Between individualism and deliberation: rethinking discursive participation via social media Online publication date: Fri, 22-Jan-2016
by Tobias Zimmermann
International Journal of Electronic Governance (IJEG), Vol. 7, No. 4, 2015
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to contribute to an improved understanding of citizen participation in public opinion formation on social media platforms. It seems questionable that the influential theory of deliberative democracy provides the best description for mutual citizen communication. Thus, this paper contrasts the deliberative model with the alternative approach of liberal individualism. Therefore, it operationalises distinctive criteria of both - deliberation and liberal individualism - for content analysis. Content analysis of two discussions via online readers' comments indicates a flexible and individual usage of such digital discussion platforms. Finally, based on empirical results, a typology of discursive participation is presented to provide an accurate basis for interpretation. This typology should help to overcome self-limitation of online deliberation research and to enable a more sophisticated understanding of discursive participation on social media platforms.
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Electronic Governance (IJEG):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:
Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.
If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com
Our Blog 
Follow us on Twitter 
Visit us on Facebook