The liberal individualist strand

Liberal individualism encompasses all characteristics of online conversation involving personal expression and the pursuit of self-interest. From various literatures, four

Chapter 5 – Methodology 108 features can be placed into this category: monologue, personal revelation, personal showcase and flaming (Freelon 2010 p.1178).

Monologue

Monologues are endemic in broader political communication and fit with Kuhn’s functions of the media as basic information provision, the likes of which would be common during offline political speechmaking. Monologues, though ubiquitous, by their textbook definition generally defeat the post-internet2.0 capabilities of interaction, whether in real-time or on message boards. As Freelon notes ‘monologue is anathema to deliberative democrats because it represents a triumph of the individual’s desire to make her or his voice heard over the basic deliberative imperative to listen and respond thoughtfully to others’ (ibid. p.1179). Whilst this may well be the case, the monologue is the realistic platform for any debate and is almost certainly inevitable, though it is the response to a monologue which may or may not result in any desired form of deliberation. The monologue would cause no issue for agonists in light of the acceptance of passionate political opinion on any given issue, the like of which would be the precursor of the majority of political monologues regardless of whether they are on or offline (see also Hill and Hughes 1998; Shank and Cunningham 1996).

In practice, the majority of the research data could have been classed as monologues, in keeping with Jensen’s (2003 p.357 in Freelon 2010 p.8) assertion that online debate tends to be dominated by individuals who seek to dominate discussion from a virtual ‘pulpit’. However, the 140 character limit, which was latterly raised to 280 characters, lends itself to short statements which often seek no reply other than perhaps the ‘likes’ or ‘retweets’ of other users who had read the tweet in question, as opposed to the possibilities offered by platforms such as Facebook where such limits do not apply. The suggestion being that to quantify users’

specific proclivity to indulge in lengthy monologues, the research design should perhaps be targeted to platforms other than Twitter. Alternatively, the use of hyperlinks to monologues on other online platforms used by account holders may also be conducive to a more effective means of analysis.

Personal revelation

In differentiating personal revelation from monologue, Freelon states ‘whereas monologue is a formal characteristic of forum communication, personal revelation is a content-based criterion that embodies the liberal individualist proclivity to focus on oneself’ (Freelon 2010 p.1179). Freelon’s definition is relevant, though one sided in failing to acknowledge the positive way that personal revelation may be situated. Freelon acknowledges the argument of Fraser (1990) who suggests that Habermas’ unwillingness to encourage personal revelation

Chapter 5 – Methodology 109 in the public sphere is a way in which the existing power dynamic is reinforced, the suggestion being that the existent hegemony is protected through a uniform establishment persona devoid of human characteristics. Personal revelation can be applied to agonistic theory in two of the identified components, those of hegemony and identity. The importance of hegemony to agonistic theory has been previously stated and overlaps with the role of identity. Mouffe’s agonism, as previously detailed, sees identity as a major fuel of the democratic process;

therefore, the choice to maintain an establishment identity or to adopt a humanised position through personal revelation poses an interesting argument for the agonist and this is also discussed in the empirical study.

The coding of data as relating to personal revelation within this study is focused upon the manner in which politicians, in particular, do or do not welcome the opportunity to personalise their social media accounts. This is mainly done with reference to the deliberate tactic of politicians to humanise themselves with the aim of repairing the fractured trust which has been referred to in previous chapters. It would, however, have been possible to extend the identification of personal revelation to the other two focus demographics within this study, or indeed, any demographic within future studies, if it was seen to be relevant to the overall aims of the study.

Personal showcase

The link between liberal individualism and personal showcase is suggested by Freelon as the act of seeking attention for one’s own material outside of the discussion forum, perhaps on the individual’s personal blog or website. As previously stated, Twitter is largely a conduit to other websites necessitated by the 140 character limit of each post (at the time of the referendum). Individuals and groups within all three of the demographics relevant to the study, those of politicians, journalists, and activist groups will routinely use Twitter as a personal showcase. It is the lifeblood of grassroots political organisations, the like of which were so important in the empirical study as many relied purely upon gaining support for their cause through Twitter alone or in tandem with other sites like Facebook to redirect readers to their own websites. Personal showcasing does not easily fit with, nor have any demonstrable relation to, agonistic pluralism.

In practice, the identification and coding of personal showcase within the dataset of this study was a relatively straight-forward process, partly through the restriction of characters within each forum post, and also by the tendency of individuals to use hyperlinks to the material which the individual was encouraging other users to seek out. With this in mind, a quantitative study aimed at examining levels of personal showcase in perhaps a larger data set may be

Chapter 5 – Methodology 110 suited to a research design centred explicitly upon the use of such hyperlinks, in a similar manner to Williams et al. (2005), as discussed in the previous section.

Flaming

The unrestricted manner in which participants conduct themselves online is one of the most controversial and pervasive issues as regards social media theory. Flaming, defined by Alonzo and Aiken (2004 p205) as ‘hostile intentions characterised by words of profanity, obscenity, and insults that inflict harm to a person or an organisation resulting from uninhibited behaviour’

(Freelon 2010 p.1179) is a catch all term for the issue at hand. The meaning attributed to the term almost always (see Hill and Hughes 1998 and Mitra 1997 in Jones 1997 as notable exceptions) invokes negative connotations and is often referred to as trolling. Hardaker (2010) makes a distinction between the two terms classifying flaming as, ‘response to perceived threat as an end its own right’ (ibid. p.215). Such a nuanced distinction has important agonistic connotations. Response to perceived threat may possibly be associated with ineradicable antagonism which is central to Mouffe’s agonistic theory. Trolling, on the other hand, would almost certainly fall foul of agonistic theory in that it falls outside of the agonistic respect which forms the rules of the game. The task at hand then is to solve the dilemma of how and when these ineradicable antagonisms can be subsumed into the type of conflictual consensus in Mouffe’s agonistic pluralism.

With reference to the identification and coding of data relating to trolling/flaming on Twitter, the specific definition of the concept being characterised by profanity and obscenity again allows for easy identification of such forum posts. As already detailed, this study followed a process of manual data collection over a relatively long timescale of approximately 18 months.

Future studies focused upon, or including, identification and quantification of flaming in its strictest sense, that being the inclusion of profanity, could use a simpler method of a standard retrospective search for such use of language via the Twitter homepage, which facilitates the inclusion of specific accounts and hashtags over a designated period. It should, however, be noted that ‘hostile intentions’ can also be comprised of dialogue which does not necessarily only consist of profane and abusive language.