Alex Liu

CAS 138T Section 001

Robin Kramer

Online Deliberation Reflection

To supplement the Civic Issues Forum that we had in class, we participated in an online
forum regarding another aspect of Penn States General Education Reform. This provided a new
medium and a larger audience for the discussion on this issue. There are benefits and
disadvantages in using such a method, but for this type of discussion I feel that this method is not
the best course of action taken.

This method had some strength to it, but they were outweighed by the limitations of
online discussion forums. Using this method allowed us to have a larger audience involved in the
discussion outside of the 20 or so students in the class. It also allotted more time for discussion,
having it spread out over the week rather than just the specified three hours. But these strengths
also reveal some limitations with online discussion. Having a larger audience can also mean that
the participants views and opinions can have slightly less impact when 100 people are competing
to get their voices heard compared to 20. Some peoples posts can be drowned out by the sheer
multitude of other people posting. And having the time available to participate in the span of a
week can lead to discussion coming to a lull towards the end or some people missing the kairos
of the discussion as it moves along.

The goal of this activity was to be a deliberation of the topic, which was accomplished,
for the most part. A lot of ideas were thrown about and good conversation was generated, but
there were some weaknesses in the deliberation. Some posts had long threads of replies which
boded well for deliberation while some other posts were left untouched and unreplied, perhaps
even unread. This led to several discussions going on at once and were somewhat disjointed. The
online aspect did not have the same flow that happened in the discussion in class. As such, some
topics were elaborated on in great detail while others were not given the attention that they may
have deserved.

In the case of my own participation and posts, I fell into the category of failing to further
the deliberation. I participated in the discussion fairly late after many other people had already
started discussing and participating. As such, many of the ideas I had about the discussion were
already mentioned beforehand. So I could only, with much difficulty, elaborate on what was
already said and agree or disagree with what had been proposed. I missed the optimal kairos for
participation and so my posts could not elicit much discussion or responses.

All in all, the discussion was fairly productive: productivity in the sense of sharing and
elaborating on opinions and ideas to increase knowledge about a topic. The discussion was not
going to result in an end-all-be-all as to what will be done, but to offer up ideas and concerns
about the issue. Although I believe that the means through which it was accomplished (online
forum) was not optimal as compared to face-to-face discussion, it was successful enough to
benefit those involved and those who would read it later.