According to the care crisis in modern medicine, the existential needs of patients are not sufficiently satisfied. One idea is that to address the crisis physicians should be educated to be virtuous. This suggestion is helpful but incomplete. It does not take into account the part of (non-)human factors, including (medical) technologies. In particular, the paper focuses on online caring forums and argues that they are technological factors that can play the role of focal things, in which the members (...) gather together to do a care-related focal practice. Furthermore, we empirically study the online forums of Ninisite, a popular Persian website on pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting, and suggest that these forums shape focal practices that are helpful in alleviating the care crisis. (shrink)

In the midst of recent ethical decision-making failures in business in the past ten or more years, businesses are beginning to prioritize the moral fiber of their new-hire business graduates. In addition to academic performance, intellectual drive, and personality match, perhaps there are other key characteristics that employers seek which speak to the importance of ethical decision makers in practice. The question remains, how can academic institutions help instill such values into their students so that ethical decision making transcends their (...) lives? This article suggests that experiential learning through an institutional-sponsored business forum can help enhance an individual’s self-efficacy and awareness of the school’s value-based education, which ultimately will lead students towards ethical decision making in practice. Five years of survey data collected at business forum events suggests that business forums are making a difference in the students’ self-assessed abilities to show greater self-efficacy, better ethical decision making, and an increased awareness of their institution’s value-based education. Specifically, data collected illustrate a mediating effect of self-efficacy and awareness of a value-based education en route to ethical decision making. Further, support is found for the primary hypothesis that attendance at business forums does result in a higher propensity to make ethical decisions. Because of these positive findings, higher education institutions looking to place a greater emphasis on the ethical leadership of their business students may want to explore adding such experiential learning programs. (shrink)

L'article examine les spécificités des forums de discussion proposés par les municipalités françaises au regard de quelques-unes des interrogations animant les réflexions sur la délibération. Le forum apparaît comme un lieu conflictuel où l'expression relève davantage du registre de l'émotionnel que de la seule argumentation rationnelle. Ce caractère polémique des échanges n'est pas cependant exempt du souci de l'intérêt général, les internautes tentent ainsi de monter en généralité à partir de leurs revendications personnelles. Les inégalités de compétence entre participants (...) ne disparaissent pas lors des échanges électroniques, notamment en raison d'une maîtrise différenciée de l'écriture, mais la prédominance discursive de l'institution municipale, qui accompagne habituellement les débats publics, est largement érodée. L'influence du forum dans l'espace public local se manifeste indirectement, à travers son instrumentalisation dans le cadre d'actions collectives. (shrink)

Aquesta publicació recull els textos de les ponències de "L'encontre Fora d'equi libri", organitzat pel Departament de Cultura i Mitjans de Comunicació els dies 5, 6 i 7 de setembre de 2008, que planteja el paper de la inestabilitat i la tra nsformació en el món contemporani. Les causes, els mecanismes i les conseqüèncie s d'estar fora d'equilibri apareixen de forma diversa en els més diversos àmbits de les ciències, les humanitats i la creació en general. L'encontre s'organitzàe n tres (...) sessions: "homo ecologicus", que reflexiona sobre el fer de manera respec tuosa amb l'ambient; "viure el canvi", que reflexiona sobre la necessitat d'adap tació a un món canviant, i "artistes al laboratori", que reflexiona sobre les co ndicions favorables al procés de creació. (shrink)

A institucionalização da agenda anti-racista no Estado configurou-se como parte das estratégias de luta e resistência dos movimentos afrodescendentes na América Latina. O objetivo deste artigo é oferecer uma ferramenta para analisar os padrões de interação na ocupação de cargos burocráticos por militantes de movimentos afro-latino-americanos, ocorridos entre 2000 e 2016, a partir da experiência de militantes em três países: Brasil, Equador e Venezuela. Desenvolve-se a categoria “fora-dentro-de fora” como uma categoria de fluidez, ambiguidade, inadequação e infiltração que permite discutir (...) o lugar difuso e marginal ocupado por militantes afrodescendentes entre as fronteiras Estado-Sociedade e, ao mesmo tempo, destacar o racismo, a través da construção dos corpos negros como “corpos impolíticos”, como um dos fatores que caracterizaram a experiência de ocupação dos espaços públicos. (shrink)

In “Extending Research Protections to Tribal Communities,” Saunkeah et al. derive group-based protections of sovereignty and solidarity from the Belmont Report’s value of respect for persons...

I am lucky to have two such penetrating commentators as Robert Kirk and Andrew Melnyk. It is also fortunate that they come at me from different directions, and so cover different aspects of my book. Robert Kirk has doubts about the overall structure of my enterprise, and in particular about my central commitment to a distinctive species of phenomenal concepts. Andrew Melnyk, by contrast, offers no objections to my general brand of materialism. Instead he focuses specifically on my discussion of (...) the anti-materialist 'intuition of distinctness', raising questions about my attempt to explain this intuition away, and offering alternative suggestions of his own. (shrink)

Background: Discussion of the influence of money on bioethics research seems particularly salient in the context of research on the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of human genomics, as this research may be financially supported by the ELSI Research Program. Empirical evidence regarding the funding of ELSI research and where such research is disseminated, in relation to the specific topics of the research and methods used, can help to further discussions regarding the appropriate influence of specific institutions and institutional (...) contexts on ELSI and other bioethics research agendas. Methods: We reviewed 642 ELSI publications (appearing between 2003 and 2008) for reported sources of funding, forum for dissemination, empirical and nonempirical methods, and topics of investigation. Results: Most ELSI research is independent of direct grant-based funding sources; 66% reported no such sources of funding. The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) is the most dominant source of funding; 16% of publications acknowledged at least one source of NHGRI grant funding. Funding is acknowledged more frequently in empirical than nonempirical publications and more frequently in publications in public health journals than in any other ELSI research dissemination forums. Dominant research topics vary by publication forum and by reported funding. Conclusions: ELSI research is surprisingly independent of direct grant-based funding, yet correlations are apparent between this type of funding and publication placement, topics addressed, and methods used, implying a not insignificant influence on ELSI research agenda setting. However, given the relatively low percentage of publications acknowledging external grant-based funding, as well as other significant correlations between publication placement and topics addressed, additional institutional contexts, perhaps related to professional advancement or valuation, may shape research agendas in ways that potentially exceed the direct influences of grant-based funding in this area. In some cases, grant-based funding may actually counter other potentially problematic institutional influences. (shrink)

This article attempts to open the debate on a territorial development perspective that fixes the interest in organized territories that are characterized by the existence of a community with a local identity, politically and administratively regulated. We conceive these territories as subjects of development promotion interventions. For this we propose a model for the creation of Municipal Development Forums, which with the participation of local actors, can generate a tailor-made Local Development Program. The development program will consider a diagnosis (...) of the productive profile of the territory and its relationship with the characteristics and origin of goods or services consumed at the municipality. Based on the diagnosis, the causes of the decoupling between the local production system and consumption needs can be detected. And with this, find a way to readjust local production systems to meet the demand for goods and services of the inhabitants, generating new companies and encouraging local consumption. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Private Bioethics Forums:Counterpoint to Government BodiesCynthia B. Cohen (bio) and Elizabeth Leibold McCloskey (bio)Ethical issues associated with reproductive technologies quickly gain public attention. The front pages of newspapers have featured stories about grandmothers giving birth to their own grandchildren, couples "renting" wombs from surrogates, and researchers prepared to transplant fetal ovaries into women unable to produce viable eggs. With each new and bolder foray into reproductive realms, the (...) question of whether to set limits on the use of such technologies surfaces. An ancillary debate inevitably ensues about the proper forum for discussing and deciding such limits. The recent announcement of human embryo splitting or cloning research is no exception to this pattern. Articles in both the popular press and academic circles in the wake of the reported research contain lamentations about the absence of a national ethics body that could address the ethical issues raised by the cloning experiment. This research also breathed new life into congressional calls to create a government bioethics commission.1At times, it appears that the substantive questions raised by a procedure like cloning are subsumed under the debate about whether this ethics group or that should be convened to study the matter. But the forum in which options are discussed is as crucial to the development of sound ethical thought and public policy as are the conclusions themselves. Thus, we address the question of whether a private, as opposed to a public, bioethics body provides a distinctively useful forum for reaching an understanding of issues such as cloning that have significant ethical and public policy implications.A 1993 Office of Technology Assessment report, in which the authors suggest that a new federal bioethics commission might be useful, has helped to frame recent discussions about the value of government-sponsored bioethics bodies (Office of Technology Assessment 1993). To most people, the question of whether a national forum for bioethics is needed is synonymous with the question of whether a new federal body should be convened. Yet the existence of the National Advisory Board on Ethics in Reproduction (NABER) suggests that the scope of the question should be broadened. [End Page 283]NABER was born in 1992, in part as a response to an Institute of Medicine report on infertility. That document endorsed the formation of a nongovernment body to develop guidelines for assisted reproductive measures and fetal research in the event that a government body was not forthcoming (Institute of Medicine 1989). NABER, which was founded by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Fertility Society, now functions wholly independently of those groups and is supported by private foundations including the Ford, Greenwall, and Josiah Macy, Jr., Foundations and the Walter and Elise Haas Fund. NABER has issued a report on ethical issues related to the use of fetal tissue (Cohen and Jonsen 1993), is about to publish a report and background papers on oocyte donation, and presents a report on human cloning in this issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal. In addition, it has developed a protocol for NABER review of research proposals from federal agencies subject to federal guidelines on the use of human subjects in research.Thus, in function and form, NABER was envisioned as a substitute for a government body, and it now functions in a manner similar to several types of government bioethics groups. Like the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (National Commission) and the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research (President's Commission), NABER functions primarily through the publication of reports intended for a broad audience of practitioners, patients, policymakers, and the general public. Just as the Ethics Advisory Board of the late 1970s examined ethical issues related to specific protocols or types of research as they arose, NABER's purposes include scrutinizing the ethics of various research efforts in the reproductive area.NABER also parallels past government bodies in form. Like these groups, NABER is a multidisciplinary board that meets regularly and is supplemented by consultants and staff who provide research and writing for the board. Its members are nationally recognized in... (shrink)

This article tries to answer two questions : 1) How does the cooperation between the Belgian and Flemish government work within the field of multilateral policy?; 2) How is the multilateral policy of the Belgian federation and the Flemish government received at the multilateral level? The Belgian constitution has foreseen a system in which all governments are equal. This has important consequences for Belgian delegations in multilateral fora : in 'mixed' dossiers, no government has decisive power. Thus, all Belgian governments (...) are objective allies in guarding the externally projected image of the federation. Nevertheless, this seems to be a 'grey area' in the cooperation among the various Belgian governments. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is an embattled political project. It is accused of political naiveté for it only talks about power without taking power. Others, meanwhile, take issue with deliberative democracy’s dominance in the field of democratic theory and practice. An industry of consultants, facilitators, and experts of deliberative forums has grown over the past decades, suggesting that the field has benefited from a broken political system. This book is inspired by these accusations. It argues that deliberative democracy’s tense relationship with (...) power is not a pathology but constitutive of deliberative practice. Deliberative democracy gains relevance when it navigates complex relations of power in modern societies, learns from its mistakes, remains epistemically humble but not politically meek. These arguments are situated in three facets of deliberative democracy—norms, forums, and systems—and concludes by applying these ideas to three of the most pressing issues in contemporary times—post-truth politics, populism, and illiberalism. (shrink)

Surrogacy has long been discussed in reproductive medicine. In the Czech Republic, surrogacy is not legally regulated. Because of this legal vacuum, there are no official procedures or organizations that openly deal with surrogacy. Potential surrogate mothers and applicants do not have many options for obtaining or sharing information. The only source is the Internet. Online forums are a popular tool for gaining information and contacts regarding surrogacy. The goal of this research was to use qualitative research methods to (...) survey the most searched and discussed topics on Czech online discussion forum websites. We used discussions that we found on www.emimino.cz between 2009 and 2019. This article analyses the comments of the Internet forum discussants/participants, their involvement, knowledge of surrogacy, the information sought and their opinions. In particular, the participants discussed where to find a surrogate mother or how to become one. This article attempts to outline the discussions ordinary people have about surrogacy outside official expert forums. (shrink)

A área da educação matemática com sua "tradicional neutralidade" gera ambientes de invisibilidade para as minorias sociais, como é o caso da comunidade LGBTQIAP+. Essa educação matemática heteronormativa oprime as pessoas que não se encaixam no padrão e propaga a discriminação. Para evitar a invisibilidade e opressão em relação a determinados grupos sociais é necessário que se trabalhe essas questões em sala de aula. O movimento da educação matemática crítica e a educação matemática para justiça social rompem com a ideia (...) da neutralidade da matemática e busca trazer ao debate temas sociais importantes, como é o caso da sexualidade e identidade de gênero, e se faz necessário questionar: quais as relações da comunidade LGBTQIAP+ com a educação matemática? Para buscar informações que contribuam com este questionamento é necessário olhar para as produções acadêmicas já existentes, portanto o presente trabalho busca mapear teses e dissertações de programas de pós-graduações no Brasil que abordam a temática da comunidade LGBTQIAP+ e a educação matemática. No que se refere à metodologia, utilizou-se como base o trabalho de Biembengut referente ao mapeamento de produções acadêmicas. Foram identificadas e analisadas 5 produções. Foi possível identificar que essa discussão ainda é muito recente nos âmbitos acadêmicos. Contudo, é de extrema urgência preparar professores para trazer a temática para as aulas de matemática, considerando que trabalhar os saberes matemáticos de modo correlato a questões sociais é relevante no processo de formação dos alunos, tanto em conhecimento matemático quanto como um cidadão ético, respeitoso e educado, bem como auxilia a promover um ambiente de ensino que transcende os padrões e o modo de vida restrito, contribuindo com a transformação social. (shrink)

La exploración sobre la naturaleza, el significado y la estructura del concepto de crisis, y la definición misma de una crisis social convocan, primero, al uso, por lo general, ambiguo del término y, segundo, a las condiciones que manifiesta el mundo contemporáneo. Así, en este libro se procura analizar el, popularmente empleado pero poco esclarecido, concepto de crisis, sobre todo, en dos autores de la segunda generación de la teoría crítica, Habermas y Offe. La intención fundamental del texto es crear, (...) a partir de estos autores, un enfoque para estudiar las dinámicas patológicas de las sociedades contemporáneas. (shrink)

La figura de Walter Benjamin ha venido adquiriendo en los últimos años una inesperada actualidad. Su contribución al pensamiento de nuestro siglo aparece hoy como una intervención singular e irrepetible, producto de una encrucijada cultural patentemente determinada por la conciencia de crisis generalizada por la modernidad. En este contexto, la presente investigación trata de ofrecer una aproximación informativa y ajustada al conjunto de la obra de Benjamin, en una lectura efectuada desde el punto de vista de la Estética. En consecuencia, (...) el libro recorre puntualmente la sinuosa trayectoria de Benjamin desde sus tempranos escritos juveniles, pasando por su maduración crítica en sus trabajos en torno al universo romántico y el barroco, hasta su conversión al materialismo histórico y su explosiva dispersión en la obra de los Pasajes. (shrink)

This study intends to contribute to the delimitation of selected offensive language categories based on an analysis of a corpus of contributions to discussion forums in Czech online national newspapers and news platforms called Czech Corpus of Offensive Language (CCOL). It endeavours to study three problematic areas (1) delimitation between the speech acts performed, (ii) lexical realisation of specific properties of the target and (iii) identification and categorisation of implicit offence (e.g. figurative semantic shifts) by exploring contextual cues for (...) the speech act identification, the keywords indicating the properties of the target and the types of semantic shifts in implicit expressions of offence. The findings indicate that annotation systems that do not use context information for the detection of offensive language may face problems with adequate interpretation of the language means under investigation. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem o escopo de analisar as influências deixadas por Hans Kelsen e sua Teoria Pura do Direito para a Hermenêutica Jurídica e as incertezas ainda presentes em sua clássica obra sobre o processo interpretativo. O positivismo kelseniano, reconhecido pela separação entre direito e moral, não se omitiu quanto à realidade da interpretação jurídica, e, sem desconsiderar suas bases teóricas, deixou diretrizes para a consolidação de uma teoria da interpretação. Kelsen desenvolveu o conceito de moldura normativa como um (...) limite para o intérprete autêntico da norma cuja subjetividade influenciaria o processo interpretativo, mas também viu possibilidades de interpretações fora desta moldura. O trabalho pretende entender estas possibilidades de interpretação, analisando Hans Kelsen e seus ensinamentos sobre interpretação jurídica. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta reflexões sobre o letramento literário a partir da recepção da obra O olho de vidro do meu avô, de Bartolomeu Campos de Queirós, por meio da análise de depoimentos de leitores comuns – a literatura no cotidiano dos indivíduos - e de trechos de artigos científicos sobre a obra – a literatura no campo acadêmico. Apresentamos também uma sequência didática desenvolvida com alunos do 6º ano do Ensino Fundamental de uma escola pública de Itabirito, interior de Minas (...) Gerais, a partir da recepção do livro. Para a realização da prática pedagógica, usamos a proposta sugerida e experienciada por Rildo Cosson para o letramento literário, denominada pelo pesquisador como “Sequência Básica”, composta por quatro etapas: motivação, introdução, leitura e interpretação. Dessa forma, procuramos compreender a literatura, a leitura literária e o letramento literário na vida social e na escola, pois cabe a essa instituição proporcionar aos alunos experiências que desenvolvam essa competência para o letramento literário, a se perpetuar pela vida adulta. O principal objetivo desse processo no contexto escolar é formar um leitor que aprecie significações estéticas, capaz de se inserir em uma comunidade que faça suas próprias escolhas literárias, que saiba manipular seus instrumentos culturais e possa construir com eles um sentido para si e para o mundo em que vive. Dessa forma, é necessário reconhecer a importância de atividades que abarquem diferentes tipos de materiais escritos, mas que não sejam negligenciados os textos literários, multiplicando, dessa forma, os espaços de leitura e constituindo comunidades de leitores na escola e fora dela. (shrink)

Este ensaio traz o registro dessa ação que trata sobre proteção, por um lado a partir do controle dos corpos femininos – as falsas proteções –, e por outro, em paralelo, a partir da autonomia – as proteções que construímos todos os dias de forma independente.

Archaeologists have long disagreed about when and how humans first migrated into the Americas; a point particularly in contention is whether there is any convincing evidence of human occupation earlier than about 12,000 years ago. This article ex amines some recent publications on the controversy, selected especially from review articles and from a recent series, written by professional archaeologists, that appeared in a popular magazine, Natural History. The sample texts are analyzed from a rhetorical perspective with emphasis on textual features (...) such as word choice, hedging, arrange ment, self-reference, argumentative topic, and figure. Such features are taken to be signs of the writer's accommodation to audience and situation as determined in part by the place of publication. The analysis reveals some of the rich variety of persuasive techniques employed in popular and review publications by scientists who find themselves in a disciplinary stalemate, for example, the attempt of each side to depict itself as in the minority. The well-crafied popular pieces also use explicit appeals left only im plicit in the review articles; for example, the popular pieces describe the writer's status based on years of experience and support conclusions by narrating the long process of inquiry followed before a verdict was reached. (shrink)

A second look at a global ethics forum of several years ago can be a good start for examination of ethics of countries we deal with today. This global ethics forum had been financed by the United Kingdom’s DFID, The World Bank, USAID and AusAid to enable delegates from seventy countries to meet and discuss ethics policies.

Generating group interaction is a necessary part of teaching philosophy, but there are many obstacles to creating it in a traditional classroom. We propose that philosophy courses can be improved by turning to hybrid models that integrate classroom discussion with online message boards, or forums. Using anecdotes and a comprehensive survey, we argue that using forums helps instructors overcome time constraints in the classroom, helps some students overcome anxiety over contributing, improves discussion, reduces the need to review, and (...) gives instructors a better view of how their students encounter philosophy. We also provide examples of how to use forums and forum assignments. (shrink)

Problem An estimated 100,000–500,000 migrant care workers provide live-in care in German households, many of them caring for older people with dementia. Social research has identified a wide range of structural social problems associated with live-in care. However, a systematic ethical analysis and discussion is still missing. Arguments This article explores the moral conflicts that arise in the microsetting of live-in arrangements for people with dementia. For this purpose, we conduct an ethical analysis of the expectations of relatives towards live-in (...) care for people with dementia based on a qualitative content analysis of 182 contributions from three German-language online forums. These expectations address live-ins as service providers, professional nurses, moral agents, and family members. Conclusion The diverse and often disappointed expectations of relatives are an expression of problematic and partly contradictory claims regarding live-in care for people with dementia. An ethical analysis of their legitimacy and coherence can help to improve the individual arrangement, the institutional organisation, and the moral framing and legal regulation of live-in care. (shrink)

The nature and effectiveness of any international legal agreement is heavily shaped by the forum in which it is negotiated and implemented. This includes both the substantive content that global policymakers agree upon and the subsequent state compliance with those provisions. Forums differ in their institutional characteristics, thereby providing unique opportunities and costs for participating actors. Forums may have different mandates, capacities, cultures, members, and legal processes — all of which ultimately affect distributions of power and influence. These (...) differences then shape how issues are framed, the content of agreements as they are negotiated, and the incentives states have to comply with any obligations. (shrink)

: As the fifth national bioethics commission has concluded its work and a sixth is currently underway, it is time to step back and consider appropriate measures of success. This paper argues that standard measures of commissions' influence fail to fully assess their role as public forums. From the perspective of democratic theory, a critical dimension of this role is public engagement: the ability of a commission to address the concerns of the general public, to learn how average citizens (...) resolve moral issues in healthcare, and to monitor public opinion on the topics addressed in the commission. Such a public forum role is supported by the critical literature within bioethics, which has deemed some commissions successful, supported more generally by the history of bioethics as a reform discourse that has brought socially important values into the medical domain, and supported more generally still by the example of the great social issues commissions of the 1960s. (shrink)

Online forums have become the main source of knowledge over the Internet as data are constantly flooded into them. In most cases, a question in a web forum receives several responses, making it impossible for the question poster to obtain the most suitable answer. Thus, an important problem is how to automatically extract the most appropriate and high-quality answers in a thread. Prior studies have used different combinations of both lexical and nonlexical features to retrieve the most relevant answers (...) from discussion forums, and hence, there is no standard/general set of features that could be effectively used for relevant answer/reply post classification. However, this study proposed an answer detection model that is exclusively relying on lexical features and employs a random forest classifier for classification of answers in discussion boards. Experimental results showed that the proposed answer detection model outperformed the baseline technique and other state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms in terms of classification accuracy on benchmark forum datasets. (shrink)

In this paper, Waters introduces American Indians who hold a Ph.D. in philosophy. Waters explains that because American Indians are unable to garner the financial, collegial, and academic support needed to rise to inclusive positions in the philosophical profession, most of our colleagues and students remain uneducated and ignorant about indigenous people and our philosophies that are still alive today on this shared American continent. America’s indigenous philosophers have important contributions to make to philosophy and culture; yet our conceptual nonexistence (...) exacerbates our veridical non- integration. It is a cultural luxury for the APA to not address these problems. In some moral worlds, the APA Board might have a positive obligation to address the status of American Indian philosophy with all due haste. Three possible ways of indexing American Indian philosophy for inclusion in the discipline are presented, each raising unique and particular problems for the profession. It is suggested a field of Indigenous philosophy (global) could emerge over time, having subfields of diverse cultural philosophies, not necessarily linked to nation states or current geopolitical regions. Concluding, given issues of invisibility, alliances, and responsibility, the APA remains historically morally bound to address and perhaps even redress American Indian exclusionism in the profession upon which it acts, and in the culture it complicitly creates. (shrink)

This paper argues that, according to a specific conception of the ideals of constitutional democracy - deliberative democratic constitutionalism - the proper function of constitutional review is to ensure that constitutional procedures are protected and followed in the ordinary democratic production of law, since the ultimate warrant for the legitimacy of democratic decisions can only be that they have been produced according to procedures that warrant the expectation of increased rationality and reasonability. It also contends that three desiderata for the (...) institutionalization of the function of constitutional review follow from this conception: structural independence, democratic sensitivity and the maintenance of legal integrity. Finally, evaluating three broadly different ways of institutionalizing constitutional review - solely in appellate courts, in deliberative constitutional juries of ordinary citizens and in a combined system of constitutional courts and civic constitutional amendment fora - it argues that the third arrangement would perform best at collectively fulfilling the sometimes antithetical desiderata. (shrink)

This paper scrutinizes some peculiarities of the culture of Internet argumentation: it is a qualitative pragma-dialectical study of different strategies arguers employ to question or attack argumentation of their opponents in online political discussion forums. The basic assumption of the paper is that this particular context of argumentation—or: argumentative activity type—creates special opportunities and constraints for critical reactions regarding propositional content and relevance of argumentation. These opportunities and constraints, it is argued, may lead online discussions to being endless, yet (...) not necessarily fruitless from an argumentative perspective. (shrink)

This paper examines the proposition advanced by Sunstein and other scholars that political online forums tend to be characterized by in-group homogeneity and group polarization. The paper adopts a process view of online forums and examines discussions within a time perspective. Five discussion lines on Climategate.nl are investigated. The research focuses on how participants react to the participation of dissidents and on the resulting processes of inclusion and exclusion. Climategate.nl moved in the direction of an ‘echo chamber’ gradually (...) over time. Nevertheless, the forum was never completely homogeneous. The editors played an active role in the inclusion and exclusion of dissidents. A counter-steering moderation policy is needed to keep group polarization and homogenization within certain limits. (shrink)