Assessing some measures of online deliberation

The empirical turn in deliberative democracy has fostered the development of different methodological procedures. Within this literature, studies focusing on the internet have gained increasing attention. The belief that the internet may help solve some of the deliberative deficits of democracies has propelled an interest in the potential benefits and problems of online discourse. This article seeks to discuss some of the methods that have been advocated for the study of online deliberation to point out three of their weaknesses: (01) the establishment of misleading distinctions; (02) the neglect of the implications of the deliberative system; and (03) the disregard of some specificities of the internet.

协商民主（deliberative democracy）的经验转向推动了各类方法论程序的发展。在该研究领域的既有文献中，聚焦互联网的相关研究愈发受到关注。学界普遍认为互联网或可弥补民主在协商层面存在的部分缺陷，这一观点催生了对在线话语潜在利弊的研究兴趣。本文旨在探讨当前用于在线协商研究的各类主流方法，并指出其中三项显著缺陷：其一，构建了误导性的划分边界；其二，忽视了协商系统的深层意蕴；其三，未充分考量互联网本身的特定属性。