Rhetoric, civility, and community: Political debate on computer bulletin boards

Abstract

Does political debate on the Internet contribute to the development of civility, a democratic community, and the public sphere? Examination of debate on Usenet/Netnews bulletin boards on the Internet provides a mixed reply. On the one hand, debates are often characterized by aggressiveness, certainty, angry assertion, insult, ideological abstraction, and the attempt to humiliate opponents. On the other hand, the debates might, even admitting these faults, be characterized as displaying a high degree of formal regularity, as robust exercises in free speech, as closely attentive (if unsympathetic) to opposing arguments, as performing virtuosity in argument and language, and as a rare opportunity for free participation in a political forum where one may meet widely divergent views.