The Context of Democratic Discourse: Deliberation and Debate in Online Discussion Spaces

Abstract

Political talk can take on many different forms and occur in many different contexts. Throughout this dissertation, I examine how and why political talk occurs in specific online settings. In the process, my investigations can shed light on the nature of political talk in general. In Chapter 2, “Democracy, Technology, and Mediated Speech,” I provide a literature review and intellectual history of the role mass media plays in shaping democracy. In Chapter 3, “Newspaper Comment Sections and The Deliberative Potential of Online Spaces,” I examine how online news commenters organize conversation and debate. In Chapter 4, “r/Minneapolis and Framing Online Political Speech,” I investigate how forum users evoke various senses of locality to frame political speech. Finally, in Chapter 5, “Twitter and Semantic Territorialization,” I discuss how social media platforms lend themselves to the strategic manipulation and dissemination of political discourses. Throughout my analysis of virtually mediated communication I reveal how virtual speech frameworks necessarily require a series of compromises and metonymies, which can have a significant impact on the type and tenor of political talk involved. Combined, and in the absence of further efforts to establish locality and co-presence, these frameworks tend to produce fragmentary speech and limited forms of engagement. Productive political talk can only flourish when speakers recognize each other as stakeholders and embrace a common means of at least potentially reaching consensus. Virtual spaces that are deliberately set up as more intimate and communal—coffee houses rather than vast public squares—are vital in encouraging this local sense of politics. Ultimately, the internet is a triumph for democracy in terms of significantly reducing the barrier for entry in the political arena, bringing diverse audiences together in conversation, and undermining the influence of the state and other powerful institutions as gatekeepers. But these are necessary rather than sufficient conditions for realizing the deliberative ideal and nurturing civil solidarity. The nature of the forum, the medium of communication, and the mode of interaction can either encourage or discourage various forms of public engagement, but civil society remains an event that must be accomplished and re-accomplished by people.