Research Report on
A PUBLIC VOICE: WHO IS LISTENING?
May 2, 2007


Summary:

Citizens gathered at the LBJ Presidential Library and three other sites watched the 90-minute, unedited version of A PUBLIC VOICE: WHO IS LISTENING? on Wednesday, May 2nd, to discuss whether a panel comprised of public figures heard what citizens in deliberative forums had to say about America’s energy problem. The viewing group also dissected how both groups used language, viewed trade-offs connected with the issue, and regarded the deliberative process.

The Austin group was disappointed with the panel and the format. While praising several members for truly listening to the public’s videotaped remarks, the overall feeling was that the panelists took positions and fell back on their “scripted” ways of talking about energy. The viewers at the library enjoyed and appreciated the citizens’ deliberation on the issue, but criticized the panel for not engaging at the same level to discuss solutions and how we might get around barriers, such as the influence of money. The program format inhibited a deeper connection between the public and political professionals, they said. What our focus group really wanted to see was a dialogue involving experts and citizens.

I. Participants

II. Overview of Event

People started arriving just before 6pm for the viewing in the ________ Room at the LBJ Library in Austin. We treated them to a catered buffet and had them sit at a u-shaped table to watch the DVD, which was projected onto a big screen. Library security ________________......Marla Crockett led a debriefing session after each half-hour segment. The first two discussions ran about 20 minutes each, but the final one went only about 12 minutes, because of time constraints. The gathering broke up at 9pm.



III. Technology

IV. Research Questions

How did the panelists respond to the citizens on tape as they deliberated the energy issue? (paraphrased for conversation purposes)

Answers to this basic question came up largely during the first discussion of A Public Voice. The group generally felt that the panel listened to the citizens, but there was concern about how deep an impression the deliberation made on them.

To Benee, it all had a familiar ring.

Benee: It’s heartening to hear all these issues come out, and I can nod my head a thousand times, but I didn’t get the feeling that this one’s going to make it work or this guy’s going to bring up a bill that’ll make things different.

Crockett: You mean that they listened, but didn’t intend to do anything?

Carl: They listened to the citizens respectfully and then they tried to rephrase the language the citizens used into their particular sacred cow.

Jerry Taylor, of the Cato Institute, noticeably did that, Carl added, but others did, too.

“It kind of reminded me of political campaigning where no matter what question is asked the candidate will respond to the question he wants to answer, not the one that’s asked,” he said.

Diane felt a “vibe or underlying tone” that the panel was skeptical of the public’s statements about sacrifice. Here's how she characterized their attitude:

“People want convenience, they don’t want to be bothered," she said.

Diane said that came across strongly from Jerry Taylor and from Congressman Charles Gonzalez, who commented that he wished the citizens on tape would move to his district. She felt he was really saying, "my people don’t want to give up anything, because that’s the American Way."

According to Silona, “The citizens were pushing up and the government was saying no and pushing back.”

Tobin picked up on one area where citizens pushed up—against the country’s slowness in getting more fuel-efficient cars. Special interest politics are preventing that from happening, he said, and lawmakers on the panel didn’t address the public’s concern about it.

“Clearly the public is tuning into things that Congress isn’t…because of money,” Tobin said. “There’s a tag team of manufacturers and the government that tends to suppress that change.”

In the panelists’ discussions, do they tend to use language similar to the public’s, or is their language more technical, more political?

The Austin group saw several examples of where the panel mischaracterized what the public said or spoke differently about the problem. Benee didn’t like it when NPR’s Andrea Seabrook wondered aloud if anyone really understood the "interplay between public policy and market forces, because the two are so intertwined."

"I think it's hilarious," Benee said, "because the word 'interplay' indicates you're going back and forth. I think there is only one force, the market forces, period. Everybody's in the back pocket, beholden to (the oil companies)...So how can you say there's an interplay?"

Silona complained about the panel’s use of buzz words like, “hardship,” and “personal sacrifice.”

“The government frames everything as the group and puts responsibility on the group without giving individuals the help to do things,” she added.

Diane objected when panelists used the word “consumer” to describe the public, while the people on tape didn’t frame their role in that way. She was also, “shocked” that author Roger Wilkins said that most Americans aren’t as sophisticated as those on the tape. Sherry tended to agree with his statement, however.

“If they (the program producers) selected people from forums like the ones that go out of here…the majority of the public is not in on that level of conversation," she said.

Betty Sue Flowers, Director of the LBJ Library and Museum, did speak the public’s language at one point, a few people said, when she commented that there’s “a lot of opportunity” in our energy crisis. However, they were disappointed that moderator Frank Sesno failed to pick up on that point and deepen the conversation.

Two comments summarize the group’s feelings about the use of language.

Referring to her mediation training, Nance said, “A basic principle of that training is that sometimes people talk in terms of positions, and sometimes they state their interests. It strikes me that politicians are stating their positions and sticking to their positions. You hear more of interest statements from the public. Those are two very different ways of communicating.”

Mary’s statement brought some applause.

“The public talked more about solutions, and the panel talked more about blame," she said.

Did the panelists recognize the trade-offs that the forum members were struggling with?

Members of our group saw the panelists somewhat recognizing the trade-offs that the public was weighing, such as the ones surrounding nuclear energy and drilling for oil in Alaska. But Landon wanted more.

“They talked about how do we shape the public debate. I’m uncomfortable with a debate because it implies two sides...I would rather talk about shaping a public dialogue," he said. "They acknowledged that trade-offs exist, but I didn’t hear them talking about how do we engage that and think differently about that," he added.

The citizens on tape also came in for a little criticism here. Carl didn’t hear either group weigh lifestyle changes, such as building smaller houses and taking public transportation. Sherry felt an inertia from both the public and the panel when it came to grappling with energy independence and conservation.

However, Mary perhaps spoke for the group when she said, “It seems like there’s a lot more willingness on the part of citizens to somehow make those trade-offs and make those sacrifices. There’s less willingness on the part of politicians and journalists to be part of the solution.”

Did any of the panelists seem to get inspired by public deliberation? (paraphrased) Did they sense areas of permission for action?

See point V. for the first question. As for the second, there was this interesting exchange:

Crockett: Did you see a course of action coming from the citizens and the panel responding to what the citizens want?

Benee: One course of action was the small farmer who said his farm was totally energy independent.

Sherry: I heard them say they want something done, but I didn’t hear them say they wanted to do something, with the exception of the farmer.

Silona: The difference between the public and the panel is the public was saying we want, we’re looking desperately for solutions, and the supposed leadership on the panel was blame and barriers…Leadership? They were saying, y’know the public hasn’t figured out what they’re willing to commit to yet. Well, (that's) because the public doesn’t know what the solution’s going to be, so how are they supposed to decide and create this mass movement, and how is this supposed to occur without that?

Tobin: David Matthews said why not double café standards, and then Senator Sessions said we’ve gotten good improvements so we can’t do that.

Carl: The public…they came up with possible solutions to this issue. When you look at the so-called professionals, they reminded me of Margaret Thatcher’s TINA—There is No Alternative. Each was locked into a position where they kept saying there is no other way. They kept coming up with excuses as to why they couldn’t do what the public was asking them to do.

Did the panelists recognize any implications for our democracy in the kind of deliberative work they saw citizens doing in the tapes?

Our group is highly attuned to deliberation and understand its value in tackling public problems. We didn’t ask the question directly, but throughout the evening, they looked for signs of dialogue and appreciation by the panelists of the citizens' work. They didn't see it very often.

Does what you have observed in this program have any implications for how you, the public, go about your own public life, including public deliberation in your own communities and how you might relate to your elected representatives and to other so-called policy elites?

We didn’t have time to discuss this question.

V. Relationship Between the Public and Professionals

At what point did you observe understanding, depreciation, surprise, condescension or insight on the part of the panel in response to the citizen tapes?

Understanding: After the 90-minute program, Benee felt more encouraged by the interaction than she had been at the beginning.

“Everbody kind of gets the idea,” she said. “Maybe the ‘we’ isn’t one ‘we,’ but I think they’ll take the ball and maybe do something as a result of a program like this.”

Group members praised several panelists for really listening to what the public said about the problem, trade-offs and leadership. Sherry described Carter Library Director Jay Hakes as a “calm in a storm, the type of person the public would respond to.” He didn’t speak in sound bites, she said.

“He’s also not a politician or journalist,” Tobin replied.

He and others also liked Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johannes for his thoughtful comments and manner.

There was more discussion, however, of who misunderstood what the public was saying. Tobin took issue several times with Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute for holding onto a one-dimensional view of the market.

“I want to ask that guy…what does it mean to leave the price alone? We affect price in a thousand different ways through government policy,” Tobin said…”You don’t see that behind the scenes, you don’t see the welfare for one group while you do for others…So, that’s misleading to say the least.”

Condescension: As mentioned earlier, Diane didn’t like it when author Roger Wilkins said the public on tape was more sophisticated than the public at large. She also took him to task for projecting his own feelings about Americans’ love affair with their cars.

“He interjected that when people didn’t say that in the forum," she said. "He was talking about a conversation he had with a guy at the airport.”

Insight: Mary criticized panelists on this point.

“I didn’t see a lot of integrated thinking," she said. "There were a lot of either/or (comments)…Coal’s good, no coal’s bad. Nuclear’s good, no nuclear’s not good…It’s this person’s fault, no it’s government’s fault. It’s industry’s fault, no it’s not industry’s fault.”

What aspects of the Press Club dialogues suggest (1) inherent difficulties and (2) potential openings towards a richer relationship between public (organic) and institutional (professional) public life?

1. Our group came back repeatedly to their dislike of the format and the kind of conversation the panelists had. Nance broached the subject during the first debriefing session:

Nance: I didn’t pay so much attention to content. I was looking at interaction patterns as they were talking. People in the public forums tended to listen to each other more…They nodded, they responded, but when they went to the panelists, they weren’t even looking at each other. You could see the audience behind them nodding, responding and reacting, and they weren’t reacting among themselves. The longer I watched the panelists, I found them boring. There was less energy in their dialogue. They sounded like they were trying to sell something instead of talking straight out about something.

Crockett: Was that a function of the format? It wasn’t a deliberation, but an interview setting.

Landon: I was uncomfortable…with the pace of the conversation…The way he was asking the questions, it was—pop—here you are, quick answer. Let’s see how bright you are and how quickly you can respond with something articulate. The difficulty of the issue suggests we need time for pondering and reflecting and thinking carefully…If all it is is a ping pong around the table, it’s a complete waste of time.

Here are other comments made later in the discussion:

Diane: Structurally this whole kind of panel watching the forums, watching only small pieces of them, bouncing around between different forums, the way the moderator is handling things, you’re not going to have the kind of conversation that’s going to engender thoughtful reflection about what people are saying.

Tobin: It was jarring in many cases. The facilitator was blocking people, surprising people—“What do you drive?” The ethics of that was Crossfire, let’s get the energy up in the room.

Silona: I would have changed the channel early on. I’m not into that antagonistic sort of thing…but having more of (an) interaction would make me more interested in watching. I wouldn’t have changed channels during the public comments. I would’ve sat through that and then changed the channel during the experts, because the dialogue wasn’t there…People want a conversation.

2. Carl came back to this idea a few times as a way to generate a richer exchange:

Carl: It would be very interesting to see what kind of dialogue would take place if the public were in the same room as the so-called experts and they would allow them to speak initially and then allow the experts to chime in. A dialogue face to face is very different than when you watch a tape and then respond….I would have liked to have seen a deeper discussion. I don’t know if that’s possible in this kind of format. If they had put the policy people in the same room with the citizens…some of the political types wouldn’t have gotten off the hook as easily as they did. They would have had to answer more policy statements.

But Sherry, in our final comment of the evening, echoed citizens in the third part of the program who felt true leadership was lacking because of money in politics. True dialogue with public officials could be difficult for the same reason, she suggested.

Sherry: There was a prevalent disconnect all the way through. No one was having a real conversation together. It’s…both parties. They’re all sold and bought in some other way than ‘we the people.’


VI. Other Observations