Deliberative Play

This article introduces a special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist in which scholars of public deliberation address the theme of “Deliberative Play” from different conceptual and empirical approaches. Here I introduce the concept of deliberative play against a background of philosophical accounts of deliberative action, the theory of metacommunication, and trends in the study of public deliberation that are endeavoring to reduce the gap between normative theories and the empirical realities of deliberative democratic practice. Articles in the special issue address several aspects of deliberative play: how storytelling activities accomplish deliberative play in online forums (Black, Wolfe, and Han); how facilitators can cue and maintain the deliberative play frame during facilitated deliberative discussions (Sprain); how playful exchanges are enabled by the structure of New England town meetings and what they accomplish (Townsend and Milburn); how alternative scenarios for action presented with pros and cons by expert consultants influence deliberative play in online discussions in Poland (Przybylska, Bucholc, and Mazur); and how online discussion interfaces would benefit from applying principles of game design (Gastil). The concluding section reflects on the results of these studies and their implications for further investigations of deliberative play.