Designing ICT for Online Deliberation: Trade-Offs with Socio-Political Consequences

While designing the software supporting public communication we implement a particular procedural model that at least to certain degree channels the users’ actions. The information on the model can be explicit or implicit. In the projects involving researchers, it is more probable that some links between ICT tools and social norms are made explicitly. Researcher may want to justify the selection of tools that the software incorporates e.g. the need for a map of argumentation, and the characteristics of these tools e.g. it is a matter of choice if inputs into the map of argumentation is made by participants or by moderators; what categories of information serve as “an input”, and how these categories of information are interrelated. An overview of projects that have led to the development of ICT tools supporting online deliberation demonstrates that even a relatively coherent model of public communication like deliberation, distinguishable by its core norms, can be differently interpreted and can result in various software solutions. The variety of software innovations could be explained by the priority that the designers give to one norm over another, e.g. inclusiveness over reflexivity; or by different operationalisations of norms e.g. for some reflexivity requires that participants have some basic knowledge of facts delivered to them in the form of briefing materials, while for others participants should be able to distinguish and make use of arguments. The researchers can also focus on specific areas of intervention e.g. creating a universal venue for a public debate or tools meeting the requirements of institutionalized political participation like participatory budgeting. The aim of this paper is to distinguish the “decisive moments” in the development of the software serving the deliberative public consultations, name the procedural elements in the design that require choices bearing consequences for social behaviors. The trade-offs, especially the ones concerning the level of participation vs. the quality of inputs, will be discussed in the background of the inDialogue software design and use. I will also address the question of a desirable degree of intervention by a researcher-designer, and the flexibility of the system designed to intervene in social and institutional practices. Designers following their interpretation of the model of deliberation may attempt to influence the course of actions by imposing certain rules on the users of the software or they can leave users the choice of action, at the same time making them aware of its consequences.