Meredith2021

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Meredith2021
BibType INCOLLECTION
Key Meredith2021
Author(s) Joanne Meredith
Title “On that note I’m signing out”: Endings of Threads in Online Newspaper Comments
Editor(s) Joanne Meredith, David Giles, Wyke Stommel
Tag(s) EMCA, Online Comments
Publisher Palgrave Macmillan
Year 2021
Language English
City Cham
Month
Journal
Volume
Number
Pages 111–132
URL Link
DOI 10.1007/978-3-030-64922-7_6
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title Analysing Digital Interaction
Chapter

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Abstract

This chapter analyses how threads of interaction end in comments posted below stories on online newspaper websites. Focusing on the topic of Britain leaving the European Union (Brexit), the analysis explores how threads end, despite there rarely being a closing sequence. The findings show that although the endings of threads are effectively retrospective, in the sense that the users do not know that a thread is ending at the time, there are particular sequential features which seem to lead to a thread ending. The analysis highlights three of these structures, which are when the directly named recipient no longer responds, when idioms are used, and when the interaction is no longer on the topic of the news item but instead becomes more personal or shifts to meta-talk. I discuss the challenges of collecting and analysing these kinds of data, and what microanalysis can contribute to our understanding of such interaction.

Notes