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Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 16:6 (2017) ► pp.759–781

‘Cyber hate’ vs. ‘cyber deliberation’

The case of an Austrian newspaper’s discussion board from a critical online-discourse analytical perspective

| University of Vienna
| University of Vienna

Our contribution deals with an Austrian case study on racist discourse strategies in the forums of the Austrian online newspaper derStandard.at. First, we will consider forums as a communicative form characterised by specific linguistic features as well as its technical and functional design. Furthermore, we will present an analysis of the reader’s postings from a critical-discursive perspective following the discourse-historical approach, where the readers’ comments on articles on migration and language are investigated against the background of online-specific communication. Another subject of discussion will be areas of conflict between freedom of expression, deliberation and the ‘censorship’ of the forums by the editorial staff with the help of semi-automated tools for filtering out explicit racist postings. Finally, we discuss chances and risks of the investigated forums regarding discursive and social practices within democratically constituted societies and address the question which actions can be taken to improve the quality of such forums.

Keywords: online discourse, reader comments, cyber hate, deliberation, racism, discrimination, migration, discussion boards, Austria, Critical Discourse Analysis
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Critical online discourse analysis
  • 3.Internet forums from the perspective of media linguistics
  • 4.Internet forums from the perspective of cyber hate
  • 5.Micro analysis of the forums on derStandard.at
  • 6.Summary and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 12 June 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.15033.dor
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