Leiden University Student Repository

Dalmaijer, Evi 2019

Debating online over less meat and other matters of public concern: A pragma-dialectical characterisation and analysis of online large-scale complex public debates

Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)

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“Eating meat is wrong”. Discussions about the consumption of animal products appear to be dominated by such all-or-nothing statements. As soon as someone says the words ‘meat’ or ‘vegetarian’, each...Show more“Eating meat is wrong”. Discussions about the consumption of animal products appear to be dominated by such all-or-nothing statements. As soon as someone says the words ‘meat’ or ‘vegetarian’, each side is sharpened, ready to defend its position against personal attacks by the opponent. While some argue that eating less meat will improve public health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, others consider the consumption of animal products a matter of personal choice. Whichever way you look at it, the issue of meat consumption gives rise to a great deal of disagreement and ongoing debate. The ‘eat less meat’ debate can be defined as a public debate. Public debates are confrontations of different opinions, accessible to a broad group of people, on issues related to a problem that affects many people. The problem somehow requires action and is characterised by a sequence of practical consequences (Walton 2007:217). Such debates shape public attitudes and social norms based on different values (RMO 2011:13). A public debate is thus an exchange of different opinions and a reflection of what is happening in society. The above highlights that public debate covers a broad range of activities. By analysing the term ‘public debate’, this broad range can be clarified somewhat: it is a debate and it is public. That it is a debate means that it is about advancing arguments, but what does it mean that it is public? On the one hand, it indicates that the discussion is held in public: it must be possible for everyone to have access to the arguments put forward and the arguments must therefore be easily disseminated to the citizens. On the other hand, it points out that the debate is a discussion of the public: in the case of democracies, this means that all citizens, who are the public of their elected representatives, must be able to participate in the debate. In a public debate, therefore, not only must the arguments put forward be accessible to everyone, but the debate must also be accessible to everyone in terms of participation. The above points out that public debates take place in the ‘public sphere’: an imaginary community that exists not necessarily in an ‘identifiable space’ but should rather be understood as a place in social life where people can come together to freely identify and discuss social problems and, through that discussion, influence political action (Habermas 1962/1991:176). Under the influence of technological developments, the contemporary public sphere often takes place online. This ‘online public sphere’ is characterised by the coexistence of many different public actors who freely express their opinions: individual citizens, political parties, trade unions, companies, (government) institutions, the mass media, and so on. With the emergence of new media in the last two decades, the way in which discussions about common interests are conducted has changed radically. The new media have given people the means to play an active role in public debates: to protest against policy or to mobilise others and to put topics on the agenda. These developments have transformed public debates such as the ‘eat less meat’ debate into large-scale, complex political and ideological discussions in which opinions are defended and criticised from many different perspectives. This thesis focuses specifically on these large-scale complex public debates that take place in the online public sphere. Because these online large-scale complex public debates have a clear argumentative function, the analysis and evaluation of the discourse can be based on argumentative theories. From a pragma-dialectical perspective on argumentation, a public debate is a clearly distinguishable argumentative activity type: a conventional argumentative practice in which the possibilities for strategic maneuvers are predetermined (Van Eemeren & Garssen 2010:505). The fact that the way in which people participate in public debates has changed and, in particular, that in the kind of debates central to this thesis many different actors become protagonists of argumentatively-relevant moves, leads to challenges when analysing these online large-scale complex public debates from a pragma-dialectical perspective. This is because in dialectical models of argumentation, such as the model used in pragma-dialectics, argumentation is typically theorised as a dyadic exchange between two parties occupying two basic positions (Lewiński & Aakhus 2013:161). The new media, and other changes in public debates, thus pose a challenge for practice and theory on pragma-dialectical argumentation analysis and the reconstruction of argumentative activity types. This calls for an elucidation of the way in which this type of debate can be characterised and analysed in terms of pragma-dialectics. This research thus aims to find out how online large-scale complex public debates can be characterised and analysed in pragma-dialectical terms.Show less