Examining user comments for deliberative democracy: a corpus-driven analysis of the climate change debate online

Collins, Luke C. and Nerlich, Brigitte (2014) Examining user comments for deliberative democracy: a corpus-driven analysis of the climate change debate online. Environmental Communication, 9 (2). pp. 189-207. ISSN 1752-4040

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

The public perception of climate change is characterized by heterogeneity, even polarization. Deliberative discussion is regarded by some as key to overcoming polarization and engaging various publics with the complex issue of climate change. In this context, online engagement with news stories is seen as a space for a new “deliberative democratic potential” to emerge. This article examines aspects of deliberation in user comment threads in response to articles on climate change taken from the Guardian. “Deliberation” is understood through the concepts “reciprocity”, “topicality”, and “argumentation”. We demonstrate how corpus analysis can be used to examine the ways in which online debates around climate change may create or deny opportunities for multiple voices and deliberation. Results show that whilst some aspects of online discourse discourage alternative viewpoints and demonstrate “incivility”, user comments also show potential for engaging in dialog, and for high levels of interaction.

Item Type: Article
RIS ID: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/741455
Keywords: climate change, deliberation, user comments, corpus linguistics, online journalism
Schools/Departments: University of Nottingham, UK > Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Sociology and Social Policy
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2014.981560
Depositing User: Nerlich, Professor Brigitte
Date Deposited: 12 Feb 2016 13:29
Last Modified: 04 May 2020 16:59
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/31653

Actions (Archive Staff Only)

Edit View Edit View