Debategraph is a social enterprise that combines argument visualization with collaborative wiki editing to make the best arguments on all sides of every complex public debate freely available to all, and continuously open to challenge and improvement by all. It was co-founded by Peter Baldwin and David Price, who have been collaborating on Debategraph’s development on opposites sides of the world over the last five years –  and is evolving continuously towards the fulfilment of our long term vision for a new form of public communication. For a ... (continue)

This short thread is an archive of a discussion on the NCDD forum started on July 9, 2004 by Matt Leighninger. (continue)

The following comments were made over the NCDD Discussion list a few years ago when Leah Lamb posed this question: “I have been pondering about how we can actively make the D&D lexicon more familiar to the greater public? I am curious to learn about how those of you on the listserv approach describing the fields of D&D, and more specifically, how you address the complexity of the wide range of definitions and practice.” (continue)

This 2009 report authored by Alison Kadlec and Will Friedman builds on ideas developed in the 2008 publication Reframing Framing by summarizing research that explores the impacts of framing issues for deliberation (in contrast to framing them for persuasion). How one frames an issue can effect the ability and willingness of citizens to productively discuss issues and come to thoughtful judgments. The data suggests that when issues are framed for deliberation: Group discussions tend to be more analytic and less ideological. People tend to spend ... (continue)

Dave Davenport, research fellow at the Hoover Institute and professor of public policy at Pepperdine University, wrote a great article for the Hoover Digest titled Why Conservatives should Embrace Deliberative Democracy. The article refers to some deliberative efforts – CaliforniaSpeaks, a European deliberative poll, the Canadian citizens assemblies for electoral reform, etc. – and talks about how, when he describes these experiments to his political and policy friends, he gets more enthusiastic reactions from people on the Left than those on the Right. “Perhaps,” Davenport ... (continue)

This article by NCDD Director Sandy Heierbacher was published in the September 2009 edition of the International Journal of Public Participation (IJP2). You can download the full article here from the IJP2 site. The article outlines NCDD's learnings in two of the five challenges we focused on at the 2008 NCDD conference in Austin: the "Systems Challenge" and the "Framing Challenge." (continue)

At the 2008 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, we focused in on 5 of the most pressing and challenging issues our field is facing – issues that past conference participants agreed are vital for us to address if we are to have the impact we’d like to have in our communities. One of the five challenges we focused on was the “Framing Challenge” — framing this work in an accessible way. Our leader for the Framing Challenge was Jacob Hess. Six months before the ... (continue)

The Kettering Foundation updated an earlier work, Framing Issues for Public Deliberation, with this 20-page June 2009 publication, which incorporates insights from their most recent research on how potentially divisive issues can be presented in ways that promote shared and reflective judgments. Naming and Framing Difficult Issues to Make Sound Decisions is for citizens who want a stronger hand in shaping their collective future, which requires making choices about what kind of future they want. Standing in the way of these citizens are inevitable disagreements ... (continue)

This 2009 article written by Alison Kadlec and Will Friedman for 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. It builds on and tests ideas presented in Friedman’s article “Reframing Framing,” in which he distinguishes between the way in which issue framing is typically used and thought of — as a means of persuasion — and efforts made by organizations like Public Agenda ... (continue)

At the 2008 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, we focused on 5 challenges identified by participants at our past conferences as being vitally important for our field to address. Our leader for the “Framing Challenge” was Jacob Hess, then-Ph.D. Candidate in Clinical-Community Psychology at the University of Illinois. Jacob wrote up an in-depth report on what was discussed at the conference in this challenge area, as well as his own reflections as a social conservative who is committed to dialogue. Download the 2008 Framing ... (continue)