Disagreement, Agreement, and Elaboration in Crowdsourced Deliberation: Ideation Through Elaborated Perspectives

In this study, we examined disagreement, agreement, and elaboration (rationale sharing) and their association with idea generation in a crowdsourced deliberation that took place within a crowdsourced policymaking process led by a national government. We analyzed the comments posted to the crowdsourced deliberation process and found that the elaboration of perspectives was a key element in idea generation. Disagreement contributed to ideation most when it was elaborated—i.e., when the participants justified their stances—and when it was accompanied by elaborated agreement. The findings suggest that in the design of the technologies and processes facilitating crowdsourced policymaking and other applications for civic engagement, there should be a particular focus on encouraging elaboration because elaboration can contribute to productive ideation as well as constructive argumentation. Elaboration could be fostered by deploying features from deliberation and argumentation technologies, which are designed to encourage participants to elaborate on their stances.