Online news comments as a public sphere forum: Deliberations on Canadian children’s physical activity habits

Abstract

While considerable scholarly research has examined online media’s function as a public sphere forum, surprisingly little analysis has extended to examining the public’s actual deliberations of the covered issue(s). Recognizing this gap, this discussion conceives online news comments in response to a CBCNews (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation online news) article reporting the release of Active Healthy Kids Canada’s 2010 Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth as such a forum. Children’s physical (in)activity habits have become a central focus of various realms (e.g. medical, government, public health, educational and media), which have increasingly framed them as a pressing societal concern. And while the discursive effects of such representations have been subject to critical cultural analysis, not examined to date is the public’s understanding of this issue. The online comments posted in response to the CBCNews article are thus used as an occasion to examine some of the Canadian public’s sense-making of this “problem” in terms of the discourses they invoked in their deliberations.

Keywords

children obesity physical activity online news comments overweight public sphere

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