Arguing about religion: BBC World Service Internet forums as sites of postcolonial encounter

Abstract

This paper compares the content, context and facilitation of discussions about religion and politics on contrasting types of Internet forum in English and Arabic, comparing forums linked to the current affairs output of the BBC World Service (BBCWS), Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya between 2007 and 2010. It examines how these forums are structured by a range of technological and political factors, reflecting the postcolonial context of encounter. It demonstrates that the consequences of deploying these technologies in this context are ambivalent. On the one hand, they enable participation in discussion in contexts where political debate is restricted, allow conversation between individuals that would be impossible in embodied form, and strengthen diasporic connectivity. On the other, they are used behind a rhetoric of free speech which masks exclusionary power relations. Comparison between types of BBC forum further demonstrates the importance of how new technologies are deployed for forms of communication and community construction.

Keywords:

• Internet forums
• BBC World Service
• religion
• politics
• diaspora
• community

Notes

1. On 25 June 2012 WHYS posted its final blog, citing as the main reason for its closing down a shift to newer technologies: “the vast majority of our regular contributors have made it clear they’d prefer to take part in WHYS on our facebook and twitter pages”. Discussions did continue on those pages (Atkins 2012).