Arguing in Internet Chat Rooms: Argumentative Adaptations to Chat Room Design and Some Consequences for Public Deliberation at a Distance

This essay examines argumentation practices as they occur in politically oriented chat rooms to explore deliberation at a distance in the public sphere. There is a discrepancy between argumentation as practiced in chat rooms and the ideal of critical discussion that is evident in the apparently incoherent, ad hominem quality of chat room discourse. Three features of chat rooms identified here suggest that the apparently low quality of argumentation may he reconstructed as an adaptation to the affordances for argumentation inherent in the design of the chat room format. These design features include continuous scrolling transcripts, contribution limits, and unidentified participants. We identify the “wit-testing” dialogue type as a rational, though not ideal, response to the affordances for argumentation in the chat room design. Finally, we suggest that the “wit-testing” dialogue in Internet chat rooms adds a new dimension to deliberation in the public sphere.

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