I have been fascinated to read articles by Ann Macintosh and many others describing the importance of deliberation in contributions used to formulate policy. Ann has summarised clearly the academic consensus on issues of individual voice versus expert opinion and has written in detail about the need for illustration of argument and deliberative process in order to facilitate useful engagement with the public. Recent work by Scott Wright about the influence of platform design on user contribution and the quality of deliberation also caught my eye. It seems clear that the value of user opinion in policy making can be heavily influenced by the platform on which they are allowed to express it. It seems just as clear that some e-participation initiatives have woefully failed to take this into account!
The nature of deliberation
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e-Participation and Online Deliberation 