What Kind of Cultural Citizenship? Dissent and Antagonism When Discussing Politics in an Online gay Community Jakob Svensson Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden jakob.svensson@kau.se Abstract: Framed in ideas of cultural citizenship and acknowledging the importance of popular cultural sites for political participation, this short paper attends to a study of political discussions in the Swedish LGTB community Qruiser. The research is netnographic through online interviews, participant observations and content analyses. Preliminary results suggest an atmosphere that is geared rather towards conflict and dissent between participants than towards deliberation, opinion formation and consensus. This paper will therefore shortly discuss the results in light of Mouffe's (2005) normative lens of agonism and radical democracy. Keywords: agonism, cultural citizenship, political participation, radical democracy, social media
1. Introduction This short paper is theoretically framed in ideas of cultural citizenship as developed by Hermes (2006). Non outspokenly political popular cultural sites, such as fan and net communities, may become sites for political participation (see for example Graham 2009; Svensson 2010; Andersson 2013). Thus, if aiming at understanding citizenship, it would be wrong to exclusively focus on realms of institutionalized politics. The research project this paper is based on studies political discussions in the Swedish LGTB (Lesbian, Gay, Trans‐ and Bisexual) community Qruiser. The research is netnographic through online interviews, participant observations in, and content analyses of, political discussions on Qruiser forums and most popular political clubs during November 2012. Preliminary results suggest an atmosphere that is rather geared towards conflict and dissent between participants than deliberation, opinion formation and consensus. The expressive and conflictual political participation will therefore be discussed in light of Mouffe's (2005) normative lens of agonism and radical democracy.
2. A cultural theoretical perspective A cultural theoretical perspective implies a focus on processes of meaning‐making. Culture can be understood as a set of values and beliefs that inform and motivate our behaviour (Castells 2009: 36), helping us to understand our practices and providing them with meaning. Media and communication platforms are important for such meaning‐making (Thompson 2001/1995). Drawing on the sense‐making participant, culture in Hermes' (2006) theorizing of cultural citizenship is connected to the blurring of public and private spheres, reminding us that citizenship is practiced in many different places. Popular culture offers images and symbols that evoke emotion that we use when negotiating civic identities (Dahlgren 2009: 137). It would thus be wrong to confine the political exclusively to the realm of institutionalized politics (Carpentier 2011: 39‐40). As political communication researchers, we should also attend to popular culture when trying to understand contemporary citizenship, not the least to online sites in our digital and late modern age (see Svensson 2011). General research on online communities has shown that interaction changes because of the possibility of anonymity, automatic archiving and access to a range of different communities (Kozinets 2011: 100). Still, we know little about the extent and how internet users participate in nonpolitical online groups to discuss politics (Wojcieszak & Mutz 2009: 41). Therefore we need to study how and why popular cultural sites engage citizens in political discussions and how participants make their participation meaningful here. There have been some studies of popular cultural sites from a political participatory perspective. Graham (2009) found more deliberative qualities in political discussions on docu‐soap fan‐pages in comparison to discussions on respected journals comment fields. Svensson (2010) studied discussions on ice‐hockey fan‐ pages and found that social capital was produced here. Andersson (2013) studied political discussions in a youth community ‐ based on music preferences and clothing style ‐ and found that users were exposed to
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