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Deliberative Technology: A Holistic Lens for Interpreting Resources and Dynamics in Deliberation

Abstract

We introduce the concept of deliberative technology as an integrative framework to encapsulate how facilitators and participants bring different resources into use in deliberative processes. It serves as a holistic lens to observe, explain, and intervene constructively in the unpredictable, emergent dynamics of deliberative processes. We developed the concept of deliberative technology inductively through ethnographic analysis of three deliberative processes. In the three cases, the deliberative processes and their results were quite different, despite common resources, policy contexts, and purposes. We articulate a typology of general types of potential resources for deliberation – methodological techniques, material objects, and conceptual frameworks – and show how they interact with the policy context and the dynamics of the facilitators and participants to produce the deliberative technologies of the three cases.

Keywords

Ethnographic research, Co-production, Resources for deliberation, Designing deliberative processes, Deliberative methods, Deliberative technology

How to Cite

Sandfort J. & Quick K., (2017) “Deliberative Technology: A Holistic Lens for Interpreting Resources and Dynamics in Deliberation”, Journal of Public Deliberation 13(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.16997/jdd.273

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Authors

Jodi Sandfort (University of Minnesota - Twin Cities)
Kathryn Quick (University of Minnesota - Twin Cities)

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

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