It’s not cricket: examining political discussion in nonpolitical online space

ABSTRACT

Scholars of digital democracy share enthusiasm about the potential the Internet provides for democratic communication among citizens. Many applaud the prospect of an expanded, digital, public sphere; others are more cautious about whether the Internet may foster deliberative democracy. We attempt to provide a third alternative view by (1) focusing on everyday political talk in nonpolitical online forums and (2) expanding research beyond a singular deliberative model to attend to multiple frameworks for democratic discussion online. In this paper, we examine online political discussion of six globally prominent political issues in two transnational cricket forums. Our findings suggest that deliberative discussion coexists with liberal individualist and communitarian forms of communication in online sports forums. We discuss the implications of our findings for the future of mediated political discussion research.

KEYWORDS:

• Political discussion
• nonpolitical online space
• deliberation
• deliberative democracy
• online political discourse

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Wenjie Yan is an Assistant Professor in the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at the Washington State University. Her research is centered on the interplay between media effects, individuals psychology, and their communicative behaviors in public deliberation. She also conducts research on the influence of new communication technologies on public opinion and engagement in China [email: [email protected]].

Gayathri Sivakumar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Communication at the Colorado State University. She is also affiliated with the Colorado School of Public Health. Her research interests are in the areas of health communication, political communication, and children and media. Her research centers around examining the cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral effects of mediated communication [email: [email protected]].

Michael A. Xenos is Communication Arts Partners Professor and also serves as Chair of the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on how individuals, political candidates, journalists, and other political actors adapt to changes in information and communication technologies, and how these adaptations affect broader dynamics of political communication and public deliberation [email: [email protected]]

ORCID

Gayathri Sivakumar http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2626-5731