Narrative and Deliberation in Small Group Forums

In a videotape analysis of five National Issues Forums, I investigate the nature of deliberative talk in small group deliberative settings. I show that deliberative talk in these forums mostly takes the form of storytelling. I argue that storytelling helps participants overcome barriers to deliberation, such as lack of knowledge and the need to manage one's public face in a context that privileges open conflict. Moreover, I show that storytelling also plays an important collective function for groups, allowing them to build a sense of moral community around issues without much explicit conflict or argument. I conclude that greater understanding of storytelling's role in small group deliberation is of benefit both to practitioners who initiate such forums and to the growing number of researchers who study the practice of deliberative democracy.