Esau, Katharina, Friess, Dennis, & Eilders, Christiane. (2017). Design Matters! An Empirical Analysis of Online Deliberation on Different News Platforms. Policy and Internet, 9(3), 321-342.

This study explores how different design features affect the quality of online deliberation. The authors analyzed the online discussions that took place on four news platforms (The Guardian, Der Spiegel, El Pais, and La Stampa) about the same two topics, but with different discussion features. Their analysis showed that the structure and design of the discussion forum had a significant impact on the quality of online deliberation. They found that the following features led to more productive discussions: open rather than closed deliberation, a relatively small number of participants, active moderation, and an issue-based rather than person-based discussion. The study suggests that news platforms should make a deliberate effort to design discussion forums to encourage productive deliberation.