Diversity and deliberation in digital contexts

This special issue aims to draw attention to the importance, opportunities and risks of deliberation in digital contexts. Contributions to this issue are not intended to be a state-of-art on this vast subject, but rather to open a window that portrays, like a still photograph, a plural set of approaches, problems, categories and concepts that tackle, in one way or another, on the general theme mentioned above. The window we are opening contains three views, those offered by Philosophy, Communication and Political Theory. In this brief introduction, we have articulated these three perspectives. The rationale of this special issue arises from the belief that the best approach to understanding the role and impact of deliberation in digital contexts is to take an interdisciplinary approach. Only from this 'hybrid' perspective (similar to the very nature of the mediations we face on a daily basis in digital environments) will we be able to offer diagnoses that are sensitive to the complexity of delibera-tion online as well as to adequately guide recommendations and interventions aimed at improving the quality of deliberation in such digital scenarios