The Socio-materiality of Deliberation: An Analysis of Historical Developments Across Mass Communication Technologies in the Netherlands

Over the past century, emerging mass communication technologies have repeatedly presented democracies with new opportunities and challenges for deliberation. This article combines literature on deliberative democracy and the socio-materiality of (mass) communication technologies to develop a historical-sociological perspective on how such technologies mediate the conditions for deliberation over time. Drawing on a case study of the Netherlands from 1919 to 2024 and based on a literature review of 74 sary sources supplemented by selected primary materials, it identifies four major socio-technical shifts – radio, television, the Internet, and social media – and examines how their affordances and institutional contexts shape the conditions for deliberation. The analysis focuses on three key ideal-typical deliberative qualities: rational discourse, inclusiveness, and the pursuit of the common good. It finds that while access to public debate broadened and inclusiveness increased, rational discourse weakened, and shared understandings of the common good have become more fragmented. Dominant mass communication technologies are thus not neutral enablers but important mediators, embedded in institutional and societal contexts that jointly shape who participates, how debates unfold, and how forms of deliberation take shape over time.