To Play Is the Thing: How Game Design Principles Can Make Online Deliberation Compelling

Abstract

This essay draws from game design to improve the prospects of democratic deliberation during government consultation with the public. The argument begins by reviewing the problem of low-quality deliberation in contemporary discourse, then explains how games can motivate participants to engage in demanding behaviors, such as deliberation. Key design features include: the origin, governance, and oversight of the game; the networked small groups at the center of the game; the objectives of these groups; the purpose of artificial intelligence and automated metrics for measuring deliberation; the roles played by public officials and nongovernmental organizations during the game; and the long-term payoff of playing the game for both its convenors and its participants. The essay concludes by considering this project’s wider theoretical significance for deliberative democracy, the first steps for governments and nonprofit organizations adopting this design, and the hazards of using advanced digital technology.

Gamified Text Testing for Sustainable Fairness

“…Finally, another study presented a visual analytics technique for interactive data labeling that applies gamification and explainable AI concepts to support complex classification tasks [46]. Several studies by Chen (2020) [44][45][46] utilized elements of "gamification for a specific purpose", albeit with completely different topics and objectives than our study.…”

“…Another study argued that games can enhance the possibilities for democratic deliberation during government consultation with the public. Key design features developed in this context include game origin, management, and oversight; networked small groups at the center of the project; and artificial intelligence and automated metrics to measure deliberation [45]. Finally, another study presented a visual analytics technique for interactive data labeling that applies gamification and explainable AI concepts to support complex classification tasks [46].…”

The Use of Artificial Intelligence in eParticipation: Mapping Current Research

“…Most studies in this cluster focus on data analysis from eConsultation platforms [43,46,47]. Additionally, exploration into game design principles to enhance eConsultation initiatives [55] and optimize AI utilization in governance through eConsultation platform data [45] is noted.…”

“…Studies related to the "Deliberative" effect: Eleven articles explore various techniques and technologies to enhance participation quality, ranging from chatbots for organizing arguments [77] to applications facilitating ePetition drafting [61] and virtual reality approaches [71]. Additionally, analyses of online consultation platform designs concerning discussion quality principles are included in the literature [41,79], while there is a study proposing an innovative platform based on game design principles [55]. Challenges encountered in online consultation initiatives aimed at fostering qualitative discussions for policy formulation are also documented [81].…”

“…Paper ID Deliberative [42,48,55,61,64,65,69,71,79,81,86] Democratic [41,44,50,54,65,81,85] Civic Engagement [41,44,47,[49][50][51][53][54][55]58,60,63,65,66,[68][69][70]74,76,[78][79][80][81][82][83]85,86]…”