Mediators' Facilitative Versus Controlling Argument Strategies and Tactics: A Qualitative Analysis Using the Conversational Argument Coding System

Abstract

This study examined how utilization of the Conversational Argument Coding Scheme (CACS) demonstrates mediators' use of argument behavior to facilitate or control the manner in which mediation parties argued their positions. Data were collected from a community mediation program located in the southwestern United States. Forty mediation sessions, each having a single mediator, were videotaped and transcribed. Results revealed eight mediator argument tactics that reflect a facilitative strategy and three argument tactics that represent a controlling strategy. Discussion focuses on how the CACS can demonstrate ways in which mediators promote disputants' idea development or, in some cases, impede participants' use of argument to make known their ideas.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank Mark Aakhus and two reviewers for their supportive, concrete, and constructive advice on an earlier draft of this paper.

Notes

A previous version was presented at the National Communication Association convention, November 2008, in San Diego, California.