Online Interaction Forms - a depth hermeneutic study of yellow-press discussion forums, 2017

This project analyzed the affective content of the online news discussion forums of mainstream yellow-press news media. The attacks of Anders Behring Breivik in Oslo and on Utøya in 2011, as well as the financial crisis and the general rise of reactionary and xenophobic sentiment across Europe, which were amplified and driven by online networking and forum debates, brought home the need to find out more about debates in online forums and what emotive functions and socializing effects these forums have for and on their users. The proposed study addressed these problems directly. Its overall aim was to find answers to the following pressing questions: 1.) What are the affective dispositions, interaction forms, and relational styles performed and cultivated within the online discussion forums of the yellow-press news media in Europe (thesun.co.uk; bild.de; vgd.no compared to others)? And what is the discursive nature of communication produced in them? 2.) How do the findings produced in 1.) apply to the results of research into the demographics, behavior and political attitudes of forum participants? How can they be understood when brought face to face with the editorial policies and moderating practices of the (privately owned) news platforms hosting the forums? 3.) Against these findings: What are the potential consequences of the cultivated dispositions and forms of interaction ? their risks and dangers ? for social cohesion? 4.) And finally: how can a specific psychological approach, which takes unconscious mechanisms into account, deepen the understanding of these processes? I will follow up on those questions by employing the depth-hermeneutic method of "scenic understanding" (Lorenzer, 1973; 1986). While this method is specifically geared to locate and identify the latent affects and conflictual dynamics in the interplay of individuals and their institutions, it has not been applied to online communication before.

For further information about "Online Interaction Forms - a Depth Hermeneutic Study of Yellow-press Discussion Forums, 2017" please contact principal investigator.