We are living in an increasingly diversified, divided and fragmented world. People who live just next to one another within the physical space may be separated by social distance which is difficult to overcome, and by completely dissimilar experience of seemingly the same culture. In other words, it is more and more difficult to agree on even the most minimalistic foundations of the common symbolic universum.

These conditions make the quality of the public discourse particularly essential. Free, uninhibited – yet subject to transparent and deliberately selected regulations – access to the public sphere minimises the risk of permanent exclusion of any of the standpoints represented in the community.

Our mission is to search for and publish quantitative measures of the quality of the public discourse in Poland. Our interest is not to involve in journalistic discussions, or to catalogue the more or less evident manifestations of aggression and brutality in the public debate, nor to offer in-depth analyses of metaphors, associations or rhetorical devices. The persuasive power of qualitative analysis is limited, and thus it can play an important role only in an already organised public sphere.

However, the fragility of the symbolic universum means that it is increasingly difficult to find intersubjective measures of the quality of the public discourse. Most value judgements are prone to deconstruction and are subject to undermining. We believe that improving the public discourse in Poland may begin with a systematic analysis of the simplest indicators. These include, for example, the access of particular parties to having their voice heard within the public sphere. We are yet aware that such simple measures will not suffice.