Political Communication and Deliberation Chapter 1, By John Gastil - Comments by Gina

Note: This book is in the process of being published, so only chapter 1 was available. I also read some other articles by the same author.

The author opens with a question, how do we know when we have a democracy? He sets three criteria:

• Inclusion - A democracy must allow all adults within its geographic boundaries to take part in the political process, noting that society has to decide what age an adult is.
• Participation Opportunities - A democracy must allow all adults to have "equal and adequate opportunities to participate in three related ways - putting issues on the agenda, expressing your views on those issues, and voting on these issues, directly or indirectly" (p6).
• Enlightened Understanding - All participants in the democracy must have a chance to recognize which topics concern them, have an opinion on them, and be aware of how they would vote given the opportunity.
  

Definition of Deliberation - "When people deliberate, they carefully examine a problem and arrive at a well-reasoned solution after a period of inclusive, respectful consideration of diverse points of view" (p8).

He then outlines the steps of deliberation

1. create a solid information base to understand the problem or issue
   
2. identify and prioritize the key values at stake with the problem or issue
3. identify a broad range of solutions to address the problem/issue
4. weight the pros, cons and trade offs to these solutions in step 3 by applying our values from step 2
5. Hopefully, you end with the best decision possible

Gastil notes the connection between deliberation and the social process of communicating. It is in this next section that I saw a potential breakdown in science communication in terms of his characteristics of deliberation. He states,

"Less intuitive is the idea that you also have a right to comprehend what others are saying, albeit within limits. If another person explains a problem to you in terms you cannot understand, it may be that you lack the technical training necessary to comprehend the complexity of the issue. It is more likely, though, that the speaker has not made an effort (or simply failed) to communicate in a way that you can understand" (p9)

This is one of the key components that could potentially break down the deliberation process for many people. Recall that according to Gastil's democratic characteristics, people have the right to have an "enlightened understanding." If they cannot understand a speaker's presentation, their journal article, or their visuals, do they have the opportunity for enlightened understanding?

The last section of the chapter outlines the rest of the book, but also poses statements that warrant more research. He opens with, "One of the challenges of studying deliberation and political communication is that they happen in so many different places - from street corners to legislatures. But even more difficult is tracking them across different levels of analysis" (11). The chapters in his book appear to look at these different levels (face to face, group, organizational, etc.)

He ends with, and I pose the question for our consideration, "Are we deliberating? If not, how can we make the process more deliberative?" (12) When we think about public meetings on environmental issues, for example, are they deliberative? Does everyone have a right to vote? to be aware? to have enlightened understanding?