Exploring the Mechanisms of Deliberation and Opinion Change: An Online Experiment

Direct and deliberative innovations in democracy have increasingly moved online. Yet we know little about the specific effects of exposure to information, self-reflection on information, or actual online deliberation on change in people’s opinion regarding important substantive policy issues, like migration and political membership. This paper builds on previous research by Maier & Bächtiger (2024). We utilise an online experiment to explore how deliberation in a virtual setting affects opinion change and argument quality in the context of non-citizen voting rights. Using three groups (control, information exposure, and information exposure with deliberation), the prior study found that responding to a set of arguments (minimal deliberation) about non-citizen voting rights in Germany produced a clarification effect, rather than changing opinion. Evidence showed reflection improved the repertoire and integrative complexity of arguments given by participants when compared to the information exposure and control groups. We replicate this design using a UK subject pool and introduce a treatment involving live text communication between respondents, in addition to comparator groups for minimal and live deliberation without information exposure. This 2x3 design and analysis of the communication transcripts allows us to disentangle which features of deliberation produce changes in opinion and argument quality in an online setting; information exposure, self-reflection, or interaction with other individuals.