Da. Scheufele, Talk or conversation? Dimensions of interpersonal discussion and their implications for participatory democracy, JOURN MASS, 77(4), 2000, pp. 727-743
Discussion among citizens has long been identified as a necessary condition
for a healthy and functioning democracy. This study uses telephone survey
data to examine empirically Michael Schudson's assumption that discussion i
s not singular, but actually a concept involving social conversation and po
litical talk.(1) It operationalizes the concepts of political talk and conv
ersation and examines their implications for indicators of democratic citiz
enship. Findings show that indeed there is a conceptual distinction between
talk and conversation. Hard news media use was move strongly related to po
litical talk than to sociable conversations. Similarly, people who talked a
bout politics more frequently also displayed higher levels of political fac
tual knowledge and political participation. These findings suggest interest
ing directions for further research about discussion and democracy.