On a Thursday evening in Fort Collins, Colorado, community members gathered around tables to discuss whether the city should allow marijuana dispensaries within city limits.

Rather than take turns for two minutes at a microphone, the participants considered various viewpoints, engaged with quality information and focused on exploring solutions that worked to mitigate the concerns of the critics but still supported the goals of the advocates.

Gatherings like this one have happened more than 500 times in and around the northern Colorado town over the past 20 years. Each was facilitated by college students. While outrage and polarization dominate many political discussions, these events provide compelling evidence that when offered a more nuanced way of engaging, the public recognizes the value and calls for more.

I’m a communication studies professor with a background in argumentation and debate. I founded the Colorado State University Center for Public Deliberation in 2006 based on the theory that democracy requires high-quality communication and engagement to thrive. Existing political, journalistic and social media systems rarely provide such opportunities, but a growing number of organizations like the center are learning more about how to provide them.

The story behind the experiment

Initially, my research centered on national politics. As I learned how issues like poverty, race and the environment were discussed, I became frustrated.

I came to understand that social issues are best understood as “wicked problems” that involve competing underlying values that are inherently in tension with each other. These tensions stand in the way of “solving” the problem long term. In a diverse society where people reasonably prioritize values differently, it is clear that addressing wicked problems requires a more collaborative style of communication.

Research in social psychology and brain science, however, shows........

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