Honors Theses

Advisor

Patrick Thomas, Ph.D.

Department

English

Publication Date

4-2018

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Abstract

This thesis project examines evidence use and participatory dynamics in political conversations on the social networking site Reddit.com. Reddit.com is a network of user-created, interest-based forums in which users, or Redditors, engage in discourse with others about any topic of their interest. I selected the politically-motivated forum, or subreddit, r/PoliticalDiscussion for examination and collected 1,000 of its most recent conversations, or threads, to compose a data corpus. I read, categorized, and analyzed these conversations in terms of how Redditors participated in the subreddit and how they incorporated evidence into their discussions of politics. Two rounds of qualitative data coding revealed that participatory dynamics in r/PoliticalDiscussion are brief and time-bound; contributors participate through writing primarily in moments of relevance or topical interest. Furthermore, acceptable standards for discourse and evidence use in this subreddit rely on acknowledgement and adherence to general guidelines, efforts to maintain empathy and civility, and the self-policing of digital content by contributors and moderators. These results lend support to the idea that knowledge-legitimation and credibility are group-specific components of everyday argumentation online.

Permission Statement

This item is protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code) and may only be used for noncommercial, educational, and scholarly purposes

Keywords

Undergraduate research

Disciplines

English Language and Literature

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