Online Discourse as a Microdemocracy Tool: Towards New Discursive Epistemics for Policy Deliberation

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ABSTRACT

The main objective of this partially completed study is to develop

approaches and test methods that could lead to a better understanding of how knowledge is generated by citizens online in the course of Internet discussion for a more democratic policy making. The eventual goal is to create a Decision Support System using the collective intelligence of online discourses. The research applies Jurgen Habermas’ concept of basic Validity Claims for analyzing the content of three online discourses in Russia in the context of the e-petition calling to revoke the law mandating to

destroy the banned foodstuffs imported from the West. The research found that (a) the use of validity claims is an effective instrument of content analysis to distil specific knowledge collectively generated by discourse participants and discover not only dominant issues, but also reveal participants’ group behind them; (b) the outcome of online discourses depends on the affiliation and ownership of media outlet hosting the discourse (c) due to their epistemic potential, policy discourses online, especially in association with e-petitions, can be considered as the

emerging microdemocracy institutions in the field of discursive decision making.

CCS Concepts

• Information systems➝Database management system engines

• Computing methodologies➝Massively parallel and high-

performance simulations. This is just an example, please use the correct category and subject descriptors for your submission. The ACM Computing Classification Scheme:

http://www.acm.org/about/class/class/2012. Please read the HOW TO CLASSIFY WORKS USING ACM'S COMPUTING CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM for instructions on how to classify your document using the 2012 ACM Computing Classification

System and insert the index terms into your Microsoft Word source file.

Keywords

“e-Petition”; “Policy Discourse”; “Content Analysis”; “Validity Claims”; “e-Democracy”; “Russia”; ”Online Deliberation”;

”Discursive Epistemology”; ”Decision Support Systems”

“...do not dumb down the conversation, lowering it to the lowest public denominator, which is "if you do not like, skip it". No.

There is some truth beyond everything, and if you do not discuss it, you may continue living in illusion...”

“It… has nothing to do with who you are, but with what you

write…”

Quotes from the Digital Photography (DP) Review Forum http://www.dpreview.com

1. PREAMBLE These quotes are taken from one of the numerous discussion

threads of probably the world’s most popular resource among digital photography enthusiasts to exemplify what ordinary users think of the importance of debate among peers. The DP Review Discussion Forum is key to this web resource per se which professionally reviews new digital photographic products and their performance. It is hard to imagine the review process (and the entire web site for that matter) without discussing the results of such a review publicly online. The cited quotes underpin the basic foundations of what the online debate means to them; i.e. it

is about a collective conversation that is dialogical, reciprocal and intelligent; it is about the open conversation among equals when the message’s meaning matters, not the author’s status; it is about the (often hidden) truths that online discussions contain.

2. INTRODUCTION It is not just the online environment that dictates a particular form of message posting – and effectively the very online debate itself – according to McLuhan’s famous “the medium is the message" formula. After the message has been posted, it is its content and meaning that participants are interested in. Making sense of the written texts on online discussion threads is a well-established and thematically diverse domain of research and practice in the field

of online deliberation, e-democracy, e-participation [1]. Data-mining, use of key words, sentiment analysis, argumentation maps, and the entire deliberation platforms have been used to facilitate online debates, on one hand, and to extract specific knowledge that could be used in policy-making. Martin Hilbert provides a useful overview of argumentation techniques and systems, given that the focus on rational and argumentative discourse is central to online deliberation [2].

Many Decision Support Systems (DSSs) are being created by computer scientists to enhance decision making process increasingly in the context of social media and related

crowdsourcing applications [4]. In this light, sentiment analysis – as part of the broader area of content analysis – emerges as an important research technique to classify, for example, different types of public sentiment using complex mathematical models and algorithms [5].

In political science and public communication domain, the Social Network Analysis (SNA) has been a popular research tool to study online communities on social media via building the networks of interactions of their members as the “network nodes” (actors) interlinked with other actors via “ties” (resulting from message posting). The SNA was be used to better understand, for example, the effectiveness of using Twitter by government

agencies in an effort to share information and create communities of followers across the European Union [6]. The automated methods of content analysis (using network analysis of hyperlinks) can also be applied to discover networks of discussion on millions of blogs that shape political and public affairs [7]. However, Twitter and other social media are used largely either for political mobilization and information sharing rather than to create dialogue and facilitate policy making [6: 167].

3. POLICY DELIBERATION DISCOURSE

IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL NETWORKS Policy making – from policy analysis to planning – is not a technical project. It is a value-loaded process that includes culture, discourse, emotion [8: 2]. The numerous tools that exist to map and visualize arguments arising in the process of debate can create a more trustful and transparent environment for its participants [9: 166-166]. Yet, such deliberation tools are not necessarily can

handle the agonistic nature of policy making resulting from the clash of positions and opinions “within contingent social contexts” rather from consensus following the search for “universal commensurability of interest and values” [9: 166-167]. But until now the outcomes of online deliberation have been modest to benefit policy deliberation. Stephen Coleman [9: 169] further argues in this respect that

“there is a contemporary disjuncture between the institutional

machinery of the state and the emerging habits of networked

democracy” and that unless “state institutions adapt radically to

the coproductive potential offered by online networks… they

could become increasingly marginalized, as citizens come to

view that states lack technologies of listening and hearing and

that the spaces around them are where power flows”.

Using the Internet as a discursive space for policy deliberation inevitably invokes a need to deal with “cultural and epistemological incongruity” by recognizing the existing differences and divisions within the public [9: 173]. Policy discourse is always tensions, contradictions, inconsistent

reasoning [8: 18]. Frank Fischer and Gerber Gottweis, the advocates of the argumentative turn in policy discourses, do not make distinction between deliberation and argumentation considering the former effectively a form of the latter, viewing deliberation as a “procedurally governed form of collective argumentation” [8: 9]. In this light, the very notion of discourse for them means the discursively constructed “concepts and ideas that circumscribe, influence, and shape argumentation”, that are

“produced and reproduced and transformed to give meaning to physical and social relations” and through which “people experience the world” [8: 10-11].Most importantly, they conclude, the positions expressed by discourse participants are viewed as

knowledge and the participants themselves as the knowledge agents. The question is how to distill and described such knowledge.

4. EPISTEMIC VALUE OF

PARTICIPATORY AND DELIBERATIVE

DEMOCRATIC MODELS As mentioned above, the social and political context plays an important, if not critical, role for understanding discourses and the performance of their particular forms and tools, e.g. online deliberation. Furthermore, different democratic models treat discourses differently. Jurgen Habermas, for example, when

conceptualizing the epistemic value of democratic discourses, makes a distention between the deliberative, liberal and the republican models of democracy assuming that the study of political deliberation can have a “truth-tracking potential” [10:411]. He comes to a conclusion that “mediated political communication in the public sphere can facilitate deliberative legitimation processes in complex societies” under condition of the media systems being self-regulated and independent from its

social environments so that it is possible ensure a free from coercion communication between “an informed elite discourse and a responsive civil society” [10: 412]. Habermas intertwines democracy and deliberation, on the one side, and deliberation and epistemic value and knowledge, on the other. In this context, knowledge is a function of negotiation, not of the rational choice. Deliberating citizens are engaged in “the cooperative search of for solutions to political problems” instead of aggregating private

citizens’ preferences [10: 413]. Habermas is often criticized for unrealism of his “ideal speech situation” and “impossible conditions” imposed on discourses to be considered democratic. For example, Dryzek [11, 12] and Mutz [13] believe that special conditions need not be present for deliberation to occur. Moreover, they advocate that a free and casual deliberative conversation does not require the use of rational reasoning. Instead, deliberative talk is as much about mutual understanding (though not necessarily acceptance) as problem-solving. It is a

way of reflecting upon public issues by personalising them through the interactive exchange of positions with others, without the need to find definitive solutions or reach consensus. In this regard, Dryzek [11] warns against excessive reliance on rationality in deliberation, for it may lead to over-bureaucratisation of the deliberative public space. Habermas himself asks not to confuse “the conditions necessary for the discursive generation of a rationally motivated consensus with the

conditions necessary for negotiating a fair compromise” [14: 72]. It is not enough to have laws that guarantee freedom of expression; it is equally important to participate in impartial public discourses, where everyone has equal opportunities to express one’s own interests and win over competing interests by displaying reason. Argumentative reasoning makes sense insofar as it enables dialogical claims to validity and generates solidarity as a source of public trust [10:413].

Although Habermas usually refers to discourses occurring in the offline public sphere mediated by traditional media, he acknowledges the impact of the Internet, although skeptically as a somewhat disruptive force leading to the fragmentation of the

common public space [10]. Yet these days the Internet – as a network of communication networks enabling metacommunication [9] – has effectively become a special type of mass media where people read and discuss news, create media

content in many different ways. Moreover, some commentators believe that

it seems today to be more obvious than ever that the still

dominant empiricist orientation in the social and policy

sciences can not adequately grasp this much more complex,

uncertain world defined by interconnected networks that blur

the traditional boundaries that organize our social political

spaces and political arenas [8: 7].

Digital transparency and interactivity blurs also the very process of political representation of modern liberal democracies (established well before the digital age) as the mandate for deliberation granted to elected representatives has started to erode [2: 6]. People tend to communicate directly bypassing those who are supposed to represent them in central government. Some commentators are weary that elected representative, just as

government executives, not only cannot ignore people’s “day-to-day opinions on a very wide range of issues” but have to integrate such opinions into their political agendas in a somewhat populist manner in “the hope to be elected in the near future” again [2: 7]. There is a concern that the expansion of direct “pushbutton yes/no democracy” may lead to “irresponsible ad-hoc decisions” to please the constituency and reduce democracy to voting rather than to deliberating [3: 78-79].

Paradoxically, the expansion of direct government-citizen communication modes and greater transparency of authorities in public policy domain might strengthen the nascent “democratic autonomy”1 that has yet to be institutionalized [15]. To raise the efficacy of e-participation technologies, including e-petitions as an instrument of direct democracy alongside other e-democracy tools, especially online deliberations, require that active citizens

have stronger independence in the form of, for example, the institutionally guaranteed autonomy when dealing with government. The latter is becoming both transparent and intrusive into people’s private lives the manifestations of which are moving more and more into the digital realm. Such an autonomy might be needed for strengthening the sense of democratic citizenship in the digital society to better protect the core values of democracy and civic participation.

The question is whether it is feasible to combine the benefits of the digitally networked, instant-feedback Yes/No democracy with policy discourse? The authors of this paper believe that it is possible. The opinion expressed, for example, by bloggers and readers are in fact those “published opinions” – using Habermas’ terminology (10: 416) – coming from a broad variety of actors. Within the published opinion, Hebarmas distinguishes the “polled opinions” that measure the aggregated “pro or con attitudes ...

influenced by everyday talk in the informal settings... by paying attention to print or electronic media” [10: 416]. The public opinion, according to Habermas, are the “clusters of synthesized issues and contributions at the same time exhibit the respective weights of the accumulated yes or no attitudes that they attract from various audiences” [10: 417].

5. RESEARC DESIGN

5.1 Context In August 2015, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin issued a decree

(legally tantamount to law) that banned the food products coming

1 On the concept of “democratic autonomy” see more in [20].

from the western (mainly European but not only) countries2 and instructed to destroy such food by all possible technical means if it was (illegally) imported into Russia.3 Crushing food and dumping it into the soil appeared to be a highly

unusual both personal and cultural experience for many ordinary Russian citizens, especially in view of the history of starvation during the war periods and serious food shortages as recently as in the Soviet time. The destruction of food began on the first day of the decree enactment (6 August 2015). The cyber space was immediately full of numerous and disparate debates discussing the incoming images of the food being destroyed. Also, already on the decree’s first day, an e-petition called “#Don’tCrushFood”4 was

launched on the Change.org portal calling to revoke the decree and issuing a new law allowing to pass the banned foodstuffs on to people in need. It should be made clear that the e-petition did not protest against banning the imported food, but proposing not to destroy it and give away to the poor and other vulnerable groups. Amid the intense media and the lay citizens’ attention, the

government that started to implement the decree and destroy the imported food made a number of statements about making possible amendments to the law. It is therefore interesting whether the internet debates could potentially be used a source of such amendments were the government to decide to do so. It is also interesting whether internet debates can be used by the Russian authorities not just for monitoring public mood and opinion tracking (which is done anyway), but in the first place a source for

considering possible options for policy change.

5.2 Research objective, hypothesis, questions The strategic goal of the research is to find out whether combining a participatory instrument of petitioning with online policy deliberation can help decide whether to support the petition in a

more responsible, informed and eventually legitimate manner in people’s eyes. The main practical objective of the study is to develop approaches and test methods that could lead to a better understanding of how the ongoing internet discourses could be used to create intelligent Decision Support Systems (DSSs) for making policy making process more democratic using the benefits of e-participation technologies. Therefore there was an intention to imbed the research in the strong conceptual foundations of

democratic theory, political science and communication studies. The presented in this paper results attempt to apply the method of policy discourse analysis based on “Yes/No-Pro/Contra” model. Empirical evidence is available proving that (offline) debates can indeed change political preferences and attitudes.5 A strong case 2 Following the sanctions imposed by the West in the context of the

conflict over Ukraine.

3 Incineration and crushing with bulldozers with the subsequent dumping

into the soil have appeared to be the most frequently used ways of destruction.

4 The link to the e-petition is here.

5 A deliberative polling methodology was used in 2007 to implement the

Europolis project at the European Parliament. For three days, 362

representatives from all 27 European Union members met to discuss

climate change and immigration in what was actually an experiment to

gauge the impact of discussion on voting behaviour. The evaluation of

the deliberation results appears to be positive; see the evaluation report

here http://cdd.stanford.edu/polls/eu/2009/europolis-results-pressrelease.pdf.

comes from Amartya Sen [18] who was able to confirm that participatory discussions affected social practices in the field of poverty alleviation strategies in India’s states. In his view, this reveals that citizens’ preferences are changeable, rooted in social practice, and can be rational in the sense of maximising public

goods rather than aiming at narrowly understood individual or group benefits. Sen further argues that social problems cannot be analysed without departing “both from the assumption of given preferences (as in traditional social choice theory) and from the presumption that people are narrowly self-interested homo economics” [18: 289]. While these cases come from the offline setting, we assume that citizens would behave similarly and at least listen to their peers in the digital environment.

The underlying hypothesis the study aims to test four main assumptions. One is that – as far as the main deliberative qualities are concerned – the online discussion centred on the main issue put forward by e-petition would not differ significantly from any

other online debate; i.e. it would meet the minimal standards to qualify as deliberation. That would mean that the discussion is multivocal (not between just few participants), meaningful and dialogic (sufficiently civilized, rational with the interpretable content). The second assumption predicts that the issue of destroying the food under the embargo in general and in the petition-related context would be the main theme of the discussion, i.e. at least 50% of the posted content would discuss

the food-related issue (not other themes). The third assumption presumes that the debate would be clearly dominated by the petition supporters, while those who are against the petition would be in minority (measured by the content of the posted messages). That also means that the level of disagreement would be low enough, at least less that 50%.6 And the final fourth assumption admits that there would be little difference between three discourses presuming that the discourse host does influence the generation of different content; put differently, the discourse

participants don’t discriminate between the discourse’s host and affiliation. The main research questions in this context asks whether having a discussion forum related to the e-petition theme can be a valuable source of epistemic knowledge that can help expand and better understand policy argumentation options that otherwise would be unknown?

5.3 Methodology of Validity Claims The concept of validity claims (under the Habermasian broader discourse ethics theory) has appeared to be useful in generating rich empirical results as applied to online discourses [16, 17]. Basic Validity Claims (VCs) are reciprocal and discursive instruments to realize (a rational) communicative (speech) acts.

VCs look beyond the linguistics to reveal an intended meaning so as the author of a certain text would be able to understand “someone with regard to something” [16: 137]. The research applies VCs of a second type that claim normative rightness shared by certain groups, usually on moral and ethical grounds. The identification of claims and their subsequent validation via agreement or disagreement is realized through content coding.

The act of claim making is the effectively the articulation of a position, demonstration of certain reasons behind the speech act, transmission of an intentional meaning. What distinguishes VCs

6 Studies show that the topically the level of disagreements is over 60%

[15: 139].

from other linguistic and semantic constructs is that they need validation. That is, the proposed meaning should be touched upon by others in order to form a so called (by Habermas) intersubjective solidarity; or otherwise speaking, a virtual group comprising at least two discourse participants who share a certain

point of view. The online discourse can be pictured as a three-layer pyramid. VCs belong to the intermediate level (see Figure 1 below).

Figure 1. Discourse levels

At its bottom are the original texts written and posted by discourse participants. Their number and linguistic diversity is endless, as the same meaning can be expressed in many different ways in the natural language terms. The original texts are coded to reveal the claims to normative rightness “hidden” in texts; that is, something that the discourse participants want to be validated via responses via agreement or disagreement. Only a certain number of such

claims can be validated, which allows building intersubjective solidarity groups around validated claims. Accordingly, the number of such validations in a particular discourse is limited, although it can be rather high (usually around half of all posts is be validated in a meaningful Internet discussion). But the number of validated issues and positions is even smaller and ranges typically around one-tens of all posts [16, 17]. Thus the second level is about group values that are not necessarily shared by the broader society and are usually contested by other groups. At the

upper level of the discourse pyramid lie society-wide moral values and norms that embody certain higher level truths. However, one should keep in mind that social values advanced by certain larger groups (e.g. political elites, business circles, trade unions, civil society etc.) differ from the institutionalized in law norms, as Habermas argued. Discourse analysis via VCs may disclose the instances when certain groups may impose their values on society at large and transform them into laws applicable for all. The upper

level of discourse serves that particular purpose to discover the clash and contestation between different values and the groups that advocate them.

5.4 Research object

As discussed in section 4.1, the main object of the research is an internet discussion on the Change.org e-petition web site.7 The e-petition Change.org portal allows not only proposing electronic petitions, but also discussing them online. Launched on 6 August 2015, “#Don’tCrushFood” e-petition aimed to call the law off and

permit the banned food to be distributed on humanitarian grounds. At least 100,000 signatures is needed in order the legislators could review the law officially (also subject to the review by the panel of experts). As of 3 December 2015, a total of 522, 801 signatures were collected in support of the e-petition, which means that almost the same number (477,199) is still needed to be collected for official consideration.

For the purpose of triangulating the obtained results, two more web-sites were examined as well where the issue of food destruction was discussed too, without connection with the e-petition on the Change.org. These were: (1) the page of the independent Meduza online news outlet on the social media site VKonakte8 and (2) the state-controlled NTV TV channel. Knowing the difference in discussion results would help better understand the difference between the quality of loose discourses

and those that prompt citizens to act, i.e. decide whether to sign the petition.

6. E-PETITION RESEARCH AND

PRACTICE Electronic petition is an interesting microdemocracy tool that has rarely been studied in earnest. Yet these are the explicit policy making support tools. Combined with the associated discourses, e-petitions can be powerful instruments of democratic participation and legitimacy. However, at the moment, in Russia and in many other counties, the institutionalized e-petition platforms usually do

not offer opportunities to discuss issues proposed by petitions. As a rather an exception from the rule, the German legislators offer a possibility not only to launch and sign e-petitions, but also discuss them.9 According to a report of the UK’s Hansard Society, traditional e-petitions with limited opportunities for deliberation on the issues raised can measure the “depth of public feeling on a range of issues”. But if they are meant to empower citizens “through greater engagement in the political and specifically

parliamentary process” the opportunity for deliberation should be significantly expanded [20: 17].

6.1 State of play in Russia

The role of the e-petition web site is performed by the Russian Public Initiative (RPI).10 It was launched in April 2013 to collect citizens’ initiatives at federal, regional and municipal levels.11

7 The link to the discussion is here. 8 The link to the discussion is here - https://vk.com/fave?w=wall-

76982440_235330; the link to a news piece is here - https://meduza.io/galleries/2015/08/06/eto-serieznaya-rabota.

9 The link is here. 10 The link is here.

11 Is operated by the Foundation for Information Democracy, a non-profit organization headed by former Deputy Minister of Communications.

During the period of seven months (01.01.2013 - 31.07.2013), almost 20 thousand documents were found on the portal that were supported to a varied degree by citizens (voting to support initiatives they like) [19]. To cast a vote on the RPI one should register on the Common Government and Municipal Services

Portal. This is time-consuming, as it requires pre-registration and authorization. Once the petition collects 100,000 votes, it is then submitted for the interim assessment to the governmental working group composed of 34 experts. They include representatives of executive and legislative bodies, business community, non-profit organizations, scientific institutions and foundations. The portal demonstrates a high degree of anonymity, since neither the applicant’s name nor the data about those who voted for a petition

are displayed publicly. Moreover, the portal provides an option to vote against the initiative. The total number of votes is obtained by counting only the votes for the initiative, but the expert group receives the information about the total number of votes against the initiative as well. There are other e-participation portals, which are not officially institutionalized, such as:

e-Petition portals: Change.org, Online Petition, Demokrator Ru, Our view, Alter Russia etc.

Portals of citizens’ complaints and urban issues: Angry

citizen, Beautiful Petersburg, Our Petersburg, Our city- Moscow etc.

Table 1 describes the use of different e-participation tools available in Russia.

Table 1. Performance of e-Participation portals

Portal Year of

est.

Affiliation/ owner

No. of petitions

No. of solved

petitions

Russian Public Initiative

2013 Government over 5,000

15

Change.org 2007 Private resource

over 8,000

135

Online Petition

2007 NGO over 4,000

30

Demokrator Ru

2008 NGO over 12,000

739

Our view 2012 NGO 466 12

Alter Russia 2011 NGO 54 2

Angry Citizen

2012 Private resource

over 150,000

over 20,000

Beautiful St.Petersburg

2012 NGO over 50,000

over 18,000

Our St.Petersburg

2014 Government over 14,000

over 8,000

Our City- Moscow

2011 Government over 840,000

over 485,000

These e-participation platforms are used by the residents of different regions in Russia. The portals of citizens’ complaints and urban issues are in good demand. However, the e-petition portals don’t currently allow citizens to receive necessary support. The

estimated ratio of solved problems/petitions to the total number of published ones varies between 1% and 6%. In fact, solving the raised by petitions problems in some cases was not directly attributed to the portal. For example, the “Our view” resource has

only 12 solved problems, but all of them are of the legislative nature, while the RPI portal features 60% of the solved problems (regulations) that were signed without any connection to respective petitions. Among the most effective urban sites aimed at solving complains filed by urban dwellers is an Our Moscow

platform created by citizens and supported by city authorities; hence, a large number of real cases solves.

7. RESEARCH RESULTS & DISCUSSION

7.1 Discourse qualities As mentioned, the content of the discussions about the dumping

of imported foodstuffs was analyzed on three web resources: (1) e-petition on the Change.org,12 (2) Meduza’s VKonakte page13 and (3) the NTV television channel.14 The identification of claims and their subsequent validation via agreement or disagreement was done through content coding performed by this paper authors assisted by the students of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, St. Petersburg

State University who were trained as coders.15 Overall, the coding sample included 355 messages on three web sites: 100 posts on Change.org, 95 – on Meduza, and 165 on the NTV channel. On the latter, three separate discussions were coded (either fully or partially) following the broadcast of three news pieces: (1) ‘Tons of cheese and tomatoes are destroyed with the help of special machinery’ (65 posts coded), (2) ‘Tons of embargoed cheese crushed by truck’ (first 55 posts and last 10 posts were coded),

and (3) ‘Tractor mixed with soil dozens of tomatoes and peaches from Greece in Smolensk’ (first 20 and 15 last messages were coded). All messages were not pre-selected and included into the sample in the chronological order of posting. The sample size is relatively small which simplifies the coding. Smaller samples also provide a better opportunity for deeper analysis of the coding results. Previous research [16, 17] demonstrated that having some 70-100

messages is sufficient to assess the quality of the discourse and determine to which extent it meets the criteria of being deliberative. The larger coding sample might be useful, but analytically it usually does not add new qualitative information about the discourse. Increasing the sample typical results in simply adding new discussion themes (and respective Validity Claims), especially by new participants. Often such new topics have little to do with the discourse original theme and objective

expressed by the seed post. Table 2 shows key deliberative qualities of the discussions held on three portals. These include the total number of posted messages, the number of claims to normative rightness, the number of validated (responded) claims, and the number of validations made via agreement and disagreement.

Table 2. Deliberative parameters of discourses

12 The link is here. 13 The link to the seed article is here and to the discussion is here. 14 The link is here.

15 The authors are especially grateful to Diana Lazarenko and Anastasiya

Khorokhorina for their excellent work in coding the content of all three discourses.

Change.org Meduza NTV

Total messages 100 95 165

Total VCs 90 72 113

Responded VCs 68 50 71

Responded via agreement

46 45 14

Responded via disagreement

18 5 57

These results demonstrate, first of all, that the Change.org and Meduza discourses stand out being far more consensual than the debate on the NTV TV channel. Figure 2 demonstrates that the discussions held on Change.org and Meduza are not only more consensual – the share of agreements reaches 68% and 90% respectively of the total number of validated claims against just

19% for NTV – but also more meaningful, substantive and cohesive. The latter is described by the number of VCs in relation to all posed messages – this parameter is at the level of 90% and 76% for Change.org and Meduza, whereas for NTV this figure is significantly smaller – just 57%. However, all three discourses demonstrate a high level of responsiveness overall, as participants were eager to respond to other participants’ messages and claims – at least two of three claims were validated; in fact, for the less consensual discourse on NTV four of five VCs were responded

(same as on Change.org).

Figure 2. Distribution of discourse qualities

Understanding why the NTV discourse is more agonistic that the other two discussions requires additional examination. Perhaps it is due to a more diverse audience that has a wider range of views and moral values. In contrast, participants on Change.org visited the web site in order to sign the launched e-petition against the anti-food law. Some of them took part on the discussion as well and displayed a high degree of agreement with the petition’s goal

that the government should stop destroying the food and distribute it among the poor. Yet, what is equally important that almost one-fifth of the participants disagreed both with the petition and also one another on specific issues. It is therefore essential to know not only the views of the majorities, but also those who disagree with the mainstream positions and values advocated by majorities.

7.2 Change.org discourse Discussion on Change.org resulted in some three dozens VCs that were identified via the coding of their content (i.e. the original texts). Table 3 lists the indentified VCs on Change.org.

Some VCs overlap and are similar in their intended meaning. The process of validation and aggregation of the expressed positions – i.e. moving from the intermediary to upper discourse level – transforms them into certain moral truths shared by more than one

participant (see Figure 3 below). In effect, these are the “statements” describing the state of mind of those who posted messages on the discussion thread.

Table 3. Intersubjective solidarities and respective VC-based

“truths” at the intermediary discourse level on Change.org

Yes or No to

government

policy of food

destruction

Number

of

validated

claims

Intersubjective solidarities (statements)

No 23

Food is sacred. Destroying it is a sin. It

must not be dumped in the soil. It's

pointless and irrational. The petition is

needed

No 16 Banned food is not harmful should

given away to those in need

No 9 Authorities are selfish, anti-people,

corrupted, immoral by destroying food

No 7 There are many poor people in Russia

and elsewhere who need help

Yes 6

The petition is not a priority and not

needed. The banned imported food

should not enter Russia and can be

destroyed. It cannot be distributed and

won't help the poor

Neutral 3 Russia's sanctions against Western food

should be lifted, the petition won’t help

Neutral 2 Church is indifferent to people's needs

Neutral 2 It is not easy to distribute food among

people in need

From a policy formation point of view, the results of this discourse present significant value because they reveal a spectrum

of issues and opinions that can be important for taking the right and balanced decision. There are two sets of issues that are classified as “Neutral”, for they do not fit into the Yes/No scheme. The statement “Church is indifferent to people's needs” is important as such but it is unrelated to the discourse agenda. The statement “It is not easy to distribute food among people in need” can mean disagreement with destroying the imported food but being skeptical that it is possible to distribution it among the poor

and on this ground rejecting the petition (it is not always possible to classify the position unambiguously). Further aggregation produces two simple categories: (1) those who for the petition and against the food crushing and bumping, and (2) and those who against the petition and for destroying the banned food. As Figure 3 attests, there is an overwhelming majority of the clearly expressed positions – 81% - that reject food destruction and thus support the petition that intends to ban such destruction (or 64%

among VCs).

Figure 3. Distribution of validated claims in relation to policy

of food destruction on Change.org discourse

Overall, the Change.org discourse qualifies as certainly deliberative (the study’s first hypothesized assumption) meeting such key discursive parameters as being sufficiently rational, civilized and interpretable. The second assumption was also confirmed as the discussion was well focused on the main topic of food destruction (as 68% of all claims made touched upon this main discussion topic). The third assumption was also supported, with the 93% of the all claim validations made via agreement. As

a consequence, the discussion dominated content reflects a “Yes” position (i.e. in support of the petition calling against destroying the banned food products and in favour of distributing them among those in need). The voice of those against the petition (a “No” position) was in minority. Nonetheless the discussion was not a debate among the like-mined people only. Quite substantial number of people participated in the debate to contest the petition and express their disagreement, which is an indication of a healthy

and diverse discourse.

7.3 Meduza discourse The Meduza16 discourse produces very similar results with that of

Change.org in terms of discursive and deliberative qualities. The list of issues claimed and validated by discussants is essentially the same as well (see Tables 5 and 6).

Table 4. Intersubjective solidarities and respective VC-based

“truths” at the intermediary discourse level on Meduza

Yes or No to

government

policy of food

destruction

Number

of

validated

claims

Intersubjective solidarities (statements)

No 25

Authorities are not adequate in its food

destruction policy. Government is

making a mistake

No 17

Food should not be destroyed in a

country with low living standards. It is

immoral in a country suffered from

starvation during the war. The banned

food should be used as humanitarian

16 Meduza.io is an independent online news media outlet based outside

Russia; formed by formed employees of the news agency Lenta.ru that has been restructured and placed under stronger state control.

assistance and distributed among the

poor

No 6 Russian food cannot replace imports

Neutral 5

The government policy to destroy food

is ineffective. It is rather an imitation

than the real fight against the banned

food

Yes 5

Government is stable. There will be no

impact on its image as a result of food

destruction

No 3 Confrontation between Russia and the

West is pointless

Neutral 3 The topic of food destruction is

uninteresting

No 2

Customs is corrupted. Customs officials

appropriate and take away the banned

food

No 2 The policy of food destruction can

weaken trust in authorities

Yes 2

There must be a policy encouraging the

development of the Russian agricultural

sector to produce locally grown food

No 2

The petition to stop food destruction is

right and should be supported. Those

who against it are not right

Yet some new issues were brought in, such as how the food ban influences trust in government when the allegedly corrupted customs officials take illegally the banned food away. In addition, it was asserted that Russian agricultural sector won’t be able to replace western products. And again, the level of disapproval of

food destruction was the same as on Change.org – 79% (Figure 6.)

Figure 4. Distribution of validated claims in relation to policy

of food destruction on Meduza discourse

7.4 NTV channel discourse

The discourse in the NTV television channel differs from discussions held on the e-petition portal Change.org and Meduza online news agency. The main difference is in the unusually high number of disagreements (80% while, as empirical evidence from other research shows,17 it is usually at the level of around 60%). The discursive qualities are also less deliberative, although not

17 See [16, 17].

significantly. That is manifested in the smaller number of VCs made and in those that were responded (validated) which might point at higher levels of information noise, such as more personal messages, more swearing and less meaningful messages. However, the difference here does not seem to be too substantial

compared with other discourses. The discourse agenda as such repeats in many ways those issues that were discussed on Change.org and Meduza. Only a small number of issues were novel, such as the role of President and television in influencing people’s views. At the same time, as far as the attitude towards government anti-western food policy, the NTV discourse radically differs from the other two – the positions

that were expressed and validated here are openly pro-government, while Change.org and Meduza debates were against such a policy (see Table 4 and Figure 4).

Table 5. Intersubjective solidarities and respective VC-based

“truths” at the intermediary discourse level on NTV channel

Yes or No to

government

policy of food

destruction

Number

of

validated

claims

Intersubjective solidarities (statements)

Yes 24

Authorities and leaders listen to people

and are acting in their interest and for

the country's economy future. People's

interests won't be harmed if food is

destroyed.

No 12

The government is not listening and

lying to people and making a mistake

destroying food. It won’t be good for

the country. Better to give banned food

away to those in need. People are under

propaganda and don’t understand

what's going on

Yes 7

Banned food should not be given away

to anybody. It should be destroyed.

There are no poor people in Russia

No 7

Destroying food won't help fighting

corruption and economy. Authorities

don't listen to people and don’t support

local economy. Imported food is not

harmful

Yes 6

People are patriots and support

authorities in its policy of food

destruction and supporting local

economy by banning the imported

food. Russian food is of good quality

while imported food can be

contaminated. Television is trustworthy

and tells the truth

Yes 4

Government is fighting corruption and

contraband by destroying food and

prevents contraband

No 2

Food should not be destroyed. Normal

people cannot understand it. It is shame

for Russia

Neutral 2 Putin could not take a decision to

destroy food

Figure 4. Distribution of validated claims in relation to policy

of food destruction on NTV channel discourse

Almost two-thirds (64%) of the positions manifest clear support to government policies. Participants had strong views and stand by them. The lack of uncertain and neutral positions may be telling that the discourse (and its participants) was significantly polarized. The examination of reasons behind such differences was beyond the research scope. Still it is safe to admit that the

NTV channel retranslating the government policy attracts more the like-minded people who want to support the government and tell about that. That is a different audience. However, additional research would be needed to prove or disprove that.

8. CONCLUSIONS The main findings of this research can be summarized as follows. Firstly, the hypothesised assumptions were generally correct,

although not completely. It was confirmed, for example, that all three online discussions meet key deliberative standards, especially Change.org and Meduza discourses which were cohesive, argumentative and dialogical. The fact that the discussion on Change.org was realized around the e-petition to revoke a law requiring to destroy the embargoed food did not have visible influence on the discourse course as such. Many like-minded participants were eager to support the proposed e-petition

and find a better use for the banned foodstuffs. However, it is not clear to which extent the discussion helped mobilize stronger support for the petition itself to increase its signature base, and whether there were participants who changed their views as a result of the discussion. Additional studies would be needed to find the answer to this question. In fact, the Meduza discourse that was not related to the petition was even more consensual than change.org. Apparently, this independent media resource has its

dedicated audience that is more critical towards the Russian government in general and food destruction policies in particular. It seems that the NTV web also has its loyal audience that is far more supportive towards the government. That leads to a preliminary conclusion that the role of the context is indeed important when the outcome of deliberation regarding the same issue may substantially differ from one recourse to another.

Secondly, the prediction made about the focus on the main theme raised by the e-petition on Change.org was correct. Thematically,

the difference was insignificant between all three discourses. The main difference was in the attitude to these issues. The second assumption predicting that the issue raised by the e-petition would dominate the discussion was correct as well.

However, it was also obvious that the discussion went beyond the petition’s central issue and that it was important for the participants to place the petition in the broader context in order to utilize this important democratic instrument in a more informed and responsible manner (yet the latter needs additional evidence and justification regarding the educative effects of the discourse). The third assumption arguing that the majority would support the e-petition’s call to stop destroying food and distribute in among

the poor was also correct for Change.org and Meduza discourses, but not for the NTV cannel. Paradoxically, such a majority was even stronger on Meduza that on Change.org where the petition was debated. The fourth assumption predicting little difference between the three discourses was not proved. As mentioned above, the NTV discourse radically differed from those on Change.org and Meduza pointing thereby at the importance of the resource status, host, and ownership.

In this light, the main research question of the study asking about the epistemic value of online discourses for deliberative (and thus argumentative) policy making was answered partially. On the one hand, all three discourses generated specific knowledge that has the potential to provide decision makers with important insights about a wide range of possible policy options (as far as food destruction is concerned). One of such options would be

cancellation or amendment of the anti-food law as evidenced by Change.org and Meduza discourse outcomes. On the other hand, the NTV discourse resulted in strong support to the government in destroying the imported food products. Yet in any event such discourses effectively serve not only as valuable e-participation citizen feedback mechanism, but also as important microdemocracy tools (even institutions) capable – if institutionalized – to make the notion of democratic citizenship much stronger.

Finally, while there have been many limitations of the study – e.g. not using other research methods to triangulate the research outcomes – it has been valuable in other aspects. For example, it’s been possible not only to prove the applicability of the claim-based approach for getting deeper information about the politicization of the Russian society and its groups, but also in determining key logical algorithms for creating in future a

Decision Support System that would be able to automatically utilize the collective knowledge and intelligence produced by people in the course of policy discourse, beyond traditional crowdsourcing. Another important limitation of the study was in having the coding sample limited to the Russian context only. That might reduce the applicability of the research findings with regard to the generalizations being made concerning the democratic potential of the proposed discourse-based policy

analysis. More research would be needed into discursive practices of other countries – especially with well established democracies – to discover more universal patterns of knowledge generation by citizens and its uses by authorities for more democratically legitimate decisions.

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