who participates in the “public square”

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Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 72, No. 4, Winter 2008, pp. 792–803

WHO PARTICIPATES IN THE “PUBLIC SQUARE”

AND DOES IT MATTER?

ROBERT KIRBY GOIDEL

CRAIG MALCOLM FREEMAN

STEVEN PROCOPIO

CHARLES F. ZEWE

Abstract Survey research has been frequently criticized for reflect-

ing hastily drawn and poorly formed responses as opposed to more deeply

held attitudes or opinions. James Fishkin (1991), for example, has argued

that public opinion surveys miss the normatively and substantively impor-

tant deliberative component of public opinion formation. In this paper, we

consider two questions relative to deliberative public opinion. First, who

shows up for deliberative opinion forums? And second, what difference

does their participation make in terms of their general attitudes toward

the political process? To answer these questions, we make use of a unique

set of data collected as part of a series of monthly television programs,

Louisiana Public Square, which aired on Louisiana Public Broadcast-

ing from June 2004 to March 2005. These programs covered a range

of issues (e.g., public education, roads and transportation, health care,

religion, and public life) and included participants selected using random

digit dialing. Each month, participants learned about the issues, discussed

the issues with a trained moderator, and directed questions to relevant

state policy makers. Data were collected on relevant attitudes both before

and after the program, allowing us to (1) compare attitudinal and de-

mographic differences among participants (preshow and postshow) and

ROBERT KIRBY GOIDEL, CRAIG MALCOLM FREEMAN, STEVEN PROCOPIO AND CHARLES F. ZEWE are with

Manship School of Mass Communication, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803.

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 annual meeting of the American

Association of Public Opinion Research, May 12–15, Miami Beach, FL. The authors wish to thank

Adrienne Moore, the Director of the Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs, for her generous

support of research about mass communication and its many faceted relationships with social,

economic, and political issues. The authors also thank Beth Courtney, Clay Fourrier, Al Godoy,Kevin Gautreaux, and the rest of the Louisiana Public Square team for collaborating on this project.

Address correspondence to Robert Kirby Goidel; e-mail: [email protected]



Who Participates in the “Public Square” 793

nonparticipants (preshow only), and (2) analyze attitude change among

participants particularly with respect to levels of trust in government and

perceptions of the responsiveness of the political process to public con-

cerns. According to our results, the socioeconomic biases that predictother forms of participation are equally present when considering par-

ticipation in a deliberative forum. Unlike other forms of participation,

however, the deliberative forums considered in the present analysis at-

tracted more ideologically moderate participants who valued the role of

discussion in democratic governance.

One of the central concerns with public opinion surveys as a methodology has

been that they do not allow for considered opinion. In his textbook treatment of the subject, Asher (2004) cautions that much of what passes for opinion is really

nonattitudes, as respondents make up their “opinions” on the spot. Likewise,

Zaller and Feldman’s (1992) theory of survey response is predicated on the

assumption that most survey respondents do not have well-formed opinions at

the level of specificity implied by survey questions. Such critiques, embodied

most famously in the work of Converse (1964), have formed the basis of

deliberative opinion polling. As Luskin, Fishkin, and Jowell (2002, p. 456)

surmise:

Now, several decades’ experience the wiser, we know that public opinion polls. . .

have not been the great boon to democracy that Gallup envisioned. The problem is

not mainly that the technology is sometimes abused (as in ‘push polls’) or shoddily

implemented, although of course it sometimes is. Nor is it just that the advent of

polling as scorekeeping has been part of the long descent of campaign coverage

toward sports coverage. The most fundamental problem is that not many of the

respondents answering any given question have very well considered or informed

opinions about the issue.

Unlike Converse, however, proponents of deliberative polling see shortcom-

ings in public opinion as more reflective of method than respondent and arephilosophically more closely aligned with deliberative democratic theorists

(Habermas 1989, 1997; Gutmann and Thompson 1996; Page 1996; Chambers

2003). Seen in this light, deliberation can enlighten participants, narrow infor-

mation gaps, and bring respondents closer to the democratic ideal. Deliberative

opinion polling likewise attempts to compensate for shortcomings in traditional

polling by focusing on changes in attitudes both at the individual and aggregate

levels through the use of probability sampling and an informed discussion of

leading issues (Fishkin 1995; Luskin, Fishkin, and Jowell 2002; Sturgis 2003).

According to the theory, increased deliberation should produce insight intowhat may be the true “voice of the people” if that voice were fully informed



Table 1. Monthly Distribution of Respondents and Attendees, Turnout Rate, Response

Number of survey Number of forum

respondents attendees

Month Topic (percent of respondents) (percent of attendees) (a

June 2004 Economic development 52 (12) 15 (16)

July 2004 Property taxes 46 (11) 11 (12)

August 2004 Education 51 (12) 10 (11)

September 2004 Health care∗ 57 (14) 5 (5)

November 2004 Roads 58 (14) 19 (21) January 2005 Poverty 63 (15) 12 (13)

February 2005 Healthy lifestyles 43 (10) 7 (8)

March 2005 New Orleans 52 (12) 13 (14)

saints

Total 422 (100) 92 (100)

NOTE.—Percent of survey respondents and forum attendees are based on the total number of respondents

number of attendees divided by the number of respondents. Response rate is computed using AAPOR’s respon

rate is computed using AAPOR formula 4.



796 Goidel et al.

for participation. Moreover, while limited incentives may create problems in

terms of turnout, it also means that our participants are motivated primarily

by the opportunity to engage in a public discussion. As a result, while limited

participation may be problematic in terms of representing the distribution of public opinion, it works to our advantage in trying to understand who willingly

participates in deliberative forums.

Results

In table 1, we present the monthly distribution of respondents and attendees, as

well as response and cooperation rates (noted above). As would be expected,

turnout differs significantly from month to month. The lowest turnout was

during the September 2004 episode, which was filmed in New Orleans and

coincided with Hurricane Ivan warnings and resulting evacuations. The second

lowest turnout rate was during February when the show focused on “healthy

lifestyles.” The highest turnouts were during January 2005 when the show

focused on roads and transportation and June 2004 when the show focused

on economic development. At first glance, it would appear that topic plays

an important role in forum attendance. Within this context, it is important to

note that interest levels likely affect the willingness of the participant to take

the survey in the first place (Groves, Presser, and Dipko 2004). Turnout rates,

response rates, and cooperation rates are highly correlated. The correlation

between turnout and response rates was .72 ( p = .026), while the correlation

between turnout and cooperation rates was .59 ( p = .09).

WHO PARTICIPATES?

In table 2, we present a comparison of survey respondents, forum attendees, and

census estimates for selected demographics and for a measure of ideological

intensity. Ideological intensity is measured based on responses to standardseven-point economic and social ideology scales asking respondents to place

themselves from very liberal to very conservative. These scales were first folded

such that moderates were coded as 0 and ideologues were coded as 4, and then

combined into a single eight-point index. The bivariate correlation between the

individual items was .56.

Several interesting patterns emerge in the data. First, while women were

more likely to respond to the survey, men were slightly more likely to par-

ticipate in the forum. Second, while our surveys were often subject to typical

survey biases, participants were significantly more likely to be white, bettereducated, higher income, older, and married. Across each of the demographic




Table 2. Comparison of Survey Respondents, Forum Attendees, and CensusDemographics

Survey respondents Forum attendees 2000 censusGender

Male 43 52 48

Female 57 48 52

Race

White 53 76 56

Black or African American 41 20 40

Other 6 4 4

Education

Less than high school 5 4 16

High school 24 11 26Some college 23 23 27

College (4-year degree) 29 29 20

Graduate 19 33 11

Income

Less than $10,000 11 2 13

$10,000–$49,999 43 31 49

$50,000–$99,999 31 41 27

$100,000 or more 15 27 11

Age

18–24 19 4 12

25–34 19 12 18

35–44 20 21 20

45–54 18 28 25

55–64 11 23 15

65 and over 14 12 10

Marital status

Single 37 21 34

Married 47 65 47

Separated/divorced 12 12 12

Widowed 4 3 6

Ideological intensity

Low ideology (0–2) 23 24

Moderate ideology (3–5) 45 56

High ideology (6–8) 32 20

NOTE.—Cell entries are percentages.

oversampling key demographic groups might alleviate some of these biases,but in the absence of such efforts, our forums tended to overrepresent certain



798 Goidel et al.

respondents but 57 percent of forum attendees. This difference is made up

almost entirely by lower participation rates among the most ideological re-

spondents. Strong ideologues comprised 32 percent of the survey respondents

but only 20 percent of forum participants.To get a better sense of who participates, we conducted a logistic regression

of forum participation (coded 1 if the respondent participated, 0 otherwise)

on demographics,1 ideological intensity, attentiveness to news about public af-

fairs and politics, and the value individual respondents placed on discussion.

Attentiveness to public affairs is based on responses to the following ques-

tion: “How closely would you say that you follow news on state government

and public affairs in Louisiana? Would you say follow the news very closely,

somewhat closely, not very closely or not at all?” Responses were coded on

a four-point scale with 4 indicating respondents who followed the news veryclosely and 1 indicating respondents who did not follow the news at all. Fi-

nally, the value of deliberation was measured based on respondent agreement

with two statements on the value of discussion in a democratic society: (1)

“Discussions—even those that involve serious disagreements—should be an

important part of the political processes”; and (2) “Democracy requires hearing

from all sides of a political issue, even those with unpopular views.” Responses

were coded such that higher values indicate respondents who place greater

value on discussion, and were combined into a single index (r = .40). The

results are presented in table 3.As can be seen in table 3, participation in these deliberative forums is a

function of race, education, age, ideological intensity, and the value the re-

spondent placed on discussion. In terms of demographics, we find that white,

better educated, and older respondents were most likely to participate. In this

respect, participation in the Public Square reflects standard social economic

biases in other forms of participation. The more interesting findings, however,

were centered on the psychological variables, where we find less ideological

respondents and respondents who place a greater value on discussion were

more likely to participate. Taken in context of the findings on the importanceplaced on discussion, the findings appear to reflect respondents who may not

have a firm view on issues and who believe discussion is an important part of

developing an informed opinion. Which is to say that this sort of deliberative

process appears to attract a different audience from the participants in talk radio

1. Education is measured based on responses to the highest degree received, including grade school,

high school, vocational or technical school, associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree, master’s degree,

or Ph.D., JD, or some other advanced degree. Income is measured as household income ranging

from less than $10,000, $20,000–$30,000, $30,000–$40,000, $40,000–$50,000, $50,000–$60,000,$60,000–$70,000, $70,000–$80,000, $80,000–$100,000, and $100,000 and above. Race is coded

1 if the respondent is white or Caucasian 0 otherwise Gender is coded 1 if the respondent is




Table 3. Logistic Regression of Forum Attendance on Demographics, Topic,and Psychological Variables

B (SE)Demographics

Race 1.11 (0.34)∗∗

Gender −0.06 (0.30)

Education 0.31 (0.10)∗∗

Income −0.02 (0.07)

Age 0.13 (0.06)∗

Age squared −0.001 (0.0007)ˆ

Married 0.34 (0.32)

Month/topic dummies

June 2004 (economic development) 0.89 (0.57)July 2004 (property taxes) 0.60 (0.59)

August 2004 (education) 0.19 (0.60)

September 2004 (health care) −0.57 (0.67)

November 2004 (roads) 0.89 (0.58)

January 2005 (poverty) 0.11 (0.57)

February 2005 (health) 0.25 (0.67)

Psychological variables

Political attentiveness 0.29 (0.23)

Ideological intensity −0.24 (0.08)∗∗

Discussion value 0.34 (0.14)∗

Constant −9.46 (2.08)∗∗

Goodness-of-fit statistics

Nagelkerke R2 .28

NOTE.—Cell entries are logistic regression coefficients, standard errors in parentheses.

p < .10; ∗ p < .05; ∗∗ p < .01.

or in other forms of invited programs that do not include some sort of random

selection.2

Finally, we consider the difference participation makes in terms of attitudes

toward the political process. Respondents were asked two items used in mea-

sures of political trust and government responsiveness: (1) whether government

is run for a few big interests looking out for themselves or for the benefit of all

the people; and (2) how much attention government pays to the people when

2. To test for nonlinear effects, we replaced the ideology measure in the logistic regression

model with dummy variables indicating less ideological (those who scored between 0 and 2

on the ideological intensity measure) and highly ideological respondents (those who scored 6 orabove). Moderate ideologues (those scoring between 3 and 5) served as our base category. The

results indicate that the difference between less ideological respondents and moderately ideological



800 Goidel et al.

Table 4. Preshow and Postshow Attitudes of Trust in Government and Gov-ernment Responsiveness

Preshow Postshowsurvey survey

All survey Survey respondents (participants (participants

respondents (nonparticipants) only) only)

Trust

Few big interests 67 68 63 62

Benefit of all 33 32 37 38

Responsiveness

Good deal 14 13 17 25

Some 45 44 48 57

Not much 41 43 35 18

NOTE.—Trust is measured by responses to a question asking respondents whether “government

is run by a few big interests looking out for themselves or for the benefit of all.” Responsiveness

is measured asking respondents, “How much attention do you think government pays to what

people think about when it decides you?” Cell entries are the percent of respondents giving a

particular response. The first column includes all respondents, the second column includes survey

respondents who did not participate, the third column includes the preshow responses of program

participants, and the last column includes postshow responses of program participants.

deciding what to do.3 In table 4, we show the differences in responses for

all survey respondents, nonparticipants, and preshow and postshow program

participants. We anticipate that participants will be more trusting and perceive

government as more responsive after participating in the deliberative forum. To

test for preshow and postshow differences, we utilize the Wilcoxon signed-rank

test which compares the distribution of paired variables in related samples.

As can be seen in table 4, while there is little change in government trust

from participating in the program ( Z = 0.54, p = .59), there was a more sub-

stantial and statistically significant ( Z = 2.26, p = .026) change in perceptions

of government responsiveness including a 16-point decline in the percent of

respondents saying government did not pay much attention to people when

deciding what to do. Increases in perceptions of government responsiveness

likely reflect program format—policy makers are actively listening and re-

sponding citizen concerns—and may be short-lived. The lack of any significant

increase in trust may reflect a longer view—participants witness policy mak-

ers being more responsive but such responsiveness may or may not translate

into changes in policy or official behavior. Also worth noting, program partic-

ipants were slightly more (though not significantly so) trusting and perceived

greater government responsiveness than nonparticipants before participating in

the program. Participating in the deliberative forum may enhance perceptions




of government responsiveness among respondents who may already be slightly

more inclined to believe that government listens to their view.

Discussion

So who participates in the Public Square? According to our results, the socioe-

conomic biases that predict other forms of participation are equally present

when considering participation in a deliberative forum (Verba, Schlozman, and

Brady 1995). Though audience members were selected via random digit dial-

ing, the audience that actually attended these deliberative forums was whiter,

older, wealthier, and better educated than the general population.4 This supports

Ryfe’s (2002, p. 365) conclusion that “issues of inclusion and identity lurk”even in randomly selected groups. Such self-selection biases can be particu-

lar problematic for the tenets of deliberative democracy as they may limit the

diversity of opinion and ideas expressed in deliberative forums (Ryfe 2005).

Unlike other forms of participation, however, the deliberative forums consid-

ered in the present analysis attracted more ideologically moderate participants

who valued the role of discussion in democratic governance. That deliberative

forums attract ideological moderates is somewhat surprising given previous

research that finds opinion intensity associated with political participation.

Combined with the finding that respondents who valued discussion were alsomore likely to attend, participation in deliberative forums may attract otherwise

civically engaged citizens who are attempting to better understand contempo-

rary issues. The value of such conversations then may reside in their ability to

be less polarizing and more oriented toward political learning and consensus

building.

As a result of their participation, respondents were significantly more positive

regarding the responsiveness of government to public input, though notably

they were no more trusting. This conflicts with Daves (1999) finding that trust

in government increases after deliberative discussions. By participating in anevent in which policy makers are responding to public concerns, participants

perceive a higher level of government responsiveness, but their perceptions

may not extend to the broader political system or to optimism for long-term

policy change. We should also note that it may well be that the gains are only

short-lived and quickly fade beyond the immediate aftermath of the event.

Still, the findings suggest the possibility that deliberation can connect citizens

to the political process in important ways, and may yield different sorts of

conversations than when the focus is on partisans and political actors.



802 Goidel et al.

Appendix A: Questionnaire Script

Hi, I’m calling from the Public Policy Research Lab at Louisiana State Univer-

sity, my name is <name of caller>, and I’m not trying to sell anything. We areworking with Louisiana Public Broadcasting to recruit residents from the Baton

Rouge area to participate in a televised discussion with the state government

officials on leading statewide issues. All participation is strictly voluntary.

IF YES, PRESS 1 TO CONTINUE WITH SURVEY

Is it ok if I take a minute to tell you a little about the project? “Louisiana

Public Square” is a program by Louisiana Public Broadcasting. Once a month,

a small group of randomly selected citizens will meet to discuss issues with

government officials and other experts. You have been randomly selected fromBaton Rouge area residents to participate in the program. As a participant, you

will have the opportunity to represent the views of Louisiana residents across

the state. This program will focus on health and lifestyle choices in Louisiana.

Doctors from LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Center will be there to answer

your questions. You don’t need to be an expert to participate. We will provide

information on current policies and laws and we are interested in the views of

citizens with various backgrounds, including different levels of knowledge and

experience.

PRESS 1 TO CONTINUE

The project would involve your participating in an hour-long discussion on

Wednesday, February 16, at the Louisiana Public Broadcasting studio. Does

the project sound interesting to you?

1 Yes

2 Maybe

3 No

Could I sign you up for the project?

1 Yes

2 No

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who participates in the “public square”

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