Funded through a Discovery Project (DP150103615) ($369,700), the Project Team includes:

· John S. Dryzek, Chief Investigator

· Selen A. Ercan, Chief Investigator

· Paul Fawcett, Chief Investigator

· Carolyn Hendriks, Chief Investigator

· Michael Jensen, Chief Investigator

· Hedda Ransan-Cooper, Postdoctoral Research Fellow

· Sonya Duus, Research Associate

Project Description

The ever-increasing volume of political communication (especially online) challenges democracy and effective policy making. This project examines whether, how, why, and to what effect discourse flows within and between different deliberative sites in the new politics of communicative plenty. We apply the idea of deliberative democracy, which puts meaningful communication between citizens and policy makers at the heart of effective governance. It develops a deliberative analysis of controversy surrounding coal seam gas in Australia, using qualitative and ‘big data techniques to collect information.