Abstract
Journalists and online commenters compete for control over news forums. The negotiation of how forums are used, what norms are accepted, and how participants can work together are critical issues for building better forums. This study uses boundary work and a textual analysis of comments to consider how commenters understand best practices and the journalist’s role. Commenters express three hierarchical roles for journalists based on differing philosophies of journalist roles and audience autonomy.
Keywords
The boundaries that separate professional journalists from their audiences have recently been in flux while the audience has sought a larger voice. 1 Audiences have traditionally held a subservient role, far away from news production, and some journalists have attempted to continue this practice online. 2 Journalists have historically struggled to protect the industry from outside influences such as advertising and public relations, but the audience was traditionally less influential. 3
As news organizations moved online, the relationship with the audience became more egalitarian, since the audience now had the ability to steer news decisions through metrics and had a more effective way to speak back to the organization. This discourse has led to the audience expressing more about journalism, especially in the form of online comments. 4 While comments are dismissed by many journalists for lacking substance, 5 there is a role for the audience member to express direct commentary on the role of journalists in society and the best normative practices of the profession. 6 Beyond expressing the journalist’s role, commenters are also interested in how news forums are structured to allow for public discourse about important issues. 7 This article is based on a textual analysis conducted to consider the relationship between the commenter and the journalist, while also looking at how commenters express expectations for discourse.
News-Mediated Discourse
News organizations have a social responsibility to act in the public’s interest, which includes serving as a common carrier of public discussion. 8 This normative role means that journalists will act as a “conversational partner” and engage the audience rather than talking at them. 9 Online commenting has taken on a significant role in journalism over the past decade and is frequently used as a space for public opinion. 10 People who discuss politics online report enjoying being able to express their views more than other motivations, such as venting political frustrations. 11 While some complain about the poor quality of comments, 12 many express normative roles for commenters. Robinson found that commenters prefer to have journalistic norms such as credibility, transparency and accuracy applied to the commenting forum, 13 while Reader found that commenters prefer to engage in free expression, and to have social norms such as tolerance and civility. 14 Both scholars found commenters expressing an interest in a higher level of mutual respect between commenters and journalists. 15 Journalists try to maintain control over participants and the rules, 16 as well as expecting commenters to be guided by social norms of sincerity and civility. 17 Journalists also place traditional journalistic quality expectations onto commenters by promoting participants who discuss the article or provide newsworthy information over those who merely opine. 18
Journalist and Audience Relationship
Journalists have become protective of their autonomy online by instituting practices and routines that keep the audience at a distance. 19 Boczkowski found that while journalists quickly adopted the practice of producing online content, journalists consistently produced similar content and mimicked traditional practices, including antiquated methods of incorporating the audience. 20 Journalists frequently treat the audience as a potential source of information but not as a producer. 21 Heinonen describes three categories of the relationship between the journalist and the online audience: the journalist can develop a distinction between professional and audience content, the journalist can include audience content as a collaborative effort and the journalist struggles with defining the two roles—which will often lead to a lack of a clear definition for either group. 22 Robinson argues for two journalistic philosophies that incorporate audience contributions in production. The “traditionalist” believes journalists are in a position of authority and should establish the professional as distinct from the audience member. 23 The “converger” believes that the audience member should have more autonomy to participate in production and interpretation. 24 Most newspaper forums are structured from the traditionalist position, with audience members placed in a subordinate role, 25 so this article will consider how commenters respond to such roles by articulating their own perspective of how commenting forums should be structured.
Boundary Work
Boundary work is the public practice of constructing social boundaries around a professional field to distinguish the field from other actors and institutions. 26 This allows professionals to monopolize an industry and exclude amateurs and deviant actors. 27 Boundary work helps satisfy the need for professional legitimacy but also reinforces this separation with the public. 28
In journalism, boundary work focuses on the “attitudes, beliefs, and assumptions about journalism.” 29 Journalists constantly reconstruct and redefine boundaries to protect their autonomy—especially when boundaries are under threat. 30 Boundary work considers how a field expands its boundaries to incorporate new actors and practices, expels those who violate the principles and protects the autonomy of the field by correcting wrongdoing and defending itself from critics. 31 This involves defining boundaries based on the participants, the practices and the professionalism of the field. 32 Journalists see user content as less valuable and frequently relegate it to a separate page. 33 Journalists highlight the differences between professional and audience content to protect professional content and the epistemology of journalism. 34 Journalists also co-opt user content by inviting audience contributions and incorporating it into professional journalism, a practice that Wahl-Jorgensen argues allows professionals to avert potential threats to the field’s stability by bringing the outside actor inside the field. 35
Commenters use their role to reinterpret facts and historical events and build personal narratives. 36 This could be seen as a threat to journalism’s verification and objectivity norms. However, because commenters are not unified behind a coherent voice, they struggle to gain relevance and influence content choices, journalistic news values and practices. 37 Robinson argues that comments in the aggregate “symbolize a foreign presence with a developing set of norms and etiquette that directly challenge those established by journalists.” 38 This study considers the comments of many to help elucidate the perspectives of commenters.
This study considers both how the audience member might contribute to the social construction of the role of the commenter but also how the commenter enacts that role through their engagement with content. Considering how audience members perceive the policies, practices and purposes of online commenting could help elucidate their role as a participant in news construction and meaning making. By acknowledging the legitimate interests of commenters, journalists can help break down barriers between the public and the professional. When journalists find ways to incorporate the audience member, they can help rebuild trust and show that they have a genuine interest in representing the public’s interests.
The growth in the ability of journalists and audience members to have a two-way conversation about local issues increases the need for a close study of how these conversations occur, who holds the power, and how the social norms for these spaces are established. Given that journalism organizations hold the ability to structure these forums as they see fit, the forums are one of the few places where commenters can express how they believe they should be used. For this reason, the following broad research questions were assessed: how do commenters structure their role in relationship to the role and practices of professional journalists and what does this positioning on the part of the commenter mean for the professional autonomy and control of online journalists?
Method
Online comments were collected from articles discussing the state of commenting, the rules for commenting and changes to the organization’s policy from January 1, 2011, to December 31, 2015. The researcher conducted a Google News search for the terms online comments and editor or column. The sample included 103 articles and 8,908 comments from English-language print news organization websites. Forty-four articles had no comments. The researcher then engaged in an initial close reading of comments, highlighting evaluative statements and reducing the sample to only comments that expressed a journalistic role, a commenter role and commenting policies. An evaluative statement was a comment that expressed an assessment of the appropriate roles and practices of the interested parties. This included providing an opinion, giving an assessment, judging practices and policies, and gauging the success of actions by journalists and/or commenters. The researcher was interested in evaluative statements related to the journalist’s role, or how they should engage with commenters as part of their professional function; the commenter’s role, or how the commenter should engage with one another and with journalists and still keep the forum productive; and the commenting policy, or how commenters perceive the organization’s structural choices about how to moderate commenting. This reduced the sample to 992 comments from 50 articles from 29 news organizations for analysis. While this is a small number of articles for analysis, the analysis focused more on the individual comments as texts, increasing the number of observations. Increasing the number of data observations in a small-n study provides more observations to compare with one another and improves the study’s validity. 39
The researcher engaged in an immersive “soak” in the content to develop a series of active codes. 40 This involves an in-depth and close study of texts before the initial analysis. The soak consists of reading the material individually and in the context of the other parts of the text. Codes were developed to stay close to the data and to focus on the very specific claims being made. For this reason, 40 codes were initially developed. All comments were then coded in NVIVO using the first-level codes. The researcher then engaged in a second reading of data to identify similarities and patterns among the first-level codes and to identify places where larger thematic evaluations were occurring. This led to the development of second-level codes that were more abstract but spoke to larger thematic actions. The researcher then engaged in a second round of coding in NVIVO based on the second-level codes. After the second round of coding, the researcher conducted a final reading of data to identify themes and patterns of how commenters were engaging in boundary work. These patterns and themes are discussed in the results along with how they align with questions of how the commenter is attempting to redefine the boundaries between the amateur and the professional in journalism. This is all in accordance with the constant comparative method for analyzing large amounts of textual qualitative data. 41
Findings
This project explores how commenters perceive the role of the journalist and the commenter in public discourse. Without an established framework, the researcher used the constant comparative method and developed a series of findings. The findings represent a hierarchy of expectations of autonomy in the commenter relationship with journalists. Three distinct commenter roles are addressed and examined for how each explains the commenter’s perception of the autonomy of journalists. The emerging trend is that commenters express different interests relating to the need for moderation, tools for self-governance and clear and enforceable guidelines for participation.
Self-Governed Spaces
The most prominent perspective expressed by commenters was an expectation that the commenting forum be set aside as a space for the online audience to build an online community without the influence of journalists.
Demanding freedom and power
Commenters saw the online forum as a separate production space. They recognized that the forum is attached to news content but did not see an expectation that journalists moderate. Commenters complained that journalist moderators had “outlived their usefulness” 42 because they try to “manage and shape the conversation along directed lines.” 43 Commenters preferred to have readers help flag issues in the comments because if no one governed the space then the news organization would just give up. 44
Participants also preferred that forums be egalitarian. “Everyone needs to be heard and if we stop listening, our society will never get better. Isolating and marginalizing people only strengthens their resistance and anti-social tendencies.” 45 Others saw the need for a level playing field to protect the exchange of viewpoints. 46 Some commenters also expressed a need for the ability to comment with a pseudonym to protect commenters from harm or retaliation. 47 Commenters asked journalists to step away from the forum and turn over the power to regulate the space to commenters as a check on the power of journalists 48 and as a way to collectively gain power. 49
Seeking autonomy and control
Participants wanted journalists to willingly turn over power. Commenters wanted audience-centric discourse to empower readers. These commenters called on news organizations to “empower readers by giving them the ability to limit which comments they see” 50 and to take back moderation from journalists who were slow to remove offensive or inappropriate comments. 51 Commenters referred to moderation as censorship and complained that journalists made it difficult to have real exchange. 52
Commenters wanted forums that allowed for free speech 53 and a marketplace of ideas, without journalists trying to create a balance of opinions. 54 Some went further, asking journalists to protect the commenting forum and remove barriers to discourse. For instance, some commenters at the New York Times asked for the paper to get rid of its “Verified Commenters” program that allows some commenters to contribute without pre-moderation. Another Times commenter bemoaned the program as treating readers as “inherently unequal.” 55 And one commenter asked Toronto Star moderators to step away from the conversation and stop applying expectations of civility to the conversation because commenters wanted discussion that was not inhibited by social norms. 56
Light Moderation and Enforcement
The second most prominent commenter criticism was that journalists have a duty to the audience to protect forums from the worst content, but that this role should be dictated by clear guidelines that journalists use to engage in a light-touch form of moderation.
Supervising a quality conversation
Commenters called for journalists to state clear guidelines and preferred rules not only to encourage respect and civil disagreement but also to avoid insults and ad hominem attacks. 57 Commenters also asked for consistent enforcement of existing guidelines, including rules about keeping the conversation on topic. 58 This light-handed form of moderation is appreciated because these commenters believed that journalists have some responsibility for the quality of discourse. “Cleveland.com has nobody to blame but themselves if the comment boards are filled with vile language. They are in control, it is their job to police their own site.” 59 One individual suggested that journalists be more transparent by justifying decisions to delete comments so commenters can learn from mistakes. 60
Holding journalists accountable for moderation
This commenter saw the limited role for the journalist to only enforce pre-established guidelines. Commenters complained about frequent inconsistent moderation. 61 A commenter on the CBC website asked the news organization to take action against difficult commenters. “It’s pretty simple, if the comments do not follow the rules of debate, they should not be allowed. Ad hominem arguments are allowed on here way too often.” 62 Commenters acknowledged that journalists had the authority to enforce the rules and did not see the journalist as an interloper but as someone who could be trusted to assist with moderation. For instance, some commenters showed appreciation for the New York Times’ high standards but referred to them as “just a joke” if “not applied consistently.” 63 Another saw light moderation as a way to protect minorities. “I would prefer to see a little human intervention . . . ’m here to learn, not to have my biases confirmed.” 64
A Guided Conversation
The least expressed belief was that forums should be spaces for a controlled and directed discussion, where journalists moderate using elevated standards to protect against incivility and irresponsibility. This might reduce commenter autonomy, but commenters believed that a much higher quality discussion was a positive result.
Upholding high standards
These commenters seemed most concerned about incivility and irresponsible behavior. Some argued that despite believing in free expression, journalists should not protect all content. “Free speech is important, but as the public editor points out, there are lines that should not be crossed on the pages of the nytimes.com.” 65 Others saw the journalist’s responsibility as being closely related to the news organization’s principles. “Would the Post print these mean-spirited comments in the Letters to the Editor section of the paper? Of course not. The low levels of civility and lack of something worth saying, other than something vile, diminishes the Post.” 66
Some argued that journalistic standards should be applied. One argued that newspapers exist in a diverse media market and that people who want to write racist, hateful or ignorant comments can go elsewhere. “People with a modicum of decency don’t want to see it.” 67 Others saw it as a journalistic responsibility to reduce comments to only those that are “logically sound” with “verifiable facts” 68 or only to those individuals willing to comment with their real name. 69
Governing in the public interest
These commenters recognized the journalist’s role and welcomed them into the forum. They acknowledged that the news organization, in most cases, is a private corporation and is not required to protect free speech. “The comment section is basically private property. The paper can have whatever guidelines they want be they arbitrary or not. . . . And I think by and large, they are very tolerant of dissenting views and opinions.” 70 This implied that journalists should hold commenters to a higher standard. These commenters argued that making journalists the gatekeeper insulates the best participants from the worst. 71 Some even saw the organization’s role as protecting the space from certain forms of dissent.
I do think The Conversation mods should be more delete happy :). Every article related to climate science or policy is spammed with same cranks with same denier points. . . . Any genuine comment is drowned in a sea of crank.
72
These commenters appeared to show an increasing willingness to be subjected to greater levels of moderation in the interest of protecting the “best” comments; however, there is little indication of what represents quality and most only express what types of comments are “worst.”
Discussion
While these philosophies do not encompass all commenter perspectives, they do represent the most coherent responses and serve as a guide for understanding the approaches of different collectives of commenters when it comes to autonomy, free expression and public discourse. These philosophies can be used to help journalists understand where commenters are coming from with their critiques and also to guide further research into how commenters express normative roles in discourse.
Expanding the Commenting Field
The most expressed role is that commenters should be provided with freedom to express themselves and to use the forum to challenge power institutions. Commenters believe they should be treated equally and that journalists should turn over control. This is the realization of what Wahl-Jorgensen described as a tension that journalists feel about attempting to both co-opt audience content and keep it at a distance through segregation. 73
This would result in a more collaborative relationship. Commenters are welcomed into the forum and are not governed by professional guidelines. This attempt by commenters to gain autonomy over the forum fits with how commenters have worked to gain a larger voice about journalistic practices and attempted to express norms about how they can contribute. 74 Commenters expressing an interest in gaining freedom not only aligns with previous findings that commenters believe strongly in free expression 75 but also provides legitimacy to the belief that journalists are using traditional approaches to discourse, rather than finding new and innovative ways to incorporate the audience’s voice. 76 A noticeable shift in power from the journalist to the audience has occurred in the online relationship. 77 This commenter does not see himself or herself as fitting the role of the professional but believes the audience should have authority over forums connected to professional content. This symbiotic relationship, where two closely linked, but separately governed, spaces live side-by-side, fits with Robinson’s conception of the “converger” journalist. 78 These commenters wish to establish the rules for discussion and direct conversations based on their interpretations and understandings of facts, similar to how Robinson found commenters reinterpreting facts and historical events. 79
These commenters express a coexistence with journalists in which each culture group acknowledges each other’s autonomy and where commenters can engage in discourse without interference. Rather than ban the worst actors, commenters could police the rules through flagging and other self-governing tools. The mere presence of journalists banning commenters is seen as an affront. The commenter easily divorces the journalist’s role to produce and disseminate content from their role to provide a space for discourse. The provision of the forum might be in their professional role, but they should not actively participate. These expectations might seem unreasonable to most journalists, as giving up authority can be seen as a risk. However, journalists could adopt facilitative moderation practices to interact with participants as fellow citizens rather than seeing their role as simply removing bad content, as Reich proposed. 80 This approach honors the autonomy of commenters while encouraging better behavior.
Expelling the Worst Actors
The second most expressed role placed the journalist in the position of removing commenters who most egregiously break the rules. Commenters asked other participants to make a sincere attempt to participate, and if they failed to do so, journalists were expected to remove those commenters. The understanding was that beyond removing the worst offenders and the worst content, journalists should maintain distance. Commenters saw the journalist’s role as a social responsibility not only to promote quality discourse but also to allow that discourse to be self-governed. This creates a distance between the expectations of commenters and the professional norms of journalists, which aligns with how most journalists see commenting as a separate form of content. 81 This relationship between commenters and journalists fits with how Hermida described most online forums as being structured with journalists limiting audience participation to varying degrees, but typically allowing most content. 82 These commenters, in their statements saying they prefer a more sincere attempt by others, are calling for a stronger focus on issues such as civility—a call that many journalists also have made. 83 These commenters are engaging in boundary work that distinguishes the professional field further from amateurs by finding ways to remove the worst actors and placing more distance between the two groups. This both acts to uphold the values of the profession while protecting some autonomy for amateurs.
In terms of managing boundaries, these commenters argue for participation from both commenters and journalists. Commenters are not critiquing journalists by keeping them at a distance but, instead, recognizing that commenting is intended for public commentary. The commenters argue that the space needs to be set aside for open discussion of news topics with as few rules as possible. This allows the journalist to play a professional role but only as an arbiter of the worst acts and actors. This role is seen as emanating from the journalist’s professional role and as a necessary element for maintaining quality. This role might be closest to how many journalists see their current function—as participants who clean up bad content and otherwise steer clear of discourse. These commenters respect the journalist as the arbiter of poor quality but also do not overwhelm the journalist with heavy moderation expectations.
Protecting the Space for Only the Most Serious Commenters
In the last understanding of the relationship, the commenter believes that journalists have a responsibility to preserve the forum for only the most serious participants by facilitating the conversation and dictating the topics for discussion. This role also aligns best with how journalists typically express their norms for discourse. Heinonen argues that journalists express narrow expectations of commenters, 84 which fit with how these commenters express their own role. These commenters would rather engage with others who provide something more than just simple opining but prefer the introduction of relevant facts and intelligent analysis. They see no problem with censoring those who engage at anything less than this standard. This journalistic role also aligns with the journalist role of being a “traditionalist,” 85 a journalist who has the authority to present new information and inform and engage the public, and that the public has the limited role of providing only substantial commentary and interpretation.
These commenters argued for participation by both journalists and commenters in the forum and that journalists should be seen as enforcers. These commenters are most likely to believe that assertions and mere opining should be banned from the conversation not only for lacking substance but also for distracting individuals from having a genuine conversation. The commenter does not necessarily see the space as specifically set aside for journalistic content as much as that the professional can help keep the amateur interpretation and analysis to a level of quality. These commenters see the journalist as more active than what is traditionally seen on a news website forum. This could lead to journalists feeling overwhelmed by the workload. Therefore, this role might work only at a news organization that can afford the resources to have multiple full-time moderators, such as The Times. However, news organizations could also limit commenting to specific stories about public issues in order to decrease the amount of work.
Conclusion
When offered the chance to talk to journalists about the role and function of forums, commenters attempt to negotiate the unsettled space by defining the appropriate role of participants, the acceptable practices and the role of professionals. Commenters do not see their actions as an affront to professional journalism. Because of this, commenters have differing expectations of how much journalist interaction is acceptable, from no journalist participation to extensive participation. However, the dispersed nature of commenters, that they rarely speak with a unified voice, means that commenters have not yet gained the power to change the field although their growing ability to express norms of journalism 86 means they may be slowly gaining influence. Commenters appear to be most interested in gaining a collaborative role in public discourse, a position that would allow them to have even footing with professionals to engage in conversation about important issues to their communities. These commenters see this as a natural extension of their free expression rights and do not see this as an infringement upon the professional role of the journalist to report and disseminate information. While this role might concern journalists, it could be valuable for professionals to seek ways to divorce the normative professional expectations of reporting the news from the role of facilitating public discourse.
Previous research shows that journalists set high standards for commenters, but commenters most often express an interest in setting their own rules and the agenda for discourse. Overall, commenters appear to see commenting as inherently not a part of professional journalism and their presence as nonthreatening to professional norms. Commenters believe journalists should be more accommodating of a self-governed discussion that could serve community needs.
This research project only scratches the surface of understanding how online commenters understand their role and that of professional journalists in public discourse. Questions remain about how other audience members might think forums should be used, since online commenters are not necessarily representative of the audience. Still more theoretical work must be done on understanding the negotiated space between the two groups and more opportunities to engage with the lived experience, practices, motivations and expectations of the online commenter. This research, however, provides a new foundation for understanding the perspective of the commenter, a still understudied audience perspective in journalism.
Footnotes
Editors’ Note
This article was accepted for publication under the editorship of Sandra H. Utt and Elinor Kelley Grusin.