This paper describes an analysis of poster and recommender activities in an online news forum. Quantitative analyses of patterns of posting and recommending suggest that claims about ‘horizontality’ and ‘online community’ are oversimplifications, as there is strong evidence to suggest that the actual workings of networked discussion communities incorporate a wide range of competing and mutually-contradictory orientations, activities and strategies. A qualitative analysis of particular posters’ rhetorical strategies provides evidence for the argument that an orientation to conventions (in particular using a dialogical mode of address) is more important than actual opinion or semantic content in gaining popularity. The implications of these findings, and some suggestions for how this work might be developed, are discussed.
AllanS. (2006) Online News. New York: Open University Press.
2.
AllanS., & ThorsenE. (2010) ‘Journalism, public service and BBC News Online’, in MeikleG. and ReddenG. (Eds), News Online: Transformation and Continuity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 20–37.
3.
BeckerH. (1974) ‘Art as Collective Action’, American Sociological Review39 (6) p. 767–776.
4.
BennettW. (2003) ‘New media power: The internet and global activism’, in CouldryN. and CurranJ. (Eds), Contesting Media Power. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
5.
BloodR. (2002) We've Got Blog: How Weblogs Are Changing Our Culture. Cambridge, MA: Perseus.
6.
BrunsA. (2008) Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. New York: Peter Lang.
7.
CavanaghA. (2007) Sociology in the Age of the Internet. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
8.
ChambersD., SteinerL. & FlemingC. (2004) Women and Journalism. London: Routledge.
9.
CohenS. (1972) Folk Devils and Moral Panics. London: MacGibbon and Kee.
10.
FriedlandL. A. (1996) ‘Electronic Democracy and the New Citizenship’, Media, Culture and Society18 (2) p. 185–212.
11.
GarrettR. K. (2006) Protest in an information society: A review of literature on social movements and new ICTs. Information, Communication and Society9 (2) p. 202–224.
12.
GilmourD. (2006) We the Media: Grassroots Media by the People for the People. Sebastapol, CA: O'Reilly.
13.
GladwellM. (2000) The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. London: Little, Brown.
14.
HabermasJ. (1989) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge: Polity.
15.
JenkinsH. (2006) Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York: New York University Press.
16.
JonesA. (1990) ‘Local journalism in Victorian political culture’, in BrakeL., JonesA. and MaddenL. (Eds), Investigating Victorian Journalism. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
17.
KatzE., & LazarsfeldP. (1955) Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
18.
McnairB. (2009) News and Journalism in the UK, 5th ed.London: Routledge.
19.
MasonP. (2012) Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions. London: Verso.
20.
MeyerP. (2004) The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press.
21.
MillsC. W. (1956) The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press.
22.
MosesG. (2005) ‘Religion, rural society, and moral panic in mid-Victorian England’, in RowbothamJ. and StevensonK. (Eds), Victorian Crimes, Social Panic, and Moral Outrage, p. 40–54. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
23.
ParsonsT. (1951) The Social System. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
24.
PosterM. (1995) The Second Media Age. London: Polity.
25.
RoyleE. (1990) ‘Newspapers and periodicals in historical research’, in BrakeL., JonesA. and MaddenL. (Eds), Investigating Victorian Journalism. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
26.
SchudsonM. (1978) Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers. New York: Basic Books.
27.
SchultzT. (2000) ‘Mass media and the concept of interactivity: An exploratory study of online forums and reader email’, Media, Culture and Society, 22 (2) p. 205–221.
28.
SparksC. (1998) ‘Is there a global public sphere?’, in ThussuD. (Ed.), Electronic Empires: Global Media and Local Resistance. New York: Arnold, p. 108–124.
29.
TannenD. (1990) You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. New York: Ballentine.
30.
ThompsonE. P. (1980) Sir, Writing by Candlelight. London: Merlin.
31.
Wahl-JorgensenK. (2007) Journalists and the Public: Newsroom Culture, Letters to the Editor and Democracy. New York: Hampton.
32.
WilhelmA. C. (2000) Democracy in the Digital Age: Challenges to Political Life in Cyberspace. New York: Routledge.
33.
ZhuoX., WellmanB. & YuJ. (2011) ‘Egypt: The first internet revolt?’Peace Magazine, 27 (3): 6–9.
