Search Results for « Political Discussions »

How do the statements made by people in online political discussions affect other people's willingness to express their own opinions, or argue for them? And how does group interaction ultimately shape individual opinions? We examine carefully whether and how patterns of group discussion shape (a) individuals’ expressive behavior within those discussions and (b) changes in personal opinions. This research proposes that the argumentative “climate” of group opinion indeed affects postdiscussion opinions, and that a primary mechanism responsible for this effect is an intermediate influence on individual participants’ own expressions during the online discussions. We find support for these propositions in data from a series of 60 online group discussions, involving ordinary citizens, about the tax plans offered by rival U.S. presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000.

Young people's engagement in political discussions with parents and friends represents a significant component of the political socialization process and can be seen as an activity where they learn some very basic democratic skills. Based on data from qualitative interviews and a questionnaire survey, this article explores how young people experience political discussions in their everyday life. Our data indicate that young people who feel that their father, mother or friends, respectively, hold more distant political views are less likely to engage in political discussions with each of them. These findings support previous studies in political communication suggesting that people tend to avoid social situations where political disagreements are likely to appear. Furthermore, the results show that there are significant gender differences when analysing the role of the parents as political discussion partners.

Scholarship on informal discussion of politics and current events has mainly focused on its cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral effects. In comparison, fewer studies have addressed the antecedents of political talk. Using 2-wave U.S. panel survey data, this study sheds light over 2 sets of motivations people may have for engaging in political conversation: civic-oriented and social-oriented goals; and their effects over civic participation. Using structural equation modeling, results suggest that both civic and social motivations are positive predictors of frequency of political discussion, and indirectly associated with civic engagement. From a theoretical perspective, these findings cast political talk as a more complex phenomenon than what deliberative theory suggests, and point to social motivations as an additional path to civic life.

Online platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, provide users with a rich set of features for sharing and consuming political information, expressing political opinions, and exchanging potentially contrary political views. In such activities, two types of communication spaces naturally emerge: those dominated by exchanges between politically homogeneous users and those that allow and encourage crosscutting exchanges in politically heterogeneous groups. While research on political talk in online environments abounds, we know surprisingly little about the potentially varying nature of discussions in politically homogeneous spaces as compared to cross-cutting communication spaces. To fill this gap, we use Reddit to explore the nature of political discussions in homogeneous and cross-cutting communication spaces. In particular, we develop an analytical template to study interaction and linguistic patterns within and between politically homogeneous and heterogeneous communication spaces. Our analyses reveal different behavioral patterns in homogeneous and cross-cutting communications spaces. We discuss theoretical and practical implications in the context of research on political talk online.

The existence of social media bots on political forums can muddle the perception of public opinion. Bot detection has been successful on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. However, our research focuses on characterizing suspicious behavior on the social media platform Reddit; this platform structurally differs from its peers in that users subscribe to page topics and contribute to the discussion through comments or topical posts. We hypothesize that persons who intend to influence the public opinion would deploy paid users, or social media bots, to artificially amplify a political sentiment. We validate our hypothesis by using a network-based approach that reveals a fully connected band of users which includes users with the word "bot" in their name, as well as users who exhibit otherwise a bot type behavior.

eParticipation is the extension and transformation of participation in political deliberation and decision-making processes through information and communication technologies (ICTs). The most commonly found examples of eParticipation systems are political discussion forums. Although much of the discussion of these technologies is conducted in the eGovernment and eDemocracy literature, political discussion forums present a distinct set of design and management challenges, which relate directly to information systems concerns. In this article, we use the overview model of eParticipation of Sæbø, Rose, and Flak to structure a critical review of the existing literature to identify key challenges for designing and managing political discussion forums. We offer a contribution to theory in the form of a descriptive model of political discussion forums in their social context, based on a literature review of relevant literature. The explanatory potential of the model is illustrated by analyzing D:mo, a Norwegian political discussion forum. Based on the review and the case study, we offer a contribution to practice by suggesting a set of guidelines for the design and management of political discussion forums.

Online political discussions are thought to lead to more political engagement and empowerment of peripheral groups in society and thereby contributing to deliberative citizenship. Because people have increased opportunities to voice their political opinions and publish these for a potentially large audience to read, the involved level of interactivity can mobilise people who would otherwise not have been in political life. Since Web 2.0 applications (i.e. blogs, social networking sites) have become popular, online discussions have taken a great flight on the web. This article discusses the advantages and difficulties of studying online discussions applying a mixed method approach of content analysis, social network analysis and longitudinal analysis. The additional value of using a combination of research methods simultaneously is that it does justice to the complex object of study because a more in-depth and triangulated measurement of political communications can be established. The methodological implications will be illustrated on data from the online political discussion group, nl.politiek, one of the most active discussion groups during the Dutch national elections in 2006.

Online communities like Reddit feature intensive discussions on political topics, engaging many users who give and receive votes for their posts and comments. Prior work has focused on detecting controversial discussions and analyzing the role of troll-like users. This paper provides a systematic analysis of the characteristics of user actions, like replies and votes, in discussion threads, identifying different patterns that refine the notion of controversies into disputes, disruptions and discrepancies. Most importantly, our study connects the dimension of user actions with a rich feature space comprising also the sentiments expressed in post contents and the topical variation across the posts and replies. We use this framework to gain insight on the traits of different archetypes of discussions, and to statistically test a variety of hypotheses on expected and abnormal behavior.