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Understanding Large Scale Public Political Conversation Online in Austerity Britain Through an Iterative, Quali-Quanti Investigation

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Understanding Large Scale Public Political Conversation Online in Austerity Britain Through an Iterative, Quali-Quanti Investigation Understanding large scale public political conversation online in austerity Britain through an iterative, quali-quanti investigation. Christopher Timothy Birchall Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of Media and Communication April 2016 i The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own, except where work which has formed part of jointly authored publications has been included. The contribution of the candidate and the other authors to this work has been explicitly indicated below. The candidate confirms that appropriate credit has been given within the thesis where reference has been made to the work of others. Chapter 1 of the thesis – the introduction and literature – contains a section which reviews the literature surrounding attempts to design online systems for deliberative participation (section 1-5, “Designing for Deliberation”, pages 21-43). This content was also used in a published book chapter with Professor Stephen Coleman: Birchall C, Coleman S (2015) “Creating spaces for online deliberation”, In: Coleman & Freelon (eds.) Handbook of Digital Politics, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, pp.264-280. The content that is duplicated in both places – the review of the literature – was written entirely by Christopher Birchall, with the contribution from Professor Coleman only appearing in the book chapter. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. © 2016 The University of Leeds and Christopher Timothy Birchall The right of Christopher Timothy Birchall to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. i ii Acknowledgments This research has been carried out solely by myself, but with the guidance of my supervisor, Professor Stephen Coleman, for which I am supremely grateful. ii iii Abstract This study investigated online public political conversation in the UK. Drawing on theories of deliberative democracy, it emphasised the importance of inter-ideological discussion between citizens in the formation of informed opinion and preferences, focussing on the potential of the internet to facilitate this through large scale, ideologically diverse conversations. A multivariate analysis investigated the roles of interface design, institutional linkage and participant community dynamics in the formation of online political conversation. The investigation of conversation from across the internet required a very large scale approach, situating the study within the big data paradigm. However, it also required deeper understanding of human communication, gained through more qualitative analysis. Therefore the study utilised a novel, iterative, quali-quanti approach featuring initial, large scale quantitative analysis – involving bespoke software to automate the collection and analysis of conversation data – that was used to direct further iterations of increasingly smaller scale and qualitative analysis. Reflections on the successful application of the methodology are significant in themselves, but the study also generated novel observations of online public political conversation. The findings illustrated participatory spaces as unique online niches, each with specific communities and goals, and described how participant agency allows citizens to contribute according to various democratic models. For example, an action-oriented approach existed in policy related spaces, in which participants sought only to express a preference, rather than engage in discussion. In more discursive spaces, non-political social bonds between participants were seen to be particularly important in the facilitation of civil, productive, inter-ideological debate and certain participatory roles were important in facilitating these bonds. The design of spaces exerted a significant, but not determining effect on conversation, being used to present conversation in particular ways. However, certain features, notably active facilitation, helped to shape conversation through enabling some of the important community roles to be performed. iii iv Table of Contents 1 Introduction and Literature ................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background and Context ............................................................................................... 1 1.2 Public Deliberation in Democracy ................................................................................. 4 1.3 Public Deliberation and the Internet ........................................................................... 10 1.4 The Nature of Deliberation .......................................................................................... 18 1.5 Designing for Deliberation ........................................................................................... 21 1.6 Pragmatic Approach to Deliberation ........................................................................... 43 1.7 Investigating Online Conversation .............................................................................. 46 1.8 Summary and Direction ............................................................................................... 51 2 Methodology ....................................................................................................................... 53 2.1 Multivariate study ....................................................................................................... 56 2.2 Case Studies ................................................................................................................. 67 2.2.1 Background and rationale ................................................................................... 67 2.2.2 Stage 1 ................................................................................................................. 69 2.2.3 Stage 2 ................................................................................................................. 75 2.2.4 Inductive sampling using the Google search engine: .......................................... 77 2.2.5 Harvesting conversations on Twitter ................................................................... 80 2.2.6 Summary .............................................................................................................. 81 2.3 Harvesting data ............................................................................................................ 81 2.3.1 The Conversation Scraper .................................................................................... 81 2.3.2 The Twitter samples ............................................................................................ 87 2.4 Analytical methodology ............................................................................................... 91 2.4.1 Analysing data for deliberative quality ................................................................ 93 2.4.2 Combining, visualising and analysing .................................................................. 99 2.4.3 Network analysis of arguments and social networks ........................................ 102 2.4.4 User group characteristics ................................................................................. 106 2.4.5 Choosing and carrying out interviews ............................................................... 107 2.5 Summary .................................................................................................................... 109 3 Interface design and conversation quality ........................................................................ 110 4 Institutional linkage and conversation quality .................................................................. 130 5 Community and purpose – participatory spaces and models ........................................... 137 6 Tools and Methods: output and evaluation ...................................................................... 150 7 Conclusion – new methods and models ............................................................................ 160 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 178 iv v Appendix 1: The Conversation Scraper documentation ........................................................... 195 Installing the tool .................................................................................................................. 195 Opening and viewing the tool ............................................................................................... 195 Using the tool ........................................................................................................................ 195 Creating a profile .................................................................................................................. 196 Saving the profile .................................................................................................................. 197 Exporting data ....................................................................................................................... 197 Appendix 2: Interviews, focus groups, surveys ......................................................................... 199 Appendix 2.1: Table of interviews, focus groups and surveys .............................................
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