Characterizing Argumentative Blogging on Politics
A Pragma-Dialectical Analysis of the Strategic maneuvering in
Political Blog Posts
Esmeralda V. Bon
rMA thesis Rhetoric, Argumentation and Philosophy
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Characterizing Argumentative Blogging on Politics • A Pragma-Dialectical Analysis of the Strategic Maneuvering in Political Blog Posts • rMA thesis Rhetoric, Argumentation and Philosophy • Esmeralda V. Bon
Title
Characterizing Argumentative Blogging on Politics:
A Pragma-Dialectical Analysis of the Strategic
Maneuvering in Political Blog Posts
Student
Esmeralda V. Bon
Supervisor
Dr. B. J. Garssen
Second reader
Dr. E. T. Feteris
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is a pleasure to thank those who have made this thesis possible. First of all, I owe my deepest gratitude to Dr. B.J. Garssen, whose insightful comments, advice and critical remarks have guided my writing and whose patience knows no bounds.
Second, I would like to thank Dr. E.T. Feteris for agreeing to be the second reader of this thesis.
Third, I wish to thank Dr. A.F. Snoeck-Henkemans for her continuous support and guidance during my time as a RAP student.
Fourth, I am grateful to the members of the TAR department and those who attended the research colloquia, for providing both informative and critical questions to the presentation of the draft of this thesis, as well as for representing an irreplaceable sounding board of
knowledge about rhetoric, argumentation, philosophy, pragma-dialectics and more.
Finally, I am immeasurably thankful to my parents. Their everlasting guidance and immense support have made me the academic I am today and they reduced the laborious task that thesis writing can be to a manageable, gratifying project.
ABSTRACT
The political blog presents a context for argumentation, but has so far not been studied from the perspective of pragma-dialectics. This thesis serves to fill this void and thereby contribute to the developing body of pragma-dialectical research. It is guided by the research question: Which strategic maneuvers are specific to the political blog as an argumentative activity type? To answer this question, a characterization of the political blog as a communicative and argumentative activity type is provided and the strategic maneuvers that are specific to this conventionalized argumentative practice are identified. This characterization is preceded by that of the online political newspaper column, a related genre, in order to confirm the supposed lack of regulation of the political blog and to uncover those conventions that are unique to political blogging. Both these characterizations are based on literature and the pragma-dialectical analysis of cases. In fact, 40 political blog posts and 40 online political newspaper columns, selected by criteria, were examined. As it turns out, the diverse uses of hyperlinking and positive face-threatening acts present opportunities for strategic
maneuvering which are specific to the political blog and serve strategic functions in selected stages of the implicitly played out ideal critical discussion. Whereas in the opening and argumentation stage hyperlinking primarily reflects the exploitation of a presentational device, through situating the argumentation and providing external material, positive face-threatening acts are thought to appeal to a particular audience and thereby reflect the
exploitation of audience demand in the confrontation, argumentation and concluding stages.
KEYWORDS
Weblog ■ Political Blog ■ Strategic Maneuvering ■ Pragma-dialectics ■ Political Column ■ Online Newspaper ■ Hyperlinking ■ Positive Face-Threatening Acts
WORD COUNT: 14, 201
This excludes the title page, acknowledgements, abstract, table of content, footnotes, tables and references.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page(s)
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION……...1 – 2
CHAPTER 2: THE ONLINE POLITICAL NEWSPAPER COLUMN
CHARACTERIZATION...2 – 10
2.1 THE ONLINE NEWSPAPER COLUMN AND POLITICAL COLUMN……...2 – 3 2.2 THE ONLINE POLITICAL NEWSPAPER COLUMN ACTIVITY TYPE……...3 – 7 2.3 THE ONLINE POLITICAL NEWSPAPER COLUMN’S CONSTRAINING
CONVENTIONS………..8 – 10
CHAPTER 3: THE POLITICAL BLOG CHARACTERIZATION…….…………...……..11 – 19 3.1 THE POLITICAL BLOG…….………...……….….11 – 12 3.2 THE POLITICAL BLOG ACTIVITY TYPE………..…...…………...………12 – 16 3.3 THE POLITICAL BLOG’S CONSTRAINING CONVENTIONS………...……..16 – 19
CHAPTER 4: TWO OPPORTUNITIES FOR STRATEGIC MANEUVERING SPECIFIC TO THE POLITICAL BLOG…….………...……....19 – 23
4.1 HYPERLINK USAGE IN THE POLITICAL BLOG………...…....20 – 21 4.2 THE USE OF POSITIVE FACE-THREATENING ACTS IN THE POLITICAL BLOG……...21 – 23
CHAPTER 5: THE STRATEGIC FUNCTIONS OF HYPERLINKING AND POSITIVE FACE-THREATENING ACTS IN THE POLITICAL BLOG………23 – 31
5.1 THE STRATEGIC FUNCTIONS OF HYPERLINKING IN THE POLITICAL BLOG……....24 - 29 5.2 THE STRATEGIC FUNCTIONS OF POSITIVE FACE THREATENING ACTS IN THE
POLITICAL BLOG…….………...………..……….….29 - 31
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION…...…...31 – 34
Chapter 1: Introduction
“The press changes as society changes. It finds new publics, develops new techniques [and] responds to new demands.”
(Williams, 1959, p. 247)
Nowadays one can freely publish individualized opinionated discourse online as posts on a weblog or blog. When this is done consistently and the blogger primarily discusses political concerns, one can refer to him as a political blogger and the website itself as a political blog. Since issues of public concern may be addressed through this means, one which seems to be accessible to all in possession of a computer and internet connection, some regard the blog as a tool that citizens can use for expressing their voices and thereby contributing to democracy.
In order to assess whether the political blog is indeed used for this purpose and to investigate the assumed flexibility and openness of the political blog as an argumentative context, this thesis concerns a pragma-dialectical study of political blogging as a relatively new, digital and argumentative phenomenon. The goal of this study is to identify how
political bloggers aim to meet both their dialectical and rhetorical aims in the political blog as a context of argumentation. For this purpose the research question guiding this study is:
Which strategic maneuvers are specific to the political blog as an argumentative activity type? This research question necessitates the characterization of the conventionalized
argumentative practices of the online political newspaper column and the political blog as activity types because of two reasons. First, it is believed that the political blogging practice has derived from that of political newspaper column writing and the comparison will highlight its unique features. Second, the comparison between these genres will uncover the extent to which political blogging can be seen as a regulated genre. The characterization focuses on the conventions and constraints of the argumentative context, affecting the opportunities and limitations for strategic maneuvering. It is postulated that the strategic maneuvers and argumentation that define political blogging have been shaped by the internet infrastructure.
After this introduction, a chapter will be presented in which an argumentative characterization is given of the online political newspaper column, in order to provide an example for the argumentative characterization of the political blog in the subsequent chapter. Each of the characterizations is based on theory and the analysis of forty cases. These
chapters will be followed by a description of the institutional point and the conventions of the argumentative practices and possible constraints for strategic maneuvering will be outlined.
Based on the insights gathered from the previous chapters, the political blog and the
argumentation that it features can and will be delineated as being part of political blogging as a distinct argumentative practice. In the end, hyperlinking and the use of positive face
threatening acts will be highlighted as devices for strategic maneuvering specifically used in the political blog. It is determined that, in the political blog, these devices serve strategic functions in the applicable critical discussion stages, reflecting the exploitation of the three aspects of strategic maneuvering for enhancing the reasonableness and effectiveness of the discourse.
Chapter 2: The Online Political Newspaper Column Characterization
To identify the political blog as an activity type, the online political newspaper column will be characterized first, for it is thought that the political blog is a subtype of this genre and with this comparison differences will be highlighted. Taking the pragma-dialectical
perspective, an activity type is an argumentative practice characterized in accordance with the ideal model of the critical discussion and the institutional conventions that the practice is subjected to. Here, by reconstructing the argumentative practice that is online political newspaper column writing and through identifying the constraining conventions brought about by context, the online political newspaper column is characterized as a communicative and an argumentative activity type.
2.1 The Online Newspaper Column and Political Column
As emphasized by Singer (2001), the traditional, print newspaper is “somewhere between a universal medium and a personal one” (p. 65). In contrast, the online newspaper has a narrow focus and tends to be written for a local and specific type of reader (p. 65). Some note that whereas at times the content of the print newspaper is adapted to the digital medium, newspapers may simply transplant news stories to the digital medium without adaptation, which the former refers to as ‘shovelware’ (Singer, 2001; Evers, 2002). This could be seen as an indication of the fact that in recent years newspapers have had to have both an on line and off line presence (e.g. Ihlström and Henfridsson, 2005; Blanco, 2010). Others argue that the online newspaper is, in fact, a ‘new macro-genre’ which has ‘evolved’ in line with what its function and users demand: short texts that can be read on the go (Knox, 2008, p. 142).
Based on these viewpoints, the newspaper column, as published in the digital medium, could present a copy of a print version, a digital adaptation or a new genre in itself. As a
genre, whether copied, adapted or new, the newspaper column is likely to be best defined by its practitioners. The often quoted column writer Suzette Standring, for example, has
described the column as ‘concentrated storytelling’ that, if well-written, ‘moves people to action’ and can ‘change long-held beliefs’, because it “compels or captivates with a tale, a message or a persuasive argument” (Standring, 2008, p. 10; 11). Braden (2009) compares the newspaper column, also known as a commentary, to an ‘essay’, explaining that the columnist is “free to explore any topic” and that a column is a piece of art (p. 2). She elaborates that a columnist may even come to enjoy celebrity status when the regularly and signed columns gain a following.
Although this notion of the freedom of the columnist to choose a topic is recurrent, there is however evidence that this freedom is not complete. For example, Reuters’ on line style guide indicates that columnists express opinionated discourse from their point of view and are free to choose the subject matter and be creative, as long as it is in line with the newspaper. The view that there is a required adherence to the editorial line of the newspaper by columnists can also be found in other sources. For one, both Golan and Wanta (2004) and Garfinkle (2012) recognize that op-ed columnists generally conform to the ideology or viewpoint of the editorial board of their newspaper.
This suggests that when a column addresses ideology, the columnist does not truly have freedom of expression. The ideology of the columnist is thought to be most relevant when the column addresses politics and can thusly be referred to as a political newspaper column. While the notions of politics and a standard political newspaper column can be hard to define, a number of criteria were drafted by the author based on the explorative, inductive analysis of online newspaper columns, available under the header ‘politics’ on news websites, and the aim of this study. (See appendix, section 3, for these criteria). Guided by these
criteria, the shared characteristics of the online political newspaper column, as used in the British context, were discerned in the 20 latest columns, up to March 21st, 2014 of the online versions of the left-wing newspaper The Guardian and 20 of the right-wing The Telegraph. These columns were subjected to a pragma-dialectical analysis, with attention paid to the presence of argumentation, the disagreement type, the argument structures and schemes and, lastly, the strategic use of rhetoric and digital media features, such as hyperlinking.
2.2 The Online Political Newspaper Column Activity Type
For characterizing the online political newspaper column as a communicative and activity type, one needs to reconstruct the argumentative practice. The first step in doing so is
determining its institutional point or aim. In the previous section a number of characteristics of the online newspaper and the newspaper column have been mentioned and the political newspaper column criteria have been referred to. One of these criteria is that the political blogger reflects on a political matter. When this is the case, the political newspaper column can, and should, be attributed to the domain of political communication.
Of all argumentative domains available, it does seem that the political newspaper column fits that of political communication best. After all, the columnists attribute to the goal of this group of genres, which is the ‘preservation’ of a ‘democratic political culture’ or democracy, “by means of deliberation”, even if the latter is unilateral (Van Eemeren, 2010, p. 140). In the political newspaper column, a columnist can be seen as contributing to this goal by making his critical stance towards a certain political affair known.
In other words, he contributes to democracy by expressing his viewpoint on a
contentious political matter, with the newspaper’s readership as the primary audience, who he also intends to convince ‘as a group’ (Amer, 2009, p. 11). The column, as a means for the columnist to present opinionated discourse and his point of view, provides the context in which column writing as a conventionalized argumentative practice can occur. Thus political newspaper column writing can be seen as an argumentative practice and the political
newspaper column as a communicative activity type. The speech events signifying the cases in which this type of column writing occurs are then the political newspaper columns themselves, as written by columnists. (See table 1 for an overview).
Meanwhile, when political newspaper column writing is seen and reconstructed as an argumentative practice, the political newspaper column is also approached as an
argumentative activity type. For this reconstruction, the next step of the characterization, the ideal model of the critical discussion is used. This model links the characteristics of an argumentative practice to the ideal of a ‘reasonable’ discussion, in the Popperian sense (Van Eemeren, 2001). Thusly, the characteristics which were identified by means of the analysis of the 40 online political newspaper columns as cases, which all feature argumentation, are
Table 1: An overview of domain, genre and type of communicative activity and exemplary speech
events Domain of communicative activity Genre of communicative activity Communicative activity type Speech events
Political communication Deliberation Political newspaper column
Columns written by columnist
contrasted and compared to the four stages of the ideal model: the confrontation, opening, argumentation and concluding stages (Van Eemeren, 2010, p. 46).
Concerning the initial situation, the standpoint of the columnist can immediately be made clear via the title of the column and the instantly evaluative reporting of the political topic. If this is not the case, after a predominantly informative account, an evaluative note or final statement can be found at the end. Thus, the initial situation is either clear from the outset or clarified later on and argumentation advanced in support can be found in the value-laden description of a current political affair and/or the events surrounding it, such as the implementation of a new policy or a meeting between political leaders. Political newspaper columns embed structures of argumentation, which means that columnists anticipate doubt, providing their standpoints with argumentative support.
For each of the expressed standpoints, the columnist is in a non-mixed difference of opinion with the readership as his primary audience and the recipients of advice as a
secondary audience. If the actions or character of a political or public figure, political party or a general group of people is openly criticized, one can also speak of an expected mixed difference of opinion between the columnist and the criticized individual or adherents to the criticized party as the antagonist(s). Yet, one can never speak of an explicit difference of opinion, because with the exception of the comments to the columns there is no interaction between the columnist and its readers and those criticized.
Although, in theory, the political newspaper columnist could take on the role of the antagonist of a standpoint attributed to another party, after which he casts doubt or advances criticism against it, this route was not explored in any of the cases analyzed. Thus, for the purposes of this paper, the confrontation stage always presents that of a non-mixed difference of opinion and potentially also a mixed difference of opinion, with the political newspaper columnist as the protagonist. The main standpoint of the columnist can be found in the title of the column or, in the words of Amer (2009), “the headline spells out the argumentative conclusion of the whole article” (p. 12). The newspaper political columnist as the protagonist is committed to this main standpoints and sub-views, for which he can be held responsible, though in reality one would also extend this responsibility to the newspaper itself. After all, it has employed the columnist and allows him to write and publish columns in the first place.
Thereafter, regarding the opening stage as embedded in the political newspaper column, the text reflects the columnist’s view of the premises shared between him and the envisioned antagonist(s) and awareness of the rules of the discussion, established by the immediate context and the context of the activity type. In columns focusing on the actions of
political figures or political parties, the columnist presupposes that the reader has some basic knowledge of international politics and Britain’s political landscape, MPs and party leaders and regards these topics from a viewpoint similar to those held by the newspaper.
Meanwhile, concerning the rules of the embedded discussion, as observed by the columnist, political newspaper columns contain argumentation advanced unilaterally by the columnist as the author of the column which, though critical, does not present an unfounded personal attack but rather focuses on the acts of the individual criticized. The main
argumentation is always explicit and the presentation thereof subjected to the preferences of the columnist and the newspaper. The reader is the columnist’s primary audience in a non-mixed difference of opinion and an expected antagonist in a non-mixed difference of opinion. The columnist will assume certain concessions to be mutually established and mind what he regards to be the rules of argumentation and criticizing in the political newspaper column. If these concessions are wrongfully attributed to the addressee, these moves would have to be regarded as fallacious by violating one of the discussion rules.
In the argumentation stage, the political newspaper columnist expresses arguments in support of the standpoint, using argument structures and strategies for removing a reader’s doubt and for convincing a possible opponent (Amer, 2009). For instance, when Polly Toynbee, a columnist of The Guardian online, uses her column1 for criticizing the slow governmental acceptance of mitochondrial replacement treatments, she addresses several parties. Firstly, she expects doubt from the readership, her primary audience, which she interchangeably refers to as ‘the public’. Secondly, she criticizes members of the government, which can be seen as the opposing party, receiving advice cloaked in criticism. She also criticizes the government and organizations for not having taken action, intending to motivate them. It is expected that these members of the secondary audience will not simply accept the criticism as advice and therefore constitute the antagonists in a mixed difference of opinion.
Meanwhile, the political newspaper columnist can support his standpoint by providing argumentation directly and possibly indirectly, when the text embodies a hyperlink to another website on which more, relevant material can be found. This may at least strengthen the argumentative discourse when arguments based on personal and empirical observations are used, because through hyperlinking the columnist can refer to findings taken from research and statistics or to another columnist writing for the same newspaper, on a similar or identical topic.
1
This column can be retrieved at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/11/treatment-save-children-lives-mithondrial-replacement
In theory, the concluding stage will follow, in which the outcome of the
discussion is to be established. However, since this discussion is unilaterally played out in front of an unconfirmed audience, it is difficult to establish whether a difference of opinion has been solved or whether a settlement has been reached. Of course it is possible for the political columnist to change his viewpoint on a matter of political interest, but this cannot be seen as a result of the critical discussion as embedded in one instance of a political newspaper column, which is a monological, static piece of discourse. It is also possible that the same topic or stance is taken up in a later column, which is another indication that the difference of opinion has not been solved.
Furthermore, although the phrasing of the columnist may suggest that he perceives the critical discussion as resolved in his favor, the political newspaper columnist likes to leave the end result of the discussion unknown. In other words, presenting a standpoint in relation to a current affair should be seen as the columnist’s main task. Thus, although ideally the discussion would be resolved in the political newspaper columnist’s favor, the columnist is less concerned with determining whether this is actually the case. Rather, he is concerned with fulfilling his task of providing an opinion in accordance with a newspaper’s main ideology, which he is paid for.
Knowing this and having concluded the ideal model reconstruction, an overview which can be found in table 2, this genre can be further characterized as an argumentative activity type by considering the constraining conventions for argumentation at stake.
Table 2: An overview of the argumentative characterization of the political newspaper column activity
type
Confrontation stage Opening stage Argumentation stage Concluding stage
Initial situation Procedural and
material starting points
Argumentative means and criticisms
Possible outcome The initial situation
consists of a non-mixed or non-mixed difference of opinion, introduced by a reference to a current political matter (a behavior, decision, change, etc.); the primary audience is the readership of the newspaper and the column;
The discussion rules are implicit, as are the concessions on the behalf of both parties; there are medium- and genre-specific rules and regulations (conventions) that the political newspaper columnist has to adhere to.
The argumentation and criticisms regarding a political affair are advanced unilaterally in the political newspaper columns, can be
indirectly introduced by hyperlinking and represent material taken from personal and empirical observations, studies, statistics, etc.
There is no explicit settlement or resolution: there is no official end to the critical discussion that the newspaper’s political column embeds. The critical discussion may be reignited in a later column, which would represent a return to the initial situation.
2.3 The Online Political Newspaper Column’s Constraining Conventions
The conventionalization of online political newspaper column writing is the outcome of the rules and regulations of the media and newspaper industry as a whole and those established by newspapers themselves. Consequently the columnist is bound by a number of explicit and implicit rules and conventions, set by the newspaper concerned and the practice of journalistic writing and journalism in general.
However, before addressing the rules, regulations and conventions specific to the political newspaper column, one can derive insight from the similarities between the column and the editorial mentioned previously. Based on the insights provided by the Reuters’ style book definition, Golan and Wanta (2004) and Garfinkle (2012) before, it can be expected that newspapers have unspoken conventions which ensure that either the same or a viewpoint related to that of the newspaper and its editorial board is given in its opinion pieces. It is in this sense that Garfinkle (2012) argues that the columnist is one of the two kinds of op-edists, columnists being regulars and the others guests, while stating that the op-ed, editorial and column “are similar enough” with regards to the ‘rules’ followed.
Assuming that indeed the same conventions apply to the political newspaper column as to op-ed writing, and vice versa, one can regard a columnist and editorialist as being similarly constrained in their writing. Editorialists are subjected to the rules laid out by the newspaper, informally or in style books (e.g. Fowler, 1991; Hallock, 2007), and because of the supervision of the editorials by a chief editor or editorial board one could say that they express a viewpoint that is in line with the newspaper.Based on this assumption, it is to be expected that, like editorials, columns published in different newspapers differ with regards to the opinions they communicate, in line with the ideology of the newspaper.
Yet, the analysis of cases has shown that at least the columnists of The Guardian and The Telegraph only represent the newspaper in extension and it seems that their personal opinions and observations matter more. This is also suggested by their picture being adjacent to the columns and by the personal touches that these columns have. It appears that the columnist may digress from the official standpoint or main focus of the newspaper, but under the newspaper’s supervision. Consequentially, it can be expected that while the political newspaper columns of a specific columnist are written from his specific viewpoint, show a similar framing of events and focus on a particular current, personal and/or public affair, in line with the selection criteria preliminarily set, the format and style of the column will follow that of the newspaper.
With regards to rules and regulations that are both specific and explicit for column writing, when newspapers make their rules and regulations explicit they collect these in the style books or style guides that they provide and which are sometimes published (e.g. Siegal & Connolly, 2002; Heffer, 2010). In principle, columnists, journalists, editors, etcetera, are all obliged to follow these style book or style guide rules laid out, ranging from the stylistic devices that can be used, appropriate content guidelines, to a description of the function and form of the different journalistic genres. Although these style guides do not provide explicit guidelines for the online political newspaper columns published in The Guardian and The Telegraph, the columnists are at least supposed to follow the guidelines instructing them on how to write, edit and use the English language2 or about ‘principles’ of writing and
‘politics’3 .
Besides these guides and rules other explicit regulations take the form of enforceable laws set for the political newspaper column which the columnists have to conform to. On the one hand, there are ‘Press Laws’ which regulate the practice and products of journalism and primarily concern the freedom of expression or freedom of press, based on the laws set by a country and its constitution4. Naturally, not wanting to break the law or, for example, cause bad publicity, the newspaper discourse will aim to comply with these rules.
In contrast, a first set of implicit conventions is embodied by professional ethics, which requires journalists to report truthfully. In fact, as the eyes and ears of the society, they are to bear social responsibility and should therefore inform the public about ugly affairs (Evers, 2002, p. 7). To the extent that political columnists can be seen as providing an evaluation of real events, they are to be subjected to this ethics as well. As a result of
conventions like these, the political newspaper columnist is further constrained in writing and publishing what he wants and only some strategic maneuvers are available to the political newspaper columnist at the different stages of the discussion.
Another implicit convention is the use of hyperlinking. While unmentioned in most stylebooks, the analysis of the cases also indicates that, at least in The Guardian and The Telegraph, online political newspaper columnists may use references to external sources for meeting their burden of proof. These references can take the form of a statement included in the text by means of a quote, a video or (hyper)linking, if the political newspaper column has
2 See the style guide of The Guardian for an example:
http://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-a
3 These principles are taught in the stylebook of The Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/about-us/style-book/
4
Thus in Hong Kong, journalists face a greater degree of censorship because of the laws set by the government, than in the Netherlands, for example.
not merely been ‘shoveled’ to the digital realm. The Guardian, the newspaper in which hyperlinking is more frequently used, ‘link’ is defined in its style guide in such a way that its conventional function is alluded to. A link “takes the reader to a related reference on the Guardian or the web” and linking is the activity of “insert[ing] such a reference into an article or blog”5
. This description suggests that hyperlinks which do not serve this function or, in other words, do not link to relevant content, would not meet the criteria of The Guardian for being included in the newspaper and its columns.
Finally, a third source of implicit conventions is presented by the news values underlying journalism today, which increasingly reflect an interest in sensationalism (e.g. Sparks, 2000; Harcup & O’Neill, 2001). Although column writing is a genre of its own, based on the use of creativity and the delivery of a message (Standring, 2008; Braden, 2009), it still cannot be seen as separate from the industry of which it is part. Disregarding features of tabloidization, the contemporary news value of frequence which Harcup and O’Neill (2001) uncover in journalism and the British press in specific, necessitates news to be new. This means that the columnist will address current affairs by convention and the topical potential is limited accordingly.
This topical potential will also be constrained by the implicit and explicit conventions previously addressed, which simultaneously affect the opportunities of the columnist to adapt his material to audience demand and the presentational devices available. Ultimately, the high level of institutionalization provided by the newspaper as the supervising institution
constrains the columnist’s choices for presenting the column’s discourse and argumentation effectively. Not least do the conventions aforementioned constrain the content of the online political newspaper column, but the editorial board or chief editor also evaluates this content before publication. One can imagine that these editors will make sure that it follows the established ideology, only breaks conventions when desirable and appeals to the readership.
However, whether or not the columnist really achieves the institutional point of his columns is not necessarily ensured by the conventions in place. Whether or not the columnist expresses his critical stance towards a political affair is uncertain. On the one hand, the perspective from which the column is written may be affected by the newspaper’s ideological stance. On the other hand, the regulations in place may also improve the quality of the
discourse, making the argument and standpoint easier to discern.
Chapter 3: The Political Blog Characterization
As will become evident from the characterization, the political blog can be regarded as a sub-type of the more institutionalized online political newspaper column and has developed out of the opportunities and limitations that the digital realm provides as a medium. Central to this section is the identification of the differences between the political blog and the online political newspaper column as communicative and argumentative activity types and the subsequent characterization of the former.
3.1 The Political Blog
Before being able to fruitfully compare both genres, from the perspective of argumentation theory, the political blog also has to be characterized as an argumentative activity type. In contrast to the online political newspaper column, a genre that can be seen as belonging to the realm of new, individualized opinionated6 discourse is the weblog, or blog. A blog generally constitutes a frequently updated personal journal, website or webpage of an individual or small group of individuals, on which posts are presented in reverse
chronological order (e.g. Herring, Scheidt, Wright, & Bonus, 2005; Hindman, 2009; Våge & Iselid, 2010), and which may feature opinionated discourse and links to other websites (Coleman, 2005).
However, there are other blog genres that are less personal and serve a more journalistic function. For example, Herring, Scheidt, Kouper and Wright (2007) refer to ‘filter’ blogs which publish information collected from the World Wide Web, and mention the ‘war blogger’, a specific type of blogger who filters information and publishes his opinion on ‘political events’ (p. 6). The fact that one may be tempted to refer to the latter blog type as a political blog points towards two definitional issues of blog types in general and the ‘political blog’ in specific, which need to be addressed.
First of all, while blog taxonomies have been attempted, bloggers are prone to customizing their blogs multimodally (Eisenlauer & Hoffmann, 2010) and blogs tend to be hybrids of genres (Pacea, 2014). As a result, a blog may cross several modes and represent several blog types at the same time. Second, the notion of ‘political blog’ has received different definitions. According to some, a political blog is ‘politically focused’, in other words dealing with matters political, intended to feature argumentation and, maybe ideally, to encourage deliberation among participants in a democratic fashion (Davis, 2005; Mummery
6
I am hereby responding to the comments by Bennett and Iyengar (2008): can this personal, individualized mass media really be referred to as ‘mass media’? (p. 707).
& Rodan, 2013). Others distinguish between the blog and the political blog if the blogger is a politician and/or if the blog covers a political campaign (Lehti, 2011; Wicks, Bradley,
Blackburn, & Fields, 2011; Heim, 2013; Karlsson & Aström, 2014). However, Pole (2010) suggests that these ‘congressional’ or ‘campaign-centered blogs’ are a different type of blog altogether, missing “features found on most political blogs”, such as archives (p. 2).
In the end, for the purposes of this paper, what definitively sets political blogging apart is the behavior of the bloggers and their underlying motivations, which were studied by, amongst others, McKenna and Pole (2008) and Ekdale et al. (2010). If bloggers bring political news to light, pointing their audience to the relevant news or news articles, link to blog posts elsewhere, notify readers of the mistakes and/or partiality of other sources, criticizing them or aspects of public and political society, and use their blogs for activities which can be seen as revolutionary and altruistic, then they are to be regarded as political. For the selection of the political blogs for analysis, these criteria were further complemented by those provided in the appendix, section 4, and the requirement that the two blogs selected would be at different ends of the political spectrum, to make sure that insights were not taken from just one blog or two blogs that are nearly identical.
Furthermore, complementary to these criteria and in the spirit of Rosenberg (2009), the political blogger will be seen as a ‘reporter’, ‘activist’ or even ‘gadfly’ (p. 133). It is expected that these blogs will inherently feature argumentation and standpoints related to the blogger’s political stance or political affiliation7
and advanced in anticipation of doubt or criticism from a certain, unspecified antagonist.
3.2. The Political Blog Activity Type
In the sense that both the political newspaper column and the political blog concern the conveyance of political information, most notably a stance on a political affair, the institutional point of the two genres does not greatly differ. In principle, both activity types should aim at contributing to democracy by providing a standpoint and supporting it with relevant and reasonable argumentation in deliberation. However, the political blogger who writes independently of an organization solely with the aim to have his own voice heard, without financial compensation, is to be regarded as an actor who genuinely contributes to democracy. Thus, even though in principle both the political newspaper column and the
7
This definition is akin to Lehti’s (2011) description of some politician’s blogs as ‘polemic’, with “posts which are tied together around an overt opposition and a demand for change” (p. 1622). However, my definition differs with hers with regards to the fact that her political blogs are in fact necessarily written by politicians.
political blog belong to the same domain of political communication, the columnist presents his voice as it is affected and adapted by the newspaper, whereas the political blogger
criticizes aspects of society without mitigation in the blog posts that represent speech events. (See table 3 for an overview of the political blog as a communicative activity type).
After this rough characterization of the political blog as a communicative activity type, in relation to that of the political newspaper column, the conventionalized argumentative practice embedded needs to be reconstructed as a critical discussion, so that the political blog can be characterized as an argumentative activity type as well. The analysis of the cases taken from Raedwald, a right-wing political blog and Stumbling and Mumbling, a left-wing political blog, also serves as the basis of this characterization, of which 38 out of the 40 blog posts are predominantly argumentative and thus to be reconstructed argumentatively.
With regards to the initial situation, the discussion may start from a non-mixed or mixed difference of opinion, depending on the style of the political blogger and the purpose of the political blog. Whereas some political bloggers are concerned with reiterating a particular standpoint with regard to a specific aspect of politics, others take a more general stance and address a broader range of topics. Consequently, some may pick out a specific standpoint to criticize and oppose as an antagonist, whilst others advance a novel standpoint as a
protagonist based on information they have gathered. As was the case for the online political newspaper column, although it is theoretically possible, in the blog posts analyzed the antagonist is not represented, not by a video nor a quote, and the political blogger therefore does not explicitly become the antagonist of a standpoint attributed to another party. Thus, it can be said that in the initial situation the political blogger is the protagonist of a standpoint instead.
Regardless of the approach taken, there is always a non-mixed disagreement with the reader and if a specific antagonist or antagonistic party can be identified, one can speak of a mixed difference of opinion also, which was indeed possible for 28 cases. The disagreement embedded in the political blog may have up to four participants and three groups of
Table 3: Overview of domain, genre and type of communicative activity and exemplary speech
events Domain of communicative activity Genre of communicative activity Communicative activity type Speech events Political communication
Deliberation Political blog The blog posts written by the political
addressees. Like the online political newspaper column, the political blog criticizes an opponent, advances argumentation in order to convince the readership as the primary audience and may provide advice for another party, a secondary audience.
Once expressed in this initial situation or stage of confrontation, the standpoint
becomes a claim that the political blogger is committed to. Since the definition of the political blog implies that the political blogger stands on his own and professes his own standpoint, he is the only one which can be regarded as being committed to the viewpoint and argumentation posted. Besides having to accept this commitment, if the blogger has purchased his own web page, the blogger does not have any institutional obligations to answer to. In that sense a self-hosted blogs, and its political kind, are a ‘free for all’.
In the opening stage that follows, the political blogger of a self-hosted political blog largely drafts the material and procedural starting points himself and the negotiation of the starting points should therefore be regarded as implicit. On the one hand, the material starting points, the premises shared by the parties, are assumed by the political blogger. After all, they cannot be mutually established due to the absence of both the primary audience, namely the reader and the opponent and, if applicable, the secondary audience or receiver of the advice. The analysis of case studies suggests that many premises are shared between the blogger and the reader, with the criticism usually advanced by means of a joke and/or largely implicit argumentation in Raedwald and the high-brow, philosophical and concept-heavy language use featuring Stumbling and Mumbling.
Because of the absence of a another party, this common ground between the political blogger and the addressees is not only assumed but can also be brought into the blog post through hyperlinking, a phenomenon Lewinski (2010) identified as taking place in internet political discussions. When hyperlinking is used for collecting shared premises and
introducing them into the discussion, it serves to provide material starting points. It is
expected that hyperlinking would be accepted by the discussion parties as an approved means of including external evidence and if this is the case, then the use of hyperlinking for this purpose presents a procedural starting point.
Further procedural starting points might be thought up by the blogger based on
knowledge of debates and discussion, but no procedural starting points have been established by institutionalization. This does not mean that no blogging guidelines exist. In fact, there are unofficial guidelines for the appropriate conduct for bloggers which have been drafted. Whereas Blood (2002), for example, briefly addresses a relatively abstract etiquette of weblogging that consists of being ‘courteous’ and using ‘common sense’, Kuhn (2007) has
proposed an elaborate ‘code of ethics’ based on literature and a survey distributed to bloggers. Yet these codes of ethics remain proposals and there is no evidence that any etiquette has been enforced.
Concerning the argumentation stage, as the protagonist the political blogger supports his standpoint with argumentation. In all cases the political blogger advances at least one argument in support of his standpoint. While advancing his argumentation, which can be of a single, multiple, subordinate or coordinated nature, and his criticisms, the blogger will aim to convince the primary audience, the readers, that his standpoint is the one to adopt, often employing the pragmatic argumentation scheme. In fact, in 25 of the 38 argumentative blog posts, this argument scheme was used by the political blogger. While doing so he may employ rhetorical devices, like the rhetorical question, for making his argumentation more effective.
After the argumentation has been advanced, the outcome of the critical discussion has to be established. However, because the critical discussion is unilaterally advanced within the blog post it cannot be determined whether the critical discussion has been resolved, whether there has been a settlement or whether one of the parties has withdrawn his standpoint. This lack of a(n) (definite) outcome is predetermined by the institutional preconditions and
conventions: it is impossible to establish whether a reader is convinced and whether or not the criticized or imagined opponent withdraws his standpoint and possible criticism.
Nevertheless the political blogger may suggest that the discussion has been concluded. Sometimes the political blogger ends his post giving the suggestion that it is impossible for the antagonist not to be convinced, assuming that the difference of opinion has been resolved in his favor. Another indication of this assumed end of the dispute by the political blogger is when he does not take the subject up again in subsequent blog posts, making it seem as if the case is closed. However, in the analyzed blog posts neither of these instances occurred.
In contrast, political bloggers readdress the same topic, or discussion, in subsequent or later blog posts. In 16 out of the 38 analyzed and argumentative cases the political blogger uses a hyperlink for referring back to a previous post, which suggests that the political
bloggers do not usually regard the difference of opinion as solved. Evidence of this is the fact that in some cases a constant return to the initial situation can be observed in a sequence of blog posts. Whether the political blogger himself is convinced can therefore only be
determined in the long run. A political blogger may change his viewpoint on a political affair or policy after a while, which can be witnessed once he starts writing from this different, possible even opposing, perspective. However, this would not be a result of the specific critical discussion implicit in the blog post. As this description of the concluding stage ends
the reconstruction of the political blog post as a critical discussion, the overview of which has been provided below, in table 4, the characterization of the activity type will continue with the identification of the constraining conventions applicable to the argumentative practice of political blogging.
3.3. The Political Blog’s Constraining Conventions
Based on the prior description of the genre of the political blog and the previous ideal discussion reconstruction it appears that there is one major cause of the differences between the political blog and the online political newspaper column as conventionalized
argumentative practices: the political blog is less institutionalized and therefore more flexible as a genre. This low institutionalization has been recognized by Pandey-Jorrin (2008), a law scholar. He has identified the lack of blogging regulations, noting that in the US the Federal Election Commission exempts blogging from their regulations for forms of political activity on the internet. Professional political bloggers like Lowenstein (2008) also note that the political blog provides a platform of more freedom than forms of ‘state media’ do and that it may even give an individual the opportunity to propose changes to be made to a country’s power structure, by means of a revolution. The Arab Spring and the Egyptian revolution in particular represent evidence of how political blogging has contributed to sparking a revolution (el-Nawawy & Khamis, 2013).
Still, even though the political blog is less subjected to institutionalization, if the political blogger uses a hosting domain his blog will be subjected to hosting conventions. As a
Table 4: An overview of the argumentative characterization of the political blog Confrontation
stage
Opening stage Argumentation stage Concluding stage
Initial situation Procedural and material starting points
Argumentative means and criticisms Possible outcome Always implicit, involving a mixed or non-mixed disagreement on a political affair; the readership is the primary audience, the antagonist is absent. Implicit discussion rules; implicit concessions on behalf of both parties; medium, genre and format specific rules and regulations.
Argumentation and criticisms regarding a political affair advanced unilaterally in blog posts, supported by hyperlinking, links to previous blog posts, of himself or others,
government websites, news reports, encyclopedic and academic sources.
No explicit settlement or resolution because of implicit discussion. The discussion may be reignited in a
subsequent or later blog post. This would entail a return to the initial situation.
result, if a political blogger posts in the name of a magazine or newspaper or an organization, for instance, it can be expected that the rules and regulations of the political newspaper column and the political blog will differ less. This does not mean that in these cases the political blog becomes an online political newspaper column. Evidence that differences between these genres remain within the context of the online newspaper is found in the digital version of The Guardian, for which Jonathan Freedland writes both a column and a blog. It is possible that the blog presents discourse of a more personal nature, reflecting an increased freedom of the columnist to express his own ideas. However, one would imagine that the columns and blogs of news commentary are in both cases at least to some extent subjected to the conventions set by the newspaper, which have been described in the preceding chapter.
Other types of hosting domains for the political blog are those that specialize in
hosting blogs in general, such as www.blogger.com and www.wordpress.com. These websites provide guidelines which bloggers have to conform to. These guidelines therefore represent conventions. Important guidelines, and thereby noteworthy conventions, are the terms of service and content policies. Whereas the terms of services notify the blogger about 1) copyright infringement; 2) intellectual privacy and 3) privacy and defamation matters, the content policies describe the type of content that may be posted on the hosted blogs. (See appendix, section 5 for examples of these guidelines). It is possible that a political blogger does adjust the content of his blog posts to these guidelines, wanting to ensure that the blog will not be removed.
However, what regulations and conventions are political bloggers subjected to when they personally purchase a domain for their blog? In this case the political blogger is at least free from the institutional, hosting domain conventions which might otherwise apply. Consequently, recognizing this lack of control over the content posted these political
bloggers, Troiano (2006) has argued in favor of subjecting these blogs to defamation laws as well. This approach could work as there are IP and internet protocols that make the political blogger traceable (Galloway, 2004).
Moreover, the political blogger will not be constrained in deciding on a topic and the content of his blog posts. He will merely be reliant on the conventions provided by the digital medium instead, which can be described in relation to accessibility and visibility, two key aspects in which the online political newspaper column and the political blog differ. First, concerning the accessibility of political blogging as a genre, in principle anyone with a working internet connection, computer and keyboard should be able to start blogging. While the online political newspaper columnist would work within the broader frame of a
newspaper, employed with a contract and often belonging to the same region or nation which the newspaper applies to, the political blogger, if not dependent on a greater website or on a hosting domain, stands on his own. The fact that the political blog has fewer explicitized rules and regulations than the newspaper also makes it an easier and more accessible genre to work with and creates opportunities rather than limitations for strategic maneuvering.
Second, with regards to visibility, a political blogger can make his political blog more visible by creating a larger backing and by placing his blog within a network or online
community, by making use of hyperlinks. As search engines such as google use the number of outbound and inbound links of a website for the ranking of search results, if a website is linked to frequently and includes many links to other sites, it will be ranked higher and therefore be more visible to users of the internet. Especially since most focus on the first pages of google search results, deeming these results the most relevant. By forging bonds or alliances with other websites and blogs, a political blogger will not only increase the amount of links to and from his webpage but also design and maintain the online communities of readers, whose support they depend on. This hyperlinking of blogs towards each other creates an interconnectedness commonly referred to as the blogosphere, in which those blogs written by a small group of elite are the most visible (Herring, Kouper, Paolillo, & Scheidt, 2005).
This use of hyperlinking appears to be unregulated. There is at least no indication that the use of hyperlinking is specifically regulated by blog hosting domains, while there are hyperlink usage rules available for the more institutionalized genres of online newspapers. For example, one may recall the description of ‘link’ in the style guide of one of the analyzed newspapers previously referred to and Evers (2002) points out that a workgroup of the Poynter Institute and the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) drafted a number of protocols including rules for the regulation of hyperlinking on news websites.
Yet, the use of hyperlinking may not be optional and thereby present a constraining convention to the blogger. If the blogger desires visibility in order for his contribution to democracy to become noticeable and part of a debate, he will have to necessarily employ hyperlinks. Furthermore, if he wants to gain a place in the blogosphere, the content and topic of the political blog posts will be constrained. There will be little room for sidetracking, as the blogger would want to maintain this place and gain the loyalty of a significant readership, which would also make the political blog more visible. These goals would require a greater investment on behalf of the political blogger, in terms of time, effort and possibly money, if a domain has to be purchased.
Still, the lack of institutional regulations and apparent freedom that the political
blogger has have led to the blog being criticized, in relation to its value and quality, especially in comparison to traditional forms of investigative journalism. Lovink (2008), for example, compares bloggers to “an army of ants contributing to the great hive called public opinion”, who seldom add any factual content to news reports or come up with stories that are ‘well-researched’, merely uncovering ‘bugs’ (p. 8).
Admittedly, the fact that there are few blogging regulations and that these are
impossible to enforce especially when a self-hosted blog does not hyperlink and is therefore invisible among search results, means that the quality of the political blog cannot be
safeguarded. Furthermore, the anonymity with which political bloggers can post, like
participants in online political discussions (Lewinski, 2010), in contrast to the online political newspaper columnists, can be seen as indicative that the political blogger cannot be held accountable.
However, it is simplistic to pass one judgment on the diverse array of existing blog genres and political blogs, some of which have contributed to massive global and political change (e.g. Lowenstein, 2008; el-Nawawy & Khamis, 2013). Furthermore, there is evidence that readers themselves do not regard the anonymity of a blogger as affecting his credibility as a source (e.g. Chesney & Su, 2010), and that bloggers value and adhere to ‘authorial
authenticity’ (Singh, 2008), often adopting pseudonyms like Raedwald, which would give rise to some accountability.
While the political blogger may thusly experience less institutional and regulatory constraints, this does not immediately translate into the political blog being perceived as less credible. Furthermore, like the online political newspaper column the context of the activity will still constrain the opportunities and limitations for strategic maneuvering available, as well as and determine the ways in which argumentation can be reasonably advanced. The analysis of 40 case studies and this characterization have unearthed two types of strategic maneuvering opportunities which specifically define the political blog.
Chapter 4: Two Opportunities for Strategic Maneuvering Specific to the Political Blog
Based on the analysis of case studies and the characterization of political blogging as an activity type, the following two opportunities for strategic maneuvering specific to the political blog have been identified: the diverse and abundant use of hyperlinking and
opportunities and limitations for strategic maneuvering are pre-established by the
conventionalized argumentative practice in which they occur and constrained at each stage of the critical discussion.
4.1. Hyperlink Usage in the Political Blog
On the basis of the study of the 20 blog posts from a left-wing and 20 blog posts from a right-wing blog, the categorization of hyperlink uses shown by figure 1 was inductively derived, in light of the sources linked to and the cotext surrounding the hyperlink.
Figure 1: Hyperlink functions ranked by frequency, based on an informal quantification of
the sources hyperlinked to and the hyperlink cotext in the case studies analyzed 1. To provide a non-blog source for a claim
2. To give extra information, not in relation to an argument scheme or argumentation structure
3. To situate the blog post
4. To provide missing argumentation by linking to a previous blog post or article
It can be said that these four uses of hyperlinking revolve around the argumentative provision of extra information. Either information is given to supplement and increase understanding of the content of, and argumentation in, a blog post, or a source is provided for supporting the claims made.
Out of these four uses, it is in the opening stage that the political blogger
predominantly uses hyperlinking for situating the blog post. He places the ensuing standpoint and arguments within a broader context of conversation by linking to the blog post,
commentary or publication of himself or of another party. From the quantification it has become clear that this is in contrast to the hyperlink usage of the online political newspaper columnists, which is only at approximately a third of that of the political blogger. Next, the first and four uses, namely that of giving external sources for a claim and that of giving missing argumentation, can primarily be found in the argumentation stage. Lastly, the second and remaining use of hyperlinking, namely that of giving extra information unrelated to an argument scheme or argumentation structure, cannot be tied to any of the stages in specific.
While these uses of hyperlinking are not explicitly constrained by any regulation, as highlighted in last chapter’s characterization, neither is the material that can be linked to. The political blogger is free to decide which sources to include. It is likely that as a consequence of this lack of constraint, the political blogger links to different and more diverse material
than the online political newspaper columnist. After all, the political newspaper column activity type does involve limitations set by the newspaper and its editorial board in specific and the newspaper industry and journalistic practice in general.
In fact, the analysis of the use of hyperlinking in both the online political newspaper column and the political blogs has unearthed the following difference. Whereas the political newspaper columnists largely depend on newspaper sources, provided by their newspaper or others, and reports published by recognized research institutes, often of a governmental nature, the political blogger uses a larger repertoire of sources, many of which are lesser known and too specialized for the general public. While an overview of the sources linked to by the online political newspaper columnists and political bloggers can be found in the appendix, sections 10 and 11, an example of a type of source solely hyperlinked to by the political bloggers, and not the political newspaper columnists, can be found below.
Example
“Where it is doubtful, though, is whether majority opinion decides what's fair.
There's a long tradition in ethical thinking, from the book of Exodus - "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil" - to Amartya Sen (pdf) and some interpretations of intersectionality which doubts the ability of the majority to decide what's fair.”
Stumbling and Mumbling, from March 21st, 2014. See appendix, section 2.A for the full
version.
The underlining of text indicates the presence of a hyperlink. Here the political blogger links to the website of a researcher whose standpoint is referred to and to one of his research
papers. Unlike the political bloggers, in the cases analyzed, the political newspaper columnists do not refer to academic sources and refrain themselves to the news and reports published by agencies.
4.2 The Use of Positive Face-Threatening Acts in the Political Blog
The analysis of the 40 blog posts in comparison to the 40 online political newspaper columns has also uncovered that the use of positive face-threatening acts can be regarded as specific to the political blog. In fact, in some cases a positive face-threatening act even represented the central message of a blog post. The notion of the positive face-threatening act has been introduced by Brown and Levinson (1987) and refers to an act that threatens a public image, or face. In contrast, their notion of a negative face-threatening act refers to those acts that affect the “freedom of action” and “freedom of imposition” of the party whose face is
threatened (p. 61). While negative face-threatening acts are, arguably, less confrontational because they do not affect another individual or party personally, and therefore less
interesting in light of institutionalized regulations, there was no clear discrepancy in the use of these acts between the two genres analyzed.
However, there is a clear difference in the use of positive face-threatening acts between the political blog and the online political newspaper column instead. The positive face-threatening acts which disregard the public image of another party and could negatively affect social relationships are frequently featured in the political blog and absent in the online political newspaper column. In fact, while the political newspaper columnists do not refrain from expressing criticism, in columns which are both informative and argumentative, providing an evaluation based on news and other facts, they do not flaunt politeness. In the columns analyzed, never was a column aimed at threatening the positive face of an individual, public figure or politician. Furthermore, in most cases the actions and not the persona of the individual referred receive criticism. As such, the columnist fulfills his institutional function as a reporter, working and writing within the context provided by the newspaper and studying political matters and political actors and their actions.
This is in contrast to the political blog posts, in which the political blogger may appear to be disregarding politeness altogether. He does not necessarily heed the feelings of the others and pays no attention to how they should be approached in interaction, which entails that he does not take the public image or face of the other person or party into account (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Brown, 2001). The blogger shows no concern with maintaining a social relationship with the other and openly expresses a statement or point of view with the intention to threaten the opponent’s positive face or reputation. This confrontation which involves no politeness can be described as constituting “rudeness, gaucheness, [and] the making of social gaffes” (Brown, 2001, p. 11620). The following presents an example of a political blogger criticizing another party with a positive face-threatening act, and thereby dismissing politeness theory, with the face-threatening act indicated in bold:
Example
“The evil scumbags who work in the City appear to be doing a better job at being modern and liberal than the state-subsidised art world.”
Stumbling and Mumbling, post from February 28th, 2014. See appendix, section 2.B for the
This use of positive face-threatening acts may be linked to the lack of regulation of the political blog genre. The characterization of the political blog as an activity type suggests that positive face-threatening acts can be used by the political blogger because there is no
regulation preventing him from addressing and openly confronting, or even criticizing,
another8. Especially if the political blogger does not use a hosting domain, as is the case in the political blog posts analyzed, he is not accountable to any supervising institution nor
subjected to any terms and conditions, such as defamation laws (Troiano, 2006).
In the end, the bloggers use positive face-threatening acts in about a quarter of the cases and simultaneously take on standpoints presented as more absolute. Thusly, positive face threatening acts affect both the confrontation and the concluding stages of the critical discussion. Because of the use of this device the political blogger simply seems unwilling to adopt an opposing standpoint. In addition, positive face-threatening acts can also play a role in the argumentation stage, where they are part of the argumentation or criticism advanced.
Chapter 5: The Strategic Functions of Hyperlinking and Positive Face-Threatening Acts in the Political Blog
As alluded to in the previous chapter, hyperlinks and positive face-threatening acts may specifically affect an argumentative practice in certain discussion stages. In fact, they serve strategic functions and are part of strategic maneuvers, specific to the political blog and made possible by the internet infrastructure and the lesser amount of rules and regulations that political blogging is subjected to. Strategic maneuvers have three aspects which each cover a dimension of the ways in which strategic maneuvering is exploited to enhance the
effectiveness of the argumentative discourse presented: that of the ‘topical potential’, ‘audience demand’ and ‘presentational devices’ (Van Eemeren, 2010, pp. 93-94).
Whereas the exploitation of presentational devices concerns the choices for presenting the discourse, the adaptation to audience demand is about adapting the discourse to the target audience. Topical potential, in turn, concerns the topical choices available to the discussant. The topical or commonplace choices of a discussant will reflect the consideration that
discourse has to both be effective, or persuasive, and dialectically reasonable. In other words, it will represent what the discussant regards to be his best ‘line of defense’ (Van Eemeren,
8 As is the case for Lewinski (2010)’s political discussion forum, there is no explicit definition of how a
disagreement and critical discussion is meant to start: the ‘conditions’ of the ‘argumentative confrontation’ are not set (p. 84).
2010, p. 100). The exploitation of these three aspects in the use of hyperlinking and positive face-threatening acts will be further explored in the following paragraphs, also in the context of the four parameters as referred to by Van Eemeren (2010), listed under figure 2.
Figure 2: The four factors serving as parameters of the analysis of strategic maneuvering
1. The results that can be achieved by making the moves concerned 2. The routes that can be taken to achieve these results
3. The constraints imposed on the discourse by the institutional context 4. The commitments of the parties defining the argumentative situation
5.1 The Strategic Functions of Hyperlinking in the Political Blog
First and foremost, as indicated in the previous chapter, hyperlinking is primarily employed in the opening and argumentation stages of the critical discussion. In the opening stage, the use of hyperlinking serves to situate the blog post within a greater discourse or narrative. By means of hyperlinking to relevant external sources, such as a blog post by another blogger on a pertinent topic, the political blogger himself succinctly clarifies the disagreement type and situates the discourse advanced. An opposing standpoint is introduced, which constitutes the first move in the opening stage of the discussion, and by using
hyperlinking the material starting points of the implicit critical discussion can be suggested. These could, for example, take the form of emotional or factual prepositions and
commonplaces, the use of which, if posted on a self-hosted blog, is not explicitly regulated. This manner in which hyperlinking is employed in the opening stage specifically reflects the exploitation of a presentational device, because by using this device the political blogger attempts to present the argumentative move of putting forward a standpoint or criticism of a standpoint in a strategically beneficial way. After all, one can see how for constructing the opening stage this means can be most effective, if the sources linked to appeal to the reader and are included succinctly. Furthermore, by placing the blog post within an existing controversy, discussion or view towards a political affair in the blogosphere, on discussion sites, academic work and online newspapers’ opinion pieces or columns, the standpoint also appears more reasonable. Two examples of the use of hyperlinking in the opening stage for situating the blog post and the argumentation it envelops can be found on the next page.
