Beyond deliberation: New directions for the study of informal political conversation from a communication perspective

The past 2 decades have witnessed important contributions to our understanding of political conversation and its effects. However, in many ways we have yet to scratch the surface of what we need to learn. We argue that the emphasis of the literature on political conversation as a weak form of deliberation or as an afterthought from the media effects perspective has led to neglect of important aspects of the interpersonal communication process that require careful consideration. Here we briefly review the political conversation literature, followed by a detailed consideration of limitations of current research that point to new directions that more appropriately take into consideration what we know about individuals and their lives as communicators.