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University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/77357 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. Is there an Online Public Sphere? A Critical Analysis of Three British Mainstream News Online Comment Forums Louise Jane Ellis A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology The University of Warwick, Department of Sociology February 2015 Table of Contents Contents: Page Number: Acknowledgements 1 Declaration 2 Abstract 3 Introduction 4 Chapter 1: Literature Review 20 1. Habermas and the Public Sphere 20 2. Dahlberg and the Online Public Sphere 25 3. Beginnings of Online Participation 47 4. Online News Regulation and Online Comment Forums: A Comparative Overview, WHYS, RightMinds & Comment is Free 58 5. Previous Research on Online Debates 70 Chapter 2: Methodology 84 1. Sampling British Mainstream News Online Comment Forums 85 2. Sampling Forum Comments 86 3. The Problems of Using Data from Online Comment Forums 87 4. Quality Assurance 89 5. Content Analysis 90 6. Discourse Analysis 95 7. Thick Description 107 8. Theoretical, Epistemological and Ontological Considerations 108 9. Conclusion 109 Chapter 3: Results ‘Autonomy’ Within Online Debates 110 1. Heteronomy in WHYS 111 2. The Potential for ‘Autonomy’ in RightMinds 112 3. ‘Autonomous Debates’ within Comment is Free 123 4. Chapter Discussion 136 Chapter 4: Results ‘Inclusiveness’, ‘Equality’ and ‘Abuse’ 138 1. Exclusivity and Inequality in WHYS 139 2. Power Play in RightMinds 143 3. The Human Element in ‘Inclusiveness’ and ‘Equality’ 145 4. Limited ‘Monopolisation’ 156 5. The Lack of ‘Control’ on the Agenda 162 6. Exclusions and Inequalities within Comment is Free 163 7. The Acceptability of ‘Abuse’ 164 8. Collective ‘Monopolisation’ 176 9. Unintended ‘Control of the Agenda’ 182 10. Chapter Discussion 185 Chapter 5: Results The Process of ‘Exchange and Critique’ 190 1. The Prevalence of ‘Dogmatic Assertions’ in WHYS 191 2. The Unrealised Potential of ‘Criticisable Validity Claims’ 196 3. Limited ‘Dogmatic Assertions’ in RightMinds 203 4. Criticism, and ‘Criticisable Validity Claims’ 208 5. Minimal ‘Dogmatic Assertions’ within Comment is Free 217 6. ‘Criticisable Validity Claims’: Criticism or Critique? 222 7. Chapter Discussion 232 Chapter 6: Conclusion 235 1. Limitations of Research 235 2. Summary of Dahlbergian Results 236 3. Summary of Bakhtinian Results 243 4. Summary of Key Findings 246 5. Directions for Future Research 248 References 250 Appendix 276 Tables and Figures Table 1: Four Channels of Comment Submission on WHYS Forums 192 Figure 1: Jensen’s (2003) Internal/External Validity Claims Criteria 92 Figure 2: Coding Categories for Content Analysis – Dahlberg 93-4 Figure 3: Coding Categories for Content Analysis – Bakhtin 103-4 Figure 4: Three standardised ‘autonomy’ comments within RightMinds Forums 114 Figure 5: Three standardised ‘autonomy’ comments within Comment is Free 125 Figure 6: Gender difference between numbers of contributors to RightMinds Forums 143 Figure 7: Thompsen & Foulger’s (1996) Flaming Intensity Criteria 146 Figure 8: Three standardised ‘abusive’ comments within RightMinds forums 148 Figure 9: Three standardised ‘abusive’ comments within Comment is Free forums 167 Figure 10: Two standardised comments containing ‘criticisable validity claims’ within WHYS forums 197 Figure 11: Three standardised ‘dogmatic’ comments within RightMinds forums 205 Figure 12: Three standardised comments containing ‘criticisable validity claims’ within RightMinds forums 210 Figure 13: Three standardised ‘dogmatic’ comments within Comment is Free forums 219 Figure 14: Three standardised comments containing ‘criticisable validity claims’ within Comment is Free forums 224 Appendix Appendix A: Numbers of comments posted by gender, replies and comments removed, in the Comment is Free forums 278 Appendix B: The BBC’s World Have Your Say (WHYS) Forums 279 Appendix C: The Daily Mail’s RightMinds (RM) Forums 280-1 Appendix D: The Guardian’s Comment is Free (CIF) Forums 282-3 Appendix E: WHYS Dahlbergian Coding Results 284 Appendix F: RightMinds Dahlbergian Coding Results 285 Appendix G: Comment is Free Dahlbergian Coding Results 286 Appendix H: WHYS Bakhtinian Coding Results 287 Appendix I: RightMinds Bakhtinian Coding Results 288 Appendix J: Comment is Free Bakhtinian Coding Results 289 Appendix K: Spearman’s rho test of correlation between abusive’ comments and ‘antagonistic’ expressivity in the RightMinds and Comment is Free forums 290 Appendix L: RightMinds Dahlbergian and Bakhtinian Results Combined 291 Appendix M: Comment is Free Dahlbergian and Bakhtinian Results Combined 292 Appendix N: Gender and Internet Penetration in the WHYS forums 293 Appendix O: Number of comments posted by gender, and number of replies received, in the RightMinds forums 294 Appendix P: Gender and Internet Penetration in the RightMinds forums 295 Appendix Q: Number of abusive comments posted, and received, according to gender in the RightMinds forums 296 Appendix R: Numbers of single and multiple contributions to the RightMinds forums 297 Appendix S: Monopolisation of a RightMinds (RM2) forum by 3 contributors 298 Appendix T: Number of abusive comments posted, and received, according to gender in the Comment is Free forums 299 Appendix U: Numbers of single and multiple contributions to the Comment is Free forums 300-1 Appendix V: Monopolisation by Davgrin, SawaAlZaman, BangorStu, and SidsKitchen, in a single Comment is Free (CIF13) forum 302-5 Appendix W: WHYS Dahlbergian and Bakhtinian Results Combined 306 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my two supervisors, Professor Deborah Lynn Steinberg and Dr Eric Jensen for their guidance and support throughout the course of my research. I would also like to thank all those who have helped me throughout the journey I have taken during my PhD studies, with particular mention going to Mitzi Ward, Jo Bell, Kathryn Fisher, Dr Bryony Straw and Eleanor Welch. Finally, I would like to thank my wonderful family for all of their love, help, support and dedication throughout the course of my studies, it has truly been invaluable. 1 Declaration This thesis is being submitted to the University of Warwick in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. I declare that this thesis is entirely my own work and has not been submitted for a degree at any other university. 2 Abstract This study focuses on reader comments within three British mainstream news online comment forums, the BBC’s World Have your Say, The Daily Mail’s RightMinds and The Guardian’s Comment is Free, to assess whether, and to what extent, these virtual spaces can be viewed as hosting an online public sphere. The sample includes 9,424 comments drawn from 78 forums between 1st May 2011 and 31st May 2012. Two theoretical frameworks are applied during data analysis comprising an initial small-scale content analysis complemented by a larger sociological discourse analysis. First, data are analysed against three of Dahlberg’s (2001a) online public sphere criteria: ‘autonomy’, ‘discursive inclusion and equality’ and ‘exchange and critique’. Second, analytical tools drawn from Bakhtinian (1986) notions of utterance, speech genres and heteroglossia are applied to the data. Key themes arising include the different levels of autonomy commenters achieve across the three news comment forums, abuse as a catalyst for participating in debates, and the importance of commenter-to-commenter deliberations. Moreover, in contrast to the rational-critical demands of public sphere discourse, intonation and more specifically Bakhtin’s (1984) notion of emotional-volitional content, demonstrates a significant presence within debates. 3 Introduction The idea that the public should have a forum through which to voice their concerns is a significant foundation of democratic discourse, as Page (1996:1) notes “[p]ublic deliberation is essential to democracy.” This practice of public deliberation by citizens has a long history that stretches back to ancient Greece and forward to Internet forums and chatrooms (Delli Carpini et al, 2004). Habermas (1989) based his theoretical conception of the ‘public sphere’ on the bringing together of two separate and distinct spheres in bourgeois society, that of the private sphere and the state. Habermas (1989) argued that this ‘public sphere’ was a place in which private citizens could come together and debate the issues of the day as a public (Habermas, 1989). Whilst Habermas’ (1989) original public sphere conception is considered as “indispensable to critical social theory and democratic political practice” (Fraser, 1990:57), it has also been heavily criticised for being idealised (Lyotard, 1984; Schudson, 1997), exclusionary (Eley, 1992; Ryan, 1992) and anti-pluralistic (Fraser, 1990; Mouffe, 2000). More recently, the advent of new technologies has led Neil Poster (1997) to argue that “the age of the public sphere as face-to-face talk is clearly over: the question of democracy must henceforth take into account new forms of electronically-mediated discourse”. Consequently, Habermas’ (1989) ‘public sphere’ conception has been reconfigured by a number

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