Diversity of Political Conversation on the Internet: Users' Perspectives

Abstract

This essay provides an account of the perspectives of users of online political discussion spaces. In‐depth interviews with 69 people who participate in online political discussion groups were conducted. The interviews suggest that they perceive themselves to be interacting with persons who differ from them. They appreciate and enjoy the diversity of people and opinions they encounter online. Although some interview participants expressed dislike at encountering racist or xenophobic perspectives, others appreciated the broad range of opinions they encountered. These findings lend support to the view that people appreciate the diversity of persons and viewpoints they encounter in their chosen discussion spaces. Information provided by interviewees did not offer much support for the homophily perspective–that people seek out like‐minded others online–which raises questions about the accuracy of that perspective in characterizing people's online communication behavior.

The Role of Communal Ratings as Cues in Participation in Political User-generated News Websites

“…Some studies have found participation in online political discussion contributes to political participation (Nah, Veenstra, & Shah, 2006). Others have focused on how agreement and disagreement takes place, and the di erent factors that in uence opinion expression (Kwak, Williams, Wang & Lee, 2005;Wojcieszak & Mutz, 2009), while there is research to suggest online se ings can enrich the diversity of viewpoints (Kelly, Fisher and Smith, 2005;Stromer-Galley, 2003).…”

Everyday political talk in the Internet-based public sphere

“…Conversely, several other studies of newsgroups and/or news media message boards found that such spaces hosted a diversity of opinions (Graham, 2011;Schneider, 1997;Strandberg, 2008;Tsaliki, 2002). For example, Stromer-Galley's (2003) interviews with participants revealed that people not only meet and engage with different points of view online, but also actively seek it out.…”

“…It now covers a variety of research agendas, which include comparisons between face-to-face and online deliberation (Wojcieszak, Baek & Delli Carpini, 2009;Baek, Wojcieszak, & Delli Carpini, 2012); the use of online consultations (Albrecht, 2006;Åström & Grönlund, 2012;Coleman, 2004;Fishkin, 2009;Karlsson, 2012;Kies, 2010;Winkler, 2005); moderation and the design of forums (Bendor, Lyons, & Robinson, 2012;Edwards, 2002;Wright, 2009;Wright & Street, 2007); the extent to which forums facilitate contact between opposing perspectives (Brundidge, 2010;Stromer-Galley, 2003;Wojcieszak & Mutz, 2009); and the effects of online deliberation on civic engagement (Price & Cappella, 2002). One of the most popular lines of research, however, has been the study of informal political talk through the lens of deliberative ideals.…”

Social media mixed with news in political candidate judgment: Order effects on knowledge and affect

“…There is considerable discussion about how computer-mediated political discussion might serve as an online "public sphere" in the sense that Habermas [21] described it as an open forum for the rational discussion of diverse views [10,53,54], with considerable attention being paid to whether SNSs narrow or widen political discourse [3,18,28,46,74,[78][79][80][81]87]. More recently, media theorists and sociotechnical researchers have turned their attention to what has been called the "sprawling" public sphere [11] and the hybrid nature of new media [6,29,45,46].…”