Peter Muhlberger
Biographic Data
| ID | 4154669 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peter Muhlberger |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peter |
| FAMILY NAME | Muhlberger |
| SIGNATURE | MUHLBERGER P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Texas Tech University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 69 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Stealth Democracy: Authoritarianism and Democratic Deliberation
In Stealth Democracy, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse seek to show that much of the American public desires “stealth democracy”--a democracy run like a business with little deliberation or public input. The authors maintain that stealth democracy beliefs are largely reasonable preferences, and the public does not want and would react negatively to a more deliberative democracy. This paper introduces an opposing “authoritarian stealth democrats thesis” t…
Prompting Deliberation about Nanotechnology: Information, Instruction, and Discussion Effects on Individual Engagement and Knowledge
Deliberative (and educational) theories typically predict knowledge gains will be enhanced by information structure and discussion. In two studies, we experimentally manipulated key features of deliberative public engagement (information, instructions, and discussion) and measured impacts on cognitive-affective engagement and knowledge about nanotechnology. We also examined the direct and moderating impacts of individual differences in need for c…
What Is Good Public Deliberation
Deliberative E-Rulemaking Project: Challenges to Enacting Real World Deliberation
This article describes the challenges facing a federal government–funded initiative to promote online deliberation to improve the public comment process by federal and state government agencies in the United States. The three year project met several difficulties. Some have been technical, but our primary obstacle has been in securing partnerships with government agencies. Due to institutional, legal, and organizational challenges, many governmen…
Public policy and obstacles to the virtual agora: Insights from the deliberative e-rulemaking project
Cyber-optimists anticipate that electronic media will serve as an extensive public space, a virtual agora, that will re-engage the public with politics and the policies that affect everyday life. For three years we were involved in a U.S. National Science Foundation funded project desig ned to enhance the participation of citizens in government agency rulemaking processes using online public deliberation and Natural Language Processing technologi…
Agreement and Disagreement in Group Deliberation: Effects on Deliberation Satisfaction, Future Engagement, and Decision Legitimacy
While research on democratic deliberation has burgeoned, little systematic work has been done on the effects of the communication content of deliberations. We examine how expressions of agreement and disagreement during online deliberation affect participants' evaluations of their experience, including satisfaction, reevaluation of opinions, and expected future participation. The effects of these evaluations on perceived legitimacy and opinion am…
Lessons from the Virtual Agora Project: The Effects of Agency, Identity, Information, and Deliberation on Political Knowledge, by Peter Muhlberger and Lori M. Weber
The Virtual Agora Project: A Research Design for Studying Democratic Deliberation
In 2001, the National Science Foundation provided $2.1 million in funding for the Virtual Agora Project, a three-year exploration of the effects of online and face-to-face democratic deliberation. The project seeks to shed light on deliberation's effects on individuals, the community, and decision quality as well as how best to use technology to achieve positive outcomes. Of special concern to the project is determining whether deliberation build…
Human Agency and the Revitalization of the Public Sphere
This article introduces a theory of human agency that helps identify and integrate factors that may be important for explaining why the advent of the Internet has not revitalized the public sphere. The theory suggests three types of interrelated explanations. One type of explanation focuses on the “economy of attention”—limits to human information processing and resulting tradeoffs. A second type of explanation, psychosocial structure, includes t…
Moral Reasoning Effects on Political Participation
In this study, respondents who agreed to participate in a computer‐administered interview were presented with information and questions about public interest groups, followed by the Defining Issues Test of moral reasoning (DIT). Respondents with high DIT scores stressed morally central over morally peripheral considerations in deciding whether to participate in public interest groups. Less sophisticated reasoners showed the opposite pattern. Mora…
Agreement and Disagreement in Group Deliberation: Effects on Deliberation Satisfaction, Future Engagement, and Decision Legitimacy
While research on democratic deliberation has burgeoned, little systematic work has been done on the effects of the communication content of deliberations. We examine how expressions of agreement and disagreement during online deliberation affect participants' evaluations of their experience, including satisfaction, reevaluation of opinions, and expected future participation. The effects of these evaluations on perceived legitimacy and opinion am…
Human Agency and the Revitalization of the Public Sphere
This article introduces a theory of human agency that helps identify and integrate factors that may be important for explaining why the advent of the Internet has not revitalized the public sphere. The theory suggests three types of interrelated explanations. One type of explanation focuses on the “economy of attention”—limits to human information processing and resulting tradeoffs. A second type of explanation, psychosocial structure, includes t…
Moral Reasoning Effects on Political Participation
In this study, respondents who agreed to participate in a computer‐administered interview were presented with information and questions about public interest groups, followed by the Defining Issues Test of moral reasoning (DIT). Respondents with high DIT scores stressed morally central over morally peripheral considerations in deciding whether to participate in public interest groups. Less sophisticated reasoners showed the opposite pattern. Mora…
Public policy and obstacles to the virtual agora: Insights from the deliberative e-rulemaking project
Cyber-optimists anticipate that electronic media will serve as an extensive public space, a virtual agora, that will re-engage the public with politics and the policies that affect everyday life. For three years we were involved in a U.S. National Science Foundation funded project desig ned to enhance the participation of citizens in government agency rulemaking processes using online public deliberation and Natural Language Processing technologi…
Deliberative E-Rulemaking Project: Challenges to Enacting Real World Deliberation
This article describes the challenges facing a federal government–funded initiative to promote online deliberation to improve the public comment process by federal and state government agencies in the United States. The three year project met several difficulties. Some have been technical, but our primary obstacle has been in securing partnerships with government agencies. Due to institutional, legal, and organizational challenges, many governmen…
Moral Reasoning Effects on Political Participation
In this study, respondents who agreed to participate in a computer‐administered interview were presented with information and questions about public interest groups, followed by the Defining Issues Test of moral reasoning (DIT). Respondents with high DIT scores stressed morally central over morally peripheral considerations in deciding whether to participate in public interest groups. Less sophisticated reasoners showed the opposite pattern. Mora…
The Virtual Agora Project: A Research Design for Studying Democratic Deliberation
In 2001, the National Science Foundation provided $2.1 million in funding for the Virtual Agora Project, a three-year exploration of the effects of online and face-to-face democratic deliberation. The project seeks to shed light on deliberation's effects on individuals, the community, and decision quality as well as how best to use technology to achieve positive outcomes. Of special concern to the project is determining whether deliberation build…
Human Agency and the Revitalization of the Public Sphere
This article introduces a theory of human agency that helps identify and integrate factors that may be important for explaining why the advent of the Internet has not revitalized the public sphere. The theory suggests three types of interrelated explanations. One type of explanation focuses on the “economy of attention”—limits to human information processing and resulting tradeoffs. A second type of explanation, psychosocial structure, includes t…
Lessons from the Virtual Agora Project: The Effects of Agency, Identity, Information, and Deliberation on Political Knowledge, by Peter Muhlberger and Lori M. Weber
Agreement and Disagreement in Group Deliberation: Effects on Deliberation Satisfaction, Future Engagement, and Decision Legitimacy
While research on democratic deliberation has burgeoned, little systematic work has been done on the effects of the communication content of deliberations. We examine how expressions of agreement and disagreement during online deliberation affect participants' evaluations of their experience, including satisfaction, reevaluation of opinions, and expected future participation. The effects of these evaluations on perceived legitimacy and opinion am…
Public policy and obstacles to the virtual agora: Insights from the deliberative e-rulemaking project
Cyber-optimists anticipate that electronic media will serve as an extensive public space, a virtual agora, that will re-engage the public with politics and the policies that affect everyday life. For three years we were involved in a U.S. National Science Foundation funded project desig ned to enhance the participation of citizens in government agency rulemaking processes using online public deliberation and Natural Language Processing technologi…
What Is Good Public Deliberation
Deliberative E-Rulemaking Project: Challenges to Enacting Real World Deliberation
This article describes the challenges facing a federal government–funded initiative to promote online deliberation to improve the public comment process by federal and state government agencies in the United States. The three year project met several difficulties. Some have been technical, but our primary obstacle has been in securing partnerships with government agencies. Due to institutional, legal, and organizational challenges, many governmen…
Prompting Deliberation about Nanotechnology: Information, Instruction, and Discussion Effects on Individual Engagement and Knowledge
Deliberative (and educational) theories typically predict knowledge gains will be enhanced by information structure and discussion. In two studies, we experimentally manipulated key features of deliberative public engagement (information, instructions, and discussion) and measured impacts on cognitive-affective engagement and knowledge about nanotechnology. We also examined the direct and moderating impacts of individual differences in need for c…
Stealth Democracy: Authoritarianism and Democratic Deliberation
In Stealth Democracy, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse seek to show that much of the American public desires “stealth democracy”--a democracy run like a business with little deliberation or public input. The authors maintain that stealth democracy beliefs are largely reasonable preferences, and the public does not want and would react negatively to a more deliberative democracy. This paper introduces an opposing “authoritarian stealth democrats thesis” t…
Political science (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Deliberation (8 works) · Social Media and Politics (8 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Public relations (5 works)