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Nyhetsdiskutanter på Facebook orienterar sig mot och förhandlar om interaktionsnormer

Abstract

This study explores how commenters to Facebook news posts orient towards and negotiate norms for news interaction. Unlike the news producer, commenters cannot state rules or delete comments. Instead, they influence commenting practices by meta-interacting in the comment sections. Based on the idea of changing discourses in news journalism, commenters’ norms are compared with the news producer’s rules.

The data consists of 159 comments in 14 threads below 9 news posts on the Facebook page SVT Nyheter by Swedish public service news producer SVT. Contrary to some earlier research’s aim to state whether news comments are meaningful, it is investigated how commenters orient towards violations against norms, i.e. maxims of quantity, quality, relevance, manner, positive politeness, and liberal values. Notions from interactional linguistics and discourse analysis are applied, i.e. adjacency pairs, format tying, and intertextuality, revealing both formal and content-based parts of the negotiations.

The findings highlight that not only SVT’s lack of participation in its comment sections limits its possibilities to influence commenting practices. SVT is also institutionally restricted from orienting towards norms of quantity, quality, relevance, manner, and liberal values. The commenters, however, tell each other e.g. not to lie, not to make false conclusions, not to use ambiguous language, and not to exaggerate, illustrating both constructive and destructive aspects of their influence.