Incomplete Deliberation: Do Online Discussants Potentially Change the Attitude toward Taiwan Issue in the Forum Discussion?

Abstract

The article tries to map the online deliberation about Taiwan issue on the topics of independence, military treats, democracy and daily life. We use a representative sample to test the association between online discussants’ behaviors and attitude change. The results indicate unequal abilities of speakers to deliberate the Taiwan issue which implies the ideal online deliberation has not been fully achieved, but this “incomplete deliberation” is still contributed to the softening attitude rather than polarization. The data support that the topic type is sensitive to the attitude change in direction, while the activeness of speakers affects both direction and strength of attitude change.