Can Entertainment Media induce Perspective-Taking and Reflectivity in Political Judgements?


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Reflective political judgements require that citizens take account of various considerations in their deliberations. Democratic theorists have pointed towards the importance of such considerations including the interests and experiences of others, of whom marginalised groups are most often excluded. Experimental and observational evidence has suggested that perspective-taking and subsequent reflectivity can be induced by informal modes of communication (e.g., storytelling, testimony, narratives) within institutionalised deliberative settings such as mini publics. Yet, in the reality of our mass democratic pluralist societies, we tend not to engage in our everyday deliberations with others who are unlike us – the same people whose perspectives we should be engaging with. Therefore, in this experiment, I explore the possibility for entertainment media to induce perspective-taking and reflective political judgement.