Agonistic Discourse: A Framework to Analyze Agonistic Online Communication

• In Event: Understanding Emotions

Abstract

Scholars throughout the field have empathized the changing dynamics of political communication. Recent events throughout the world indicate that liberal democracies are under attack. Particularly, the rise of digital media has changed and radicalized the way of public discourse and thus challenges established theories, concepts and methods of political communication analysis. Therefore, Bennett and Pfetsch (2018) have suggested to focus on disruptive forces shaping political communication and develop new concepts to allow more accurate analyzes of contemporary politics. This paper contributes to this plea by introducing and testing a framework for the analysis of agonistic discourse online.

Previous research has often analyzed political online communication from a deliberative perspective, which has provoked the criticism that other forms of communication could be overlooked. Echoing this critic, we argue that digital public spheres, while not denying the potential for sophisticated deliberation, also enable and evoke agonistic forms of communication, which seem to have gained the upper hand nowadays. Generally speaking, deliberative theory argues that when political communication takes the form of an inclusive, rational, respectful and empathic discourse, consensus and solid solutions on controversial issues can arise. In contrast, advocates of agonistic democracy deny the idea of rational consensus, emphasizing the conflictual and hegemonic nature of politics and political discourse. Against the backdrop of radical pluralism, political communication takes the form of an ardent battle between hegemonial projects which stimulates collective identities and consequently knows both, winners and losers.

Even though research suggests that agonistic forms of communication are frequently prevalent in digital public spheres there are virtually no comprehensive frameworks to investigate agonistic communication online on a textual level. Drawing theoretical and empirical research we identify *Conflict*, *Opponency*, *Hegemony*, *Collective Identity* and *Passion* as key dimensions of agonistic communication. The paper will discuss each dimension in detail and sketch empirical operationalization for standardized content analysis to allow nuanced analysis of public discourses in an agonistic perspective.

The emerging instrument was put to a first test in two studies. The first study is content analyzing user comments on seven Facebook pages of German Parties (n = 945). The preliminary findings reveal significant differences in the degree of agonism between different parties. Governing parties (M = 4.2) seem to host more agonistic discussions than opposition parties (M = 3.7), while left or right leaning parties do not differ in terms of agonistic discourse. Further, findings show great variances of the prevalence of different agonistic markers. For example, while 87% of the comments express dissent and 65% attack other positions, a clear identification of opponents was only identifiable in 25% of the user comments. Reference to a collective identity were present in 17% of all analyzed comments. About 10% of the comments refer to certain ingroup markers. Negative emotions seem dominant (48%) while positive emotions are less often articulated (10%). Challenging hegemonistic structures (5%), values (3%) as well as antagonistic markers such as the denial of pluralism (2%) or dehumanization (1%) are rarely prevalent at German parties Facebook pages.

The second study uses the framework to content analyze agonism in user comments (n = 800) attached to German news media on four different topics (Refugees; Corona Virus; Right Wing Terrorism; Prime Minister Election in Thuringia). The results show significant differences in the degree of agnostic discourse between the four topics. While the discussions on *Refugees* contains most indicators of agonistic communication, user comments on the *Corona Virus* (in March 2020) stimulated least agnostic talk. The controversial *Election of a Prime Minister in Thuringia* takes second place with regard to agonistic indicators. Overall, the findings suggest that the instrument is capable to provide a nuanced picture on how different topics stimulate agnostic discourse online.

Both analyses suggest that the framework is able to guide empirical research. The paper will put a strong focus on the theoretical development of the instrument arguing for the fruitfulness of an agonistic perspective on political online communication. Both studies are used to bolster this argument by being presented in more detail throughout the paper. Finally, the paper will discuss practical implications for political actors, public opinion research and policy advisers. The paper contributes to the conference topic in the sense that it presents a framework which also allows to investigate the degree of pluralism in public discourse, which plays an important role in agnostic theories.

Author

• Dennis Friess, University of Düsseldorf