Dialogue on the Internet: Myth or Possibility
Sebastian Slotte and Raimo P. Hämäläinen

Helsinki University of Technology
Systems Analysis Laboratory
P.O. Box 1100, 02015 HUT, Finland
E-mails: sebastian@hut.fi, raimo@hut.fi
Tel. +358-9-451 3054, fax +358-9-451 3096

Abstract 
At the hearth of western democracy is the ancient Greek idea of isegoria i.e. the free and unrestricted right to partake in dialogue as an equal in the sovereign assembly. In contemporary society the principles and skills of thinking together in a dialogical rather than in an advocating and argumentative way have become as important as in the old city state of Athens. Thus, transformative dialogue as presented in, for example, action research, systems thinking and the philosophy of management aims at enhancing and improving communication, knowledge creation and collaborative decision making in various human systems and settings. The appreciated benefits of transformative dialogue methods include, for example, better and richer decision structuring, effective joint investigation, the seeing of possibilities of co-operation in conflict situations and democratic expression and investigation of ideas. 
	Since democracy is no longer only a local challenge the internet and group software have become an important factor in realizing the new global challenges to democracy and other forms of co-operative decision making. Amongst the evident benefits of internet- and software supported discussion is the saving of time and the overcoming of geographical obstacles. 
The web, due to its contemporary outlook, resembles everyday physical interaction perhaps more than any other media since it is the users themselves that control what is published and what is seen. As such the web is already a very successful collaborative environment (Dix, 1997). 
Recently, quite a few practitioners and scientist have discussed and studied the possibility of increasing the quality of participation, verbal interaction, information sharing and democracy on the internet and with support of software. For example, Cezec-Kcmanovic et al. (2000) and Cezec-Kcmanovic (2001) have studied how Computer Mediated Communication affect interaction and understanding of groups and organization in the light of Habermas theory of communicative action. Katzy et al (2000) recognize that mental models of participants affects how people understand and appropriate meanings for groupware. Also, the possibilities of role play, anonymity and restricted onymity on the net and its possibilities to foster inclusive dialogue and democratic participation have been studied (Balthazard and Potter, 2000). 
In this paper we discuss the possibilities of creating and facilitating transformative dialogue on the net. Our focus is explicitly on dialogue as the art of thinking and investigating together as presented for example by David Bohm (1996) and William Isaacs (1999). Dialogue can be characterized as a trustful, respectful, innovative and democratic  form of investigation of a problem, issue, challenge or task. In order to enhance dialogue participants are, often by the aid of a facilitator, building their capacity for dialogue by learning and practicing the arts of listening, respecting, suspending and voicing. For example dialogue has been used to improve joint action in environmental conflicts (Slotte and Hämäläinen, 2003). Our claim is that there are aspects of face-to-face dialogue that can be transferred to the internet. These aspects concern the rules, guidelines and the etiquette of the communication.
However, some of the characteristics and traits of  face-to-face dialogue is lost on the internet. By reference to findings in research on interaction ritual chains (Collins 2000), experiences from collaborative experiments and our own research on Systems Intelligence and dialogue we claim that the totality of human experience and interaction such as it is opened up in dialogue cannot completely be transformed to the internet.
Understanding the differences between online and face-to-face dialogue enables us both to create more realistic expectation and pragmatic tools for virtual decision support and to sort out when internet based dialogue is eligible and when it is not. 
We present an easy but powerful tool for increasing dialogue on the net. The traditional facilitation and etiquette of dialogue and groupwork focus on increasing individual participants capability to engage in collaboration (Simmons, 1999 ; Schwarz, 2002). This means, for example that the individual learns how to pose questions and inquire constructively. For example, participants are encouraged 
	Rather than saying:
 “Don’t you understand what I am saying”
“I don´t see a problem in my suggestion
	to  consider saying:
“What if anything about what I am saying is unclear or confusing?”
“What problems do you see in my suggestion?”
If all participants of a dialogue are willing to learn and use their capability to engage in dialogue, there is no problem with this approach. However, a situation where some of the participants do not learn or are unwilling to use their capabilities for dialogue, can be very frustraiting for the other participants. Therefore we suggest that the skilled facilitator and participant in dialogue learns not only to focus on individual behavior but on enhancing other participants capabilities for dialogue. Simple as this may sound, this is a genuine philosophical and pragmatic alternative to the standard moderation from above (moderator, facilitator) or merely self control in Computer Mediated Communication.

References
Balthazard P., Potter, R. Toward Inclusive Dialogue: Participation and Interaction in Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Discussions. In Sprague (ed.) Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences – HICSS 2000. 
Bohm, D. (1996). On Dialogue, London, Routledge
Cezec-Kcmanovic, D., Treleaven, L., Moodie, D. CMC and The Questions of Democratisation: a University Field Study. In Sprague (ed.) Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences – HICSS 2000.
Cezec-Kecmanovic, D (2001) Critical Information Systems Research: A Habermasian Approach. The 9th European Conference on Information Systems
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Ellinor L, Gerard G. (1998). Dialogue. Wiley and Sons: New York. 
Isaacs, W. (1999) Dialogue and the Artof Thinking Together, Currency Doubleday, New York.
Katzy, B andEvaristo, R and Zigurs, I (2000), Knowledge Management in Virtual Projects: A Research Agenda. In Sprague (ed.) Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences – HICSS 2000.
Roger Schwarz and Associates (2002) The Groupsystems Skilled Facilitator Workshop. 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences.
Simmons, A.(1999)  A Safe Place for Dangerous Truths. AMACOM, New York.
Slotte, S and Raimo P. Hämäläinen (2003). Decision Structuring Dialogue.
Systems Analysis Laboratory Research Reports, E13. 
Slotte, S (2004) Systems Sensitive Dialogue Intervention. Manuscript. 
Spraque, R. (ed). (2000) Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences – HICSS 2000. IEEE Computer society, Washington.
Siitonen, P. and Hämäläinen, P (2004). From Conflict Management to Systems Intelligence Forest Conservation Decision Making. In Systems Intelligence - Discovering a Hidden Competence in Human Action and Organizational Life, editors Raimo P. Hämäläinen and Esa Saarinen, Systems Analysis Laboratory, Research Reports A88. 
Isaacs, William (1999). Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together. Doubleday, New York.
Related Web links
Authors’ home pages: 
	Sebastian Slotte http://www.sal.hut.fi/Personnel/Homepages/SebastianS.html
	Raimo P. Hämäläinen: http://www.raimo.hut.fi