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deliberative democracy

This tag is associated with 4 posts

FCJ-163 Olympic Trolls: Mainstream Memes and Digital Discord?

By ⋅ December 30, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

Tama Leaver Curtin University [Abstract] Introduction During 2012, the Australian and international press frequently deployed the accusation of ‘trolling’ as part of a wider moral panic about supposedly anonymous online abuse facilitated by social media. The term trolling has been applied to a range of activities, many of which are simultaneously labelled abuse, (cyber)bullying and general mischief. Despite clear early work on trolls in Usenet discussion groups (Donath, 1999), there is surprisingly little detailed research on trolling, and what exists is largely focused on the provocative and ephemeral internet image board 4chan, and the related Anonymous movement (Phillips, 2011b; 2012a). As 4chan has been a hotbed for the creation of online memes—jokes and images, often combining text and visuals, following a particular style or grammar, which are rapidly spread across the internet—memes and trolling have often been tied together. However, this paper focuses on a more banal example of memes…

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FCJ-162 Symbolic violence in the online field: Calls for ‘civility’ in online discussion

By ⋅ December 30, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

Shannon SindorfUniversity of Colorado, Boulder [Abstract] Introduction In light of early high hopes for the democratic potential of online discussion, the reality of attacks, hostility, vitriol, and at times racist and sexist sentiments can be alarming (Coffey and Woolworth, 2004; Carlin, Schill, Levasseur, and King, 2005; Hlavach and Frievogel, 2011; Richardson and Stanyer, 2011; Herring, Job-Sluder, Scheckler, and Barab, 2012). According to some, if these spaces are to be valuable, the participants should have to maintain some level of mutual respect. Concerns over vitriol in anonymous online comments have led some newspapers that maintain online forums to alter their commenting systems. Some have abandoned anonymity, some require comments be tied to Facebook identities, and in some cases, newspapers have closed their comments sections entirely (Mart, 2010; Bangert, 2011; Crider, 2011; Kennedy, 2012). The rationale for freedom of expression is that healthy democracy requires that its citizens be able to freely…

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FCJ-155 EVEN WITH CRUISE CONTROL YOU STILL HAVE TO STEER: defining trolling to get things done

By ⋅ December 30, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

Andrew Whelan University of Wollongong [Abstract] This is an article investigating trolling as an observable and reportable phenomenon, and how it comes to be sensible as such to those who describe interactional or discursive forms as trolling. The interest is not so much in what trolling ‘really is’ or what trolling ‘really means’ or what trolling ‘really says about where we are now’. Rather, it is an exploration of what might be the best means by which we can understand how trolling is identified, and what the intertwined moral, cognitive, and intersubjective processes at work in this identification are. What are we even talking about when we’re talking about trolling, and how do we come to understand this? The argument is structured as follows. The first part of the article considers a particular representation of trolling in detail, a famous TV news segment, in terms of relevant literature on deliberative…

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FCJ-165 Obama Trolling: Memes, Salutes and an Agonistic Politics in the 2012 Presidential Election

By ⋅ December 30, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

Benjamin Burroughs University of Iowa [Abstract] If the 2008 American Presidential election is known for being the first modern Internet campaign, then perhaps the 2012 American election should be known as the first real social media campaign. While social networking was a major part of the 2008 campaign, with users enacting socio-technical linkages primarily between Youtube and Facebook walls (Robertson, 2010); the increasing pervasiveness of mimetic communication melded with social networking has once again impacted the political landscape. From ‘Big Bird’ to ‘binders full of women’ (and the made-for-meme Obama ‘Bayonets’ line) memes riff in real-time on contemporary politics. What is different about 2012 is the intersection between the technology, the architectural affordances of social networking platforms, and the penetration of a larger trolling culture. Trolling is colloquially understood as a negative behaviour, particularly amongst traditional media, that desires to bully and vilify unsuspecting netizens, all in the name of…

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