DDI Overview
Understanding what you are measuring and why it matters
"Can the quality of how citizens talk to each other online tell us whether democracy is healthy or in trouble?"
The answer, based on decades of research, is yes.
Why This Matters
When people stop treating each other as human beings in online debate — when they use dehumanising language, dismiss expert evidence, assume everyone in power is corrupt, or lose faith that their voice matters — democracy weakens.
Not immediately, and not just because of any single comment. But the accumulation of millions of such conversations creates a social environment in which democratic norms erode.
The DDI makes this visible and measurable. You are part of making that measurement possible.
Think of it this way: two people can argue about the same policy in the comments. One can do it by insulting the other person, dismissing all evidence, claiming everything is a conspiracy, and saying there's no point anyone voting anyway. The other can do it by acknowledging the other person's concerns, engaging seriously with the evidence, expressing faith in democratic institutions even while criticising specific decisions, and calling people to take action.
The DDI is interested in that difference — not in which policy they are arguing about.
Why Four Dimensions and Not One?
You might wonder: why not just have one score for "is this comment good for democracy?" The answer is that democratic discourse is complex, and different problems require different interventions.
- A comment can score well on Empathy but poorly on Trust — it might be compassionate toward individuals while spreading conspiracy theories about institutions.
- A comment might score well on Civility but poorly on Agency — it engages respectfully with different views but leaves readers feeling there is nothing anyone can do.
By tracking four separate dimensions, researchers, policymakers, and educators can identify precisely what is going wrong in a country's public discourse — and design responses accordingly.
Empathy is the moral foundation of democratic discourse. When citizens recognise each other's shared humanity — even across political difference — they remain willing to lose a political battle without abandoning the system. At comment level this dimension asks: does this comment treat other people as human beings — the people in the report, the people it is about, and the other citizens in the thread?
Civility is not about politeness or avoiding conflict. Civility means maintaining the conditions that allow ongoing disagreement without the dissolution of the political community: attacking arguments rather than people, preserving space for opponents to participate as equals, and keeping the social fabric intact even in heated exchanges.
Trust is the lubricant of democratic systems. Institutional trust allows citizens to accept unfavourable decisions; interpersonal trust enables cooperation across difference; epistemic trust supports the shared reality that collective deliberation requires. This dimension measures whether discourse patterns build or systematically erode the trust infrastructure that democracy depends on.
Democratic Agency captures whether citizens believe they have the power to shape political outcomes through collective action. Without this belief, democracy hollows out from within: institutions remain formally intact while the participatory culture that gives them life evaporates. When agency language disappears from public discourse, citizens become audiences watching politics happen to them rather than participants making it happen.
The four dimensions are not separate categories. They reinforce each other. Empathy makes civility easier. Trust in institutions makes democratic agency more meaningful. Together they describe the communicative ecology that healthy democracy depends on. The composite score tells you the overall health; the four-dimension scores tell you where the illness lies.
How to Score — The 0 to 4 Scale
Every indicator is scored on a scale from 0 to 4. Here is exactly what each number means:
Absent
No trace of this quality. The opposite may dominate.
Weak
Barely detectable; an isolated or uncertain trace.
Moderate
Clearly present but limited, partial, or inconsistent.
Strong
Well-developed and consistent throughout the comment.
Exemplary
Outstanding, sustained, nuanced expression of this quality.
Important Note
The scale measures degree, not applicability. You are judging how strongly the quality is present. A comment with no empathy scores 0. A comment with exceptional empathy scores 4. Most comments score somewhere in the middle.
You are about to take part in an important piece of global research. Your job is to read real public comments that citizens leave in response to news media reports — across news websites, YouTube, Facebook and X — and score them.
Millions of these comments are posted every day. No human team could read them all. But if we train a computer to recognise the patterns you will be identifying — patterns of empathy, civility, trust, and agency — then we can analyse those millions of comments automatically.
Your careful, thoughtful coding is the foundation that makes that possible. You are not just completing an assignment; you are building a scientific dataset that will be used to track democratic health across countries.