Complaining and sharing personal concerns as political acts: how everyday talk about childcare and parenting on online forums increases public deliberation and civic engagement in China

Abstract

Based on a comparative content analysis of political talk in three popular Chinese online forums (government-run, commercial-lifestyle, and commercial-topical), this paper investigates how the private and public spheres are connected thru everyday talk about childcare concerns. Compared to the government-run (party-state) forum, the nonpolitical (lifestyle and topical) forums created open and inclusive 'third spaces' for citizens to engage in child welfare politics. In such spaces, the reason, rule-based deliberation was not the dominant communicative practice. Rather, political (narrative) acts of complaining and sharing personal concerns -grounded in citizens' life experiences -were the norm, capturing and recognizing public problems in the private sphere. We argue that to understand the nature of political talk in Chinese third spaces, communicative acts that have not been considered central to deliberative reasoning, such as complaining and sharing personal concerns should be given more normative importance.

Everyday Talk on Twitter: Informal Deliberation About (Ir-)responsible Business Conduct in Social Media Arenas

“…Within a deliberative system, everyday talk describes everyday communication practices, whereby participants discuss or simply express opinions about current issues, which others might observe, become informed through, and develop their own opinions (Brooker et al, 2018; Graham & Wright, 2014; Mansbridge, 1999; Sun et al, 2021). Everyday talk is often spontaneous and can lack a direct purpose, taking the form of “talk for talk’s sake” (Graham, 2015, p. 8).…”

“…In other words, everyday talk is not necessarily aimed at any action other than talk itself and can be purely expressive (Mansbridge, 1999). Nevertheless, everyday talk represents a form of communication, where discussing issues of individual concern becomes an avenue for engaging in politics (Brooker et al, 2018; Sun et al, 2021). In other words, through bottom-up information flows everyday conversations may motivate and spark further engagement in the deliberative process (Schmitt-Beck & Grill, 2020).…”

“…We argue that the concept of everyday talk provides a fruitful lens to study social media arenas, which are characterized by informality and lack of structure (Brooker et al, 2018; Mascheroni & Murru, 2017; Sun et al, 2021), a plurality of issues discussed (Barberá et al, 2015; Harder et al, 2017; Neuman et al, 2014), and a lack of decision-making and consensus orientation (Barberá et al, 2015; Furman & Tunç, 2020; Sun et al, 2021). However, being more informal, the deliberative quality, that is, the deliberativeness (Bächtiger & Parkinson, 2019; Friess & Eilders, 2015) of everyday talk in social media is yet to be explored.…”

“…Consequently, research on online deliberation has focused on whether arguments are supported and justified by participants using empirical or logical evidence (Burkart & Russmann, 2016; Klinger & Russmann, 2014; Monnoyer-Smith & Wojcik, 2012; Stromer-Galley, 2007). Similarly, the literature on everyday talk has deviated from the strict focus on rationality and emphasized instead that participants should “justify their views/claims” (Sun et al, 2021, p. 7). Following this work, we consider justification to be a criterion for the deliberativeness of everyday talk in social media arenas.…”

“…To do so, we draw on the lens of everyday talk (Graham, 2015), which challenges preconceived notions of deliberation that are based on expectations about citizens’ active participation in online discourses to reach consensus and collective decisions (e.g., Dahlberg, 2011). Instead, a lens of everyday talk allows for an encompassing analysis that embraces the spontaneous, fragmented, and informal forms of communication on social media (Brooker et al, 2018; Mascheroni & Murru, 2017; Schultz et al, 2013; Song, 2014; Sun et al, 2021) and shifts the focus on an informal form of deliberation that deviates from traditional ideals.…”