The Main and Spillover Effects of Online Deliberation: Changes in Opinions, Informational Media Use and Political Activities

Abstract

This study examines the main and spillover effects of online deliberation. According to theoretical arguments of deliberative democracy scholars, we defined the main effects as changes in opinions on discussion issues. The spillover effects refer to changes in behaviors that are not directly related to online deliberation activities. In particular, we look at the spillover effects on informational media use and political activities. Relying on two-wave surveys that interviewed 510 citizen participants who used an online deliberation platform for three weeks, we compared the pre-and post-deliberation measures of the outcome variables. Our analyses reveal that most of opinions changed after deliberation but the nature of the changes depends on specific issues. The spillover effects are found to be particularly significant in online media use and social media based political activities. We conclude that both the main and spillover effects are unneglectable outcomes of online deliberation but their patterns are supported by difference mechanisms.