Analyzing online political discussion using three models of democratic communication
In: New media & society: an international and interdisciplinary forum for the examination of the social dynamics of media and information change, Band 12, Heft 7, S. 1172-1190
ISSN: 1461-7315
Research examining online political forums has until now been overwhelmingly guided by two broad perspectives: (1) a deliberative conception of democratic communication and (2) a diverse collection of incommensurable multi-sphere approaches. While these literatures have contributed many insightful observations, their disadvantages have left many interesting communicative dynamics largely unexplored. This article seeks to introduce a new framework for evaluating online political forums (based on the work of Jürgen Habermas and Lincoln Dahlberg) that addresses the shortcomings of prior approaches by identifying three distinct, overlapping models of democracy that forums may manifest: the liberal, the communitarian and the deliberative democratic. For each model, a set of definitional variables drawn from the broader online forum literature is documented and discussed.