More than News! Mapping the Deliberative Potential of a Political Online Ecosystem with Digital Trace Data

Abstract

Does the internet facilitate everyday public deliberation? Most of the previous re search on this question has focused on specific aspects, such as online news media diets or political discussions on social media platforms. However, increasingly complex media environments are composed of different arenas with different respective potential for democracy. Using digital trace data from Germany, I map out (1) which websites are relevant for the online public discourse, (2) develop a measure of deliberative potential along six dimensions (information, communication, participation, connectivity, inclusivity and heterogeneity) and (3) using latent class analysis, ex plore different types of websites. Besides a class of mainstream informational hubs, I find a class of quality information providers that are not characterized by a diverse user base. A third class of niche online forums hosts political discussions among more tightly knit online communities, sup porting previous findings of incidental exposure to political content online. While the mainstream information hubs in the sample attract a much larger volume of clicks, users spend relatively more time consuming political information on quality information sites as well as on niche online fo rums to engage with politics online. This project takes a more holistic perspective of the diverse ecosystem of online deliberation, while presenting a first quantitative exploration of a deliberative system.