws from periodic surveys and a series of online group deliberations to examine the interaction of policy elites and ordinary citizens in online settings, and to test hypotheses related to group composition and decision quality.