THE CRITICAL THEORY OF JURGEN HABERMAS IN SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

EU House, Bratislava, Slovakia 8-9 November 2012

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You say "Yes", I say "No“: Applying Habermas’ notion of

basic validity claims to capture, disaggregate and measure the “opinion” of Internet discussions

(on the Russian-language LiveJornal blogging platform)

YURI MISNIKOV, PHD Independent scholar

yuri.misnikov@gmail.com

- You say "Yes", I say "No". You say "Stop" and I say "Go, go, go". Oh no. You say "Goodbye" and I say "Hello, hello, hello". I don't know why you say "Goodbye", I say "Hello, hello, hello". I say "High", you say "Low". You say "Why?" And I say "I don't know". Oh no. You say "Goodbye" and I say "Hello, hello, hello".

THE BEATLES - HELLO GOODBYE SONG By LENNON/ MCCARTNEY

Contents

1 - Theoretical framework

2 - Analytical framework

3 - Empirical framework

4 - Conclusions

Theoretical Framework - from

New media, Computer-mediated

Communications, online deliberations (public

discussions on the Internet)

Deliberative, discourse-centred concept of democracy, emancipatory potential of the pluraliustic public sphere

Theoretical Framework - to

New media, Computer-mediated

Communications, online deliberations (public

discussions on the Internet)

Deliberative, discourse-centred concept of democracy, emancipatory potential of the pluralistic public sphere

Theoretical Framework • Similarities between the emergence of the

Habermasian public sphere and the virtual public space – Audience-oriented privateness ‘...when bourgeois

private people formed themselves into a public and therewith became the carriers of a new type of public sphere’ with a ‘emancipatory potential’ (Habermas and the Public Sphere, p. 426-7)

– Pluralization of the public sphere as a condition of its very emergence (plebeian, proletarian, counter public spheres) due to the ‘exclusion of the culturally and politically mobilized lower strata’

Theoretical Framework ‘I must confess, however, that only after reading Mikhail Bakhtin’s great book Rabelais and His World have my eyes become open to the inner dynamics of a plebeian culture . The culture of the common people apparently was by no means only a backdrop, that is, a passive echo of the dominant culture; it was also the periodically recurring violent revolt of a counterpproject to the hierarchical world of domination, with its official celebration and everyday disciplines’ (Habermas and the Public Sphere, p.427).

Theoretical Framework ‘The public sphere can best be described as a

network for communicating information and points of view (i.e., opinions expressing affirmative or negative attitudes); the streams of communication are, in the process, filtered and synthesized in such a way that they coalesce into bundles of topically specified public opinions. Like the lifeworld as a whole, so, too, the public sphere is reproduced through communicative action; it is tailored to the general comprehensibility of everyday communicative practice’ (Between Facts and Norms/BFN, 360).

Theoretical Framework

Public sphere as linguistically constituted space of communication actors who generate intersubjective solidarities as a result of their ‘cooperatively negotiated interpretations’ by ‘taking positions on mutual speech act offers and assuming illocutionary obligations’ (BFN, pp. 361-2), i.e. through issuing affirmative or negative statements.

Discourse participants mutually grant each other communicative freedom to say “Yes” and “No”, i.e. to claim certain “truths”.

Analytical Framework

What are Validity Claims?

• Reciprocal and discursive instruments to realise (a rational) communicative act

• Carriers of indirect, intended meaning beyond language

• Aimed at reaching understanding with ‘someone with regard to something’

Analytical Framework

What is the act of claim making

• Demonstration of certain reason

• Transmission of intentional meaning

• Articulation of a position

Analytical Framework

What is the act of claim validation

• Subsequent communicative action

• Linguistic, logical exercise and also moral and ethical act

• Representation of a certain worldview

• Not all claims are recognised and validated

Analytical Framework: Types of validity claims

Claims to Objective

propositional truth Claims to

Shared normative rightness

Claims to Subjective personal

truthfulness

Background knowledge

Aesthetic harmony

Social solidarity Sincerity /Civility

Empirical Framework

Research objectives

• To test the hypotheses that

– Validity claims to normative rightness can be used to assess the quality of public debate online

– Validity claims to normative rightness can be used to measure the prevailing opinion of discussants and thus disclose issue-based solidarities formed by them

– Articulation of disagreements is the main content of the validation act

Empirical Framework

Demonstration case:

• http://nytimesinmoscow.livejournal.com/2245.html

• Analysis method: content analysis

• Sample for analyzing deliberative quality: 189 posts

• Sample for analyzing the scope of public opinion: 100 posts

Empirical Framework: Thread example

Empirical Framework: Logic of claim development

STEP 1: Select theme/topic

STEP 2: Problematize

an issue

STEP 3: Qualify a problem, express

an attitude

STEP 4: Formulate claim to

normative rightness

STEP 5: Validate

others' claims via

agreement/ disagreement

Empirical Framework: Coding example

• Coding format: «VC-55//3-3-1=The article is untruthful (Статья неправдивая); VC-56//3-3-1=America should better deal with its democracy (Америке лучше заниматься своей демократией)» – VC-55 – validity claim number 55; there can be more than one

claim in the same post

– 3-3-1 – 1st post (last digit) of author number 3 (middle digit), which was the 3rd post in a row among all participants

– “America should better deal with its democracy” – problematised issue which belongs to a broader topic of Russia-America relations; its intended meaning is to dismiss the paper’s opinion of the state of democracy in Russia as unimportant, a ground for further agreement or disagreement with this

statement, expressed in the form of For and Against, in the spirit of Habermasian positive and negative attitudes

Empirical Framework: Stats • 189 posts made by 59 participants • 10% of posts were uncivil • 70% of all posts contained claims to normative

rightness • 179 claims were made (unique and repeated) • 147 claims were validated – discussion was

dialogic • 76% (112) were unique validation acts (the same

claim can be validated more than once by a number of participants)

• 2/3 claims validated via disagreement

Empirical Framework: Example of Yes/No claim making & validation

Claim making (justification, correction of

previous claims & articulation of new

claims VC-40, VC-43)

Claim validation (of VC-39, VC-41, VC-42)

via

Claim making (justification, correction of

previous claims & articulation of new

claims VC-39, VC-41, VC-42)

Claim validation (of VC-38)

via

Claim making (VC-38)

VC-38: There will be no Black Tuesday again

agreement

VC-41: Putin did not commit major mistakes

VC-42: Beslan and Kursk are insignificant disagreement VC-43: Beslan and Kursk are

not insignificant

disagreement VC-39: There wil be a new Black Tuesday agreement VC-40: Putin is leading Russia

to catastrophe

Empirical Framework: The atom of collective position formation via For/Yes and Against/No

Empirical Framework: Distribution of discursively articulated positions “Yes/For” by discussion themes

Putin's policy 26%

Russian government's

policy 18%

Russian democrats 6%

The NYT paper- 6%

America's democracy & policies 24%

Russia's military policy 20%

Positions FOR (validated claims, sample size 100 post, NYT-LJ discussion

Empirical Framework: Distribution of discursively articulated positions “No/Against” by discussion themes

Putin's policies

7%

Russian government's

policy 19%

Russian democratc/ human rights

defenders 9%

The NYT paper 5%

America's democracy &

policies 39%

Russia's military policy 21%

Positons AGAINST (validated claims; sample size 100 posts, NYT-LJ discussion)

Empirical Framework: Distribution of holders of of discursively articulated “Yes/For” positions by discussion

themes

Putin's policies 37%

Russian government policy

13%

Russian democrats/ human rights defenders

10%

The NYT paper 10%

America's democracy &

policies 17%

Russia's military policy 13%

Participants with "For" position (validated claims; sample size 100 posts, NYT-LJ discussion)

Empirical Framework: Distribution of holders of discursively articulated “No/Against” positions by discussion themes

Putin's policy 11% Russian

government's policy 19%

Russian democrats human rights

defenders 11%

The NYT paper 7%

America's democracy &

policies 37%

Russia's military policy 15%

Participants with "Against" position (validated claims; sample size 100 posts, NYT-LJ discussion)

Conclusions • Validity claims to normative rightness are useful to

– (a) capture an intended meaning of utterances – (b) assess how deliberative are online debates – (c) measure the scope of public opinion discursively – (d) reveal issue-based intersubjective solidarities – (e) disagreements are the discourse drivers (not new finding)

• Questions: – Can the conversational form of online discussions be (a)

recognized and (b) mainstreamed both into formal politics? – What can be learned by studying such discussions? Can it be

used, not abused, for agenda setting and policy making? (We know from history that mass participation can be controversial). How to move from political mobilization toward democratic socialization and collaboration across communities and civic cultures? Can that would help to overcome the “majoritarian tyranny”?