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There\\u2019s a widespread belief that there\\u2019s no point talking to people you disagree with because they will never change their minds. Everyone is too polarized and attempts to discuss will merely result in greater polarization. But the history of the world is defined by changes of mind \\u2013that\\u2019s how progress (or even regress) is made: shifts in political, cultural, scientific beliefs and paradigms. So how do we ever change our minds about something? What are the perspectives that foster constructive discussion and what conditions destroy it? \\nMargaret Heffernan talks to international academics at the forefront of research into new forms of democratic discourse, to journalists involved in facilitating national conversations and to members of the public who seized the opportunity to talk to a stranger with opposing political views:

Eileen Carroll, QC Hon, Principal Mediator and Co-founder, Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution\\nJon Connor-Lyons, participant, Britain Talks\\nJames S. Fishkin, Janet M. Peck Professor of International Communication and Director, Centre for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford University\\nDanielle Lawson, Post Doctoral Research Scholar, North Carolina State University \\nAda Pratt, participant, Britain Talks\\nMariano Sigman. Associate Professor, Torcuato Di Tella University, Buenos Aires\\nCass R. Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard Law School \\nJochen Wegner, Editor, Zeit Online\\nRos Wynne-Jones, columnist, Daily Mirror

\\nPresenter: Margaret Heffernan \\nProducer: Sheila Cook\\nEditor: Jasper Corbett