Deliberating with stories: Exploring the nature and role of small stories as informal deliberation in an online community

Civil discourse and deliberation, formal and informal, can bridge ideological divides and strengthen democracies. Research has shown that social media can be useful spaces for informal political deliberation. However, less attention has been given to the specific rhetorical tools that aid informal deliberation online. This study explores one rhetorical tactic known to be persuasive and to foster political deliberation: storytelling. Through the framework of “small stories”—short, fleeting narratives found in everyday conversation—we explore the nature of these stories and how they function as informal deliberation in the subreddit r/ChangeMyView, an online community dedicated to good faith social and political discussions. Using qualitative content analysis, we find that small stories, both explicated and evoked, are a prominent deliberative tactic, varying in voice, tense, and genre. These stories functioned to reframe arguments, invite participants into the stories, and establish credibility in an anonymous forum.