Meredith2021
| 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 | |
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| Number | |
| Pages | 111–132 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1007/978-3-030-64922-7_6 |
| ISBN | |
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| Howpublished | |
| Book title | Analysing Digital Interaction |
| Chapter | |
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.
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