Social News Sites as Democratic Media An evaluative study of Reddit's coverage of the 2012 US presidential election campaign Szabo, András Publication date: 2013 Document version Early version, also known as pre-print Citation for published version (APA): Szabo, A. (2013). Social News Sites as Democratic Media: An evaluative study of Reddit's coverage of the 2012 US presidential election campaign . Det Humanistiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet. Download date: 29. Sep. 2021 FACULTY OF HUMANITIES UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN PhD thesis András Szabó Social News Sites as Democratic Media An evaluative study of Reddit's coverage of the 2012 US presidential election campaign Academic advisor: Klaus Bruhn Jensen Submitted: 30/09/13 Institutnavn: Institut for Medier, Erkendelse og Formidling Name of department: Department of Media, Cognition and Communication Author: András Szabó Titel og evt. undertitel: Sociale nyhedswebsites som demokratiske medier: En empirisk og teoretisk-normativ evaluering af Reddits dækning af den amerikanske præsidentvalgkamp i 2012 Title / Subtitle: Social News Sites as Democratic Media: An evaluative study of Reddit's coverage of the 2012 US presidential election Subject description: Empirical analysis and normative theoretical evaluation of social news site Reddit's coverage of the 2012 US presidential election. Reddit, although nominally democratic, is shown in general to be failing to meet normative criteria derived from three ideal types of democracy; a way of salvaging its democratic potential is proposed. Academic advisor: Klaus Bruhn Jensen Submitted: 30. September 2012 Grade: 2 Abstract This thesis presents an empirical analysis and normative theoretical evaluation of Reddit, a social news website, focusing on its coverage of the 2012 US presidential election campaign. It explores the site's structural features and organization, and evaluates its coverage by standards derived from three different ideal concepts of democracy. The study uses various qualitative and quantitative methods to give a comprehensive account of Reddit as a news organization that is built on the collaboration of its users' communities. From the perspective of liberal-individualist democracy, most of Reddit's coverage was found to be inadequate, failing to realize the principle of free expression in a meaningful manner. In particular, the site largely acted as a soapbox exclusively for supporters of the Democratic Party. From the perspective of communitarian-republican democracy, Reddit emerged as a community of like-minded individuals, instead of an inclusive and diverse community whose members would have recognized their shared political responsibility. From the perspective of deliberative democracy, Reddit, as a social news site, would be required to contribute to the formation of considered strands of public opinion. Structurally, the site was found to be well suited for this task, but in practice, it mostly failed to actualize its deliberative potential. However, in spite of the site's generally disappointing performance, the study did identify particular sections with valuable contributions to a substantially democratic coverage of the election. The thesis concludes by putting the mostly disappointing results into broader historical and technological context, and by proposing an alternative way to harness Reddit's precarious democratic potential. 3 Dansk resumé Denne afhandling fremlægger en empirisk analyse og teoretisk-normativ evaluering af Reddit - et socialt nyhedswebsite – med udgangspunkt i Reddits dækning af den amerikanske præsidentvalgkamp i 2012. Afhandlingen udforsker websitets strukturelle egenskaber og interne organisation og evaluerer på den baggrund valgkampsdækningen ud fra standarder, som afledes af tre forskellige normative idealer om demokrati. Afhandlingen anvender flere forskellige kvalitative og kvantitative metoder for at kunne give en udførlig redegørelse for Reddit som en ny og særlig form for nyhedsorganisation, der er opstået gennem de forskellige samarbejder og fællesskaber mellem brugerne på sitet. Fra et liberalt-individualistisk demokrati-perspektiv må størstedelen af Reddits dækning opfattes som utilstrækkelig, da sitet ikke kunne realisere princippet om ytringsfrihed på en meningsfuld måde. Websitet fungerede i særdeleshed som en talerstol næsten udelukkende for tilhængerne af Det Demokratiske Parti. Fra et kommunitaristisk-republikansk demokrati-perspektiv fremstår Reddit som et fællesskab af ligesindede individer, i stedet for et inklusivt og mangfoldigt fællesskab, hvis medlemmer anerkender deres fælles politiske ansvar. Fra et deliberativt demokrati-perspektiv ville Reddit som socialt nyhedswebsite være forpligtet til at bidrage til dannelsen af betragtelige dele af den offentlige opinion. På et strukturelt niveau viste Reddit sig velegnet til at løfte denne opgave, men i praksis fejlede webstedet i forsøget på at aktualisere det deliberative potentiale. På trods af websitets generelt skuffende præstationer, er undersøgelsen i stand til at identificere visse dele af dets indhold som værdifulde bidrag til den demokratiske proces frem mod valget. Afhandlingen sætter afslutningsvis de hovedsageligt skuffende resultater i et videre historisk og teknologisk perspektiv og foreslår en alternativ tilgang til at udnytte Reddits ustabile demokratiske potentiale. 4 Table of Contents ABSTRACT............................................................................................................................3 DANSK RESUMÉ.................................................................................................................. 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................................... 10 PART I. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................... 11 Chapter 1. An overview of the project............................................................................................................................ 11 1.1. Problem statement and research question............................................................................................................... 11 1.2. What is Reddit?.......................................................................................................................................................12 1.3. Why study Reddit?..................................................................................................................................................13 1.4. What new this research is bringing to the table...................................................................................................... 15 1.5. An illustrated overview...........................................................................................................................................15 Chapter 2. Literature review........................................................................................................................................... 17 2.1. Normative media theory......................................................................................................................................... 17 2.2. Normative critique of new media........................................................................................................................... 19 2.3. Studies of social news sites (SN)............................................................................................................................28 PART II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND......................................................................... 32 Chapter 3. Preface to the theoretical background.........................................................................................................32 3.1. Research strategy.................................................................................................................................................... 32 3.1.1. Media and politics............................................................................................................................................32 3.1.2. From abstract models to analytical criteria......................................................................................................34 3.2. Models of democracy - an overview.......................................................................................................................36 3.3. A public sphere perspective.................................................................................................................................... 40 Chapter 4. Liberal-individualist democracy.................................................................................................................. 42 4.1. Basic principles.......................................................................................................................................................42 4.2. Freedom of speech as means to an end...................................................................................................................43 4.3. The liberal-individualist public sphere................................................................................................................... 45 4.4. Media coverage of elections................................................................................................................................... 49 Chapter 5. Communitarian-republican democracy.....................................................................................................