Sarah Erlikh English 138T Professor: Jessica Ohara 11 Mar.

2013 Moderator Philosophy Throughout studies in the field of psychology it has been proven that humans as a whole are generally driven by their internal need to explain and to understand. This inherent fact of the human psyche lends well to opinionated philosophies and frequently causes the division of society altogether. Rarely is there a moment at which one person chooses to stand alone and simply deviate from peoples distinct ideologies, but in areas such as politics, people, known as moderators, choose to adopt this type of behavior. Moderators are extremely important in the current day United States whose political foundation is based on rhetoric and deliberation. Overall, the role of a moderator is to ensure mutual comprehension of the issue in discussion as well as drive the conversation forward while maintaining an impartial stance. Over the past few weeks, I tried to embody this role when I was given the position of moderator in our class issues forum on sustainability. I employed my own personal moderating philosophy which included my strengths of not forcing a consensus, being supportive, and encouraging active participation. I believe I efficiently led the group in an effective deliberation. As the moderator for the conclusion of the in-class deliberation my role was not necessarily to present direct questions to the group as was the case with other moderators, but rather to help them reflect on the vast amount of information discussed throughout the

deliberation. The key principle behind my moderating style was to not force a consensus. When it comes to such controversial issues, such as sustainability, there is often no one approach that is superior to all others. In addition, what one group member would agree is the best solution another might argue would cause for more destruction. Instead, my strategy was to focus my groups attention on the main areas that must be addressed to promote a more sustainable world as well as the major themes associated with the sustainability debate. To do this, I briefly reviewed with my group each area that we discussed in the prior days, and specifically asked each of them whether they believed it could be classified as one of the five most extreme problems and why. After a list was formulated I once again called on every person in the group to share their opinion on how each problem could be solved. By implementing this strategy I was not only able to involve every person of the group, but I was also able to push the focus in one direction and lead the conversation to an acceptable close. Another element of my moderating style was encouraging my group members to participate in discussion by instilling confidence in their abilities. At this point of the deliberation, the conversation was becoming dull; many people were disinterested and were running out of things to say. Part of my role as the moderator was to keep my peers on track and promote enthusiasm in regards to the deliberation. For this reason, I wanted to ensure that each group member felt comfortable sharing their thoughts, therefore, I specifically created an atmosphere based on acceptance and understanding. While I was moderating, I believe that most people in the group felt confident and free of judgment which was definitely helped certain people speak up. For example, while Tori was confident in expressing her opinions frequently throughout the conversation, Alyson would shy away because she said she was ignorant to the topic and didnt know anything. I made sure that Alyson knew she was being heard and eventually she had some

really great opinions which drove the conversation forward and made for a more enthusiastic deliberation. Unfortunately, I also had some weaknesses while being a moderator. The most difficult aspect for me during the deliberation was maintaining an unprejudiced opinion towards the topic. It was very difficult to be deferential towards the issue after just having been a biased participant in the debate two days prior. Often times, I found myself almost giving my own opinion through my questions instead of simply being a conductor of the discussion. In the future, I believe that asking more general questions may help in remaining impartial in the deliberation. In the same way, it may be of use to write most of the questions down and make sure that they remain unbiased. Laying the Foundation for Effective Deliberation In his speech, Aeropagitica, English poet John Milton once said, Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making. This idea encompasses the aspects of what many people have come to know as deliberation. By definition, deliberation is the collaborative process of discussing controversial issues by considering various perspectives in order to form opinions and make knowledgeable judgments. Unfortunately, deliberation often becomes the victim of personal vendettas, misinterpretation, bias, and the pressure to reach a solution. During the Civic Issues Forum on sustainability, our group tried to overcome these hurdles by utilizing some of John Gastils principles of effective, democratic deliberation. Although there were certain setbacks, our group insightfully agreed on several plans of action

that must be taken to avoid further problems; our deliberation embodied the nature of true democratic deliberation as discussed by Gastil. In the initial moments of our sustainability deliberation the discussion was very sheltered; group members seemed very uncomfortable and the conversation was quite forced. Luckily, when the first days moderator provided participants with the opportunity to share their personal beliefs on the issue, they quickly became more enthusiastic. Each participant took some time to explain the relevance that sustainability had in their life as well as describe their emotional reactions to the topic. For instance, Michelle discussed her fathers habits of not flushing the toilet to preserve water while Ramya talked about how wasteful Americans are compared to people living in India. These personal reflections, in combination with the facts provided by the sustainability forum issues guide, created a solid information base an important step in the analytic process of deliberation according to Gastil. We collectively realized that although certain group members were from diverse backgrounds we all agreed that sustainability is indeed an issue that needs to be addressed immediately. By initially all sharing our personal viewpoints on the topic of discussion, our group was successful in adequately distributing speaking opportunities. Unfortunately, this did not last. As we began to discuss the three options proposed in the sustainability packet, certain voices fell silent while others prevailed. For instance, because of her vast knowledge base on the topic, Tori consistently voiced her opinion. While some believed she was too dominant in the conversation, which goes against the principles associated with an effective deliberation, I would argue that Tori offered good insight. Not only did she educate some of the other participants, but she also caused them to speak up. On the contrary, Alyson was quite silent for most of the deliberation because she felt ignorant towards the topic. To increase her confidence, moderators

such as Dan, Michelle, and myself did a great job of ensuring Alyson that the deliberation was a judgment free zone. Fortunately, this method worked, increasing the progression of our deliberation. From there our deliberation seemed to be quite successful. Rather than simply reading the statistics and facts laid out before us in the packet, we used prior knowledge along with current articles to convey our opinions and ensure mutual comprehension. This caused the discussion to become less personal and broader in scope. For example, when the group discussed option three, Transform Our Culture, Michelle brought up her article which promoted this options ideas. The article discussed how living in an individualistic, Western culture has caused people to focus on achieving and obtaining what they want instead of simply concentrating on basic human necessities. The columnist argued that to become more sustainable we need to transform our thought process to include major conservation. From this article we built on our own ideas, and tried to identify a broad range of solutions. Tori shared how she believes humans are incapable of changing unless there is a superior figure promoting the change. Jenna and Ramya proceeded to ask questions about what kind of person this figure should be, and in what ways a sustainable lifestyle should be promoted. Jenna asked, Will simply playing commercials and seeing advertisements of celebrities encouraging sustainability be enough to answer to our countries problems? Or must the celebrities actually endure such a lifestyle? Asking these types of critical questions both enabled participants to engage in active listening and also allowed them to clarify certain points in their opinions which led to energetic interaction. Over the course of the first two days we came up with many solutions to the issue of sustainability, but we were not sure how well they would work if implemented. Some of the solutions discussed included increasing funding for research, providing businesses with

incentives, increasing taxes to limit usage of certain resources, and increasing human interest in the topic. To thoroughly explore the future effects of implementing such solutions, our group weighed the pros and cons of each plan of action and also recognized the limitations of personal, preferred solutions. At one point or another, participants assumed the role of Devils advocate, respectfully and purposely disagreeing with someones opinion in order to inspire additional consideration and deliberation within the entire group. For instance, Dan proposed that the government provide businesses with incentives to being more sustainable. Although Tori agreed that this may be a good idea, she advocated for the opposing side which caused other group members to recognize the short comings of this approach; the only incentive that drives Americans is money and the government does not have enough to promote sustainability on a large scale. This type of reasoning was the stimulus that caused our group to become aware of the overall current situation in the United States and led us into the focus point of our postforum deliberation. To conclude the deliberation, I assumed the role of moderator and asked my group to thoroughly reflect on the information previously discussed. We once again reviewed each of the three options and identified which points we unanimously agreed on. In addition, I asked them to reconsider their opinions. In the end we unanimously had the same opinions we started with and we agreed that the modern day United States is not prepared to attack such an issue; there is no current solution. Essentially, the United States foundation is based on independence and freedom of expression, which causes the government to be unable to implement certain policies for greater sustainability without the approval of the countrys citizens. Unfortunately, when dealing with such a controversial issue such as sustainability, the general public is usually split on what they believe to be the best plan of action. This makes it very difficult for our democratic

government to enforce a policy they believe will help. At this moment in the discussion, Ramya added that because China is a communist country and the government does not need to answer to its citizens, it is much more advanced when it comes to being sustainable. In its entirety, the in-class deliberation was effective in terms of its organization due to diverse moderation technique as well as a respectful group discussion. Unfortunately, there were certain externalities that were not up to our control that flawed the deliberation, but we tried our best to adapt. One of the issues, for example, was the classroom demographic. Our deliberation would have been much more successful if a wider group of people from different backgrounds were represented. Unfortunately, this is an ideal, for getting people of all ages and cultures to deliberate a specific issue is a little far-fetched. To improvise, certain group members researched the opinions of people in other cultures and incorporated them into the deliberation. Another downfall of the overall deliberation was that many aspects regarding options two and three were already discussed on the first day. This left much less to talk about on the second day and caused for a slight decline in our efficiency. I believe the first day moderators could have kept the topic of conversation more directed towards discussing the actions that need to be taken to repair and protect resources (option one). Other than these defects, I believe our deliberation successfully adhered to the nine criteria mentioned in Political Communication and Deliberation. In addition, although our deliberation was not perfect, my group gained a broader outlook on a current social issue which may have been ignored in other circumstances. Online Deliberation The rapid growth of the internet over the past two decades has brought with it many opportunities for deliberation about public, controversial issues. There are a wide variety of tools

that have made it significantly easier for citizens to gain knowledge about a topic, share that information with others, and state their opinions. Through newspaper websites, online forums, and social networking sites the internet gives people complete access to engage in public deliberation on issues that personally affect them. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of online deliberation can vary depending on whether the space where it occurs promotes proper rhetoric. For the purpose of this deliberation assignment, I decided to use the Facebook group created by my fellow classmate. During my time spent in the group, I was able to implement my own deliberative technique, reflect on the productiveness of the deliberation, and explore the challenges posed by online deliberation. After searching the internet for many websites, I found the deliberations on the Facebook group to be most appealing. Because people are constantly active on Facebook, I figured that in this setting I would have the best chance of getting responses to my comments and engaging in an active deliberation. In addition, I found that many of the key questions being posed personally applied to my life, which increased my enthusiasm to participate. Lastly, because the group was primarily made up students participating in this specific assignment, I knew that they would take the deliberations seriously by posting insightful, thought-out comments. While browsing through the group, what sparked my attention the most was a question asked by Kim Ward pertaining to the current drinking age in the United States. I thought it would be interesting to research such a controversial issue that affects my social life every weekend here at Penn State. Additionally, I was curious to see how other students my age felt about specific areas of the issues. By the time I entered the deliberation there was already a handful of comments posted. Before expressing my own opinions, I read over the prior comments to make sure I was effectively able to respond. Through this process, I was able to see where the conversation

currently stood and essentially dive in with my initial post. I thought it would be effective to create a direct connection between my comments and the previous ones. Therefore, I often opened my posts with a statement directly relating to information mentioned previously. For instance, in my first post I directly emphasized my agreement to Josh Zollmans comment involving childrens exposure to alcohol under parental supervision as a means of teaching. Although this technique did not further my conversation with Josh, it initiated a series of comments with Elizabeth Fleming that proved to be most productive. Throughout these posts, I tried to write clearly and focus on one central idea instead of jumping all over the place and overwhelming other participants. In addition, I used on outside source to offer insight as well as to defend my argument. My structured posts made it easier for Elizabeth to respond with her own opinions without getting side tracked. Additionally, because Elizabeth and I both directly addressed one another with every post, we gained enthusiasm and engaged in a thriving conversation that pushed the entire deliberation forward. Unfortunately, the effective exchange between Elizabeth and I did not last. Towards the end of our comments several other participants added their input and transformed the conversation into an informal, unfocused, series of disconnected monologues. Specifically, Mary Newman completely ignored a question I posed in my previous comment, while Aaron Budd simply agreed with her and shared his own personal anecdote. Instead of fully reading the previous comments and pushing the deliberation towards a consensus people were more focused on advocating for their own beliefs. From that point, the deliberation became very static which caused a loss of interest from many participants including myself. While a productive deliberation consists of a wide variety of people with different opinions who speak openly and listen enthusiastically, this Facebook online deliberation faced

challenges of bias and fear which made it ineffective. The primary challenge of the deliberation was that all the participants involved in the deliberation were under 21 years of age causing for a misrepresentation of society. Although peoples opinions on how to implement a new drinking law varied, everyone unanimously agreed that the drinking age should be lowered to 18. This bias caused for a very uniform deliberation with no real opposing viewpoints; the same information was repeatedly stated in different ways. The other challenge that made the deliberation unproductive was once again related to the group demographic. Most of the participants in the deliberation were peers whom interact frequently. Although this caused the conversation to be very respectful, in some ways it hindered the deliberation and made it quite sheltered. The conversation appeared very forced because some individuals seemed unwilling to fully express their beliefs. From this, I would argue that participants feared ridicule and judgment from their fellow classmates which caused them to shy back. This downfall was not apparent in the Civic Issues Forum because my group specifically focused on establishing a prejudice-free environment in which all members felt comfortable voicing their opinions. In the future, I believe online deliberation groups on Facebook should be open to the general public. Because this group was strictly used by students from a specific course for the purpose of completing an assignment the deliberation was staged. If the group contained a more generic title Facebook users across the globe could potentially get involved allowing for a more realistic deliberation. Additionally, using pseudonyms for assignments such as this would eliminate any room for judgment and would allow students to more enthusiastically present their true opinions. By promoting these guidelines, I believe that future online deliberation assignments would prove to be much more successful as well as productive.

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