Beyond Debate: Impacts of Deliberative Issue Framing on Group Dialogue and Problem-Solving

This research brief from Public Agenda discusses research on the impacts of two types of issue framing on the capacity and willingness of groups to engage in productive dialogue and deliberation about complex issues in the United States (US). It builds on and tests ideas about issue framing. The research seeks to test the following hypothesis: "Issues framed in ways that clarify a range of approaches to a public problem, in ways that citizens can readily understand and relate to, lead to more civically healthy conversations (i.e., more civil, interesting and productive dialogue within diverse groups) than issues that are framed according to the standard dualistic debate model that dominates typical media representations of public problems.... The first type of issue framing, ‘framing to persuade’, involves defining an issue to one’s advantage in the hopes of getting an audience to do what you want it to do. The latter, termed ‘framing for deliberation’, involves clarifying the range of positions surrounding an issue so that citizens can better decide what they want to do."

Two goals of this research are: 1) challenging the preoccupation with issue framing as the domain of power politics by exploring how a deliberative approach to issue framing might impact people’s ability to understand and grapple with difficult public problems; and 2) articulate the value of deliberative issue framing in a way that is useful to public engagement practitioners and researchers, leaders and other decisionmakers, and communities.

Methodology This research is based on eight focus groups on US Social Security reform. Four of the groups presented participants with materials that framed the issue for persuasion by presenting two debate-style arguments in a manner consistent with many typical media presentations. The other four groups used materials that framed Social Security for deliberation by presenting it in a "Choicework" format, with a short non-partisan introduction providing a bit of background and three distinct approaches to the problem, along with several trade-offs involved in each. Moderators unaware of the research agenda led the groups while researchers observed, recorded, and later made transcripts for study.

The Findings The following four interrelated patterns distinguished the groups under the two framing conditions:

1. Analysis vs. Ideology - "...participants in deliberatively framed groups tended to discuss specific ideas related to the topic, such as how the Social Security program operates, whereas participants in persuasively framed groups tended to speak in sweeping, ideological generalizations about the nature of personal responsibility or the relationship between big government and personal freedom.”
   
2. Curiosity vs. Venting - "...deliberative framing led to discussions in which participants expressed greater inquisitiveness about the source and nature of the problems around Social Security than did participants in groups with persuasive frames, which were marked by considerably more venting about things like corporate greed and government corruption.”
   
3. Hard Choices vs. Easy Answers - "Participants in the deliberatively framed groups were more realistic and pragmatic about the difficult choices involved in addressing Social Security problems, while participants in the persuasively framed groups did not articulate a strong grasp of practical choices and trade-offs and tended to reach for easy answers."
   
4. Solution-Oriented Creativity vs. Off-Track Circularity - "In the deliberatively framed groups, people’s curiosity seemed to serve as a catalyst for creative brainstorming about possible solutions. In the persuasively framed groups, however, participants tended to get off track in their conversations and either veer permanently into entirely different subjects or have conversations that were repetitive and circular."

From the findings, the researchers conclude that "participants in the persuasively framed groups were more likely to express their positions in static terms and circular patterns, while those in the deliberatively framed groups were more dynamic and focused on problem solving...In the deliberatively framed groups, in which people were provided some background, were stimulated through questions and offered a range of possible approaches rather than a polarized argument, participants were more likely to view the issue as complex and multifaceted. While it is difficult to capture this in quotes, we also observed that the overall tone of the deliberatively framed groups was more collaborative insofar as people held themselves and interacted as though they were working on a problem together, rather than simply reacting to the material and expressing static individual opinions in the presence of others."

In addition, they suggest these implications for politics:

• Downgrade debate, which polarises through argument (often by "experts"), tends to increase levels of public dissatisfaction and disengagement, and underscores the public’s exclusion from important public decision-making.
• Upgrade public deliberation as strategy and a tool that is collaborative and is focused on engaged citizens solving shared problems.