El foro.com: encuentros y desencuentros en el "coliseo ideológico"

Abstract

This paper focuses on the study of the virtual identity of Internet users in discussion forums and, specifically, their discursive identity. After a brief introduction to the concept of virtual identity, I analyze the basic characteristics of such forums, conceived as a place of dialectic, polyphonic and multidiscoursive communication. In the second part, I examine locutors’ discursive behavior in ideological argumentative discourse. First, I look at the image that the Internet user offers through its argumentative posts and how it is perceived by the virtual community. Next I analyze the argumentative strategies employed by locutors in “El foro de religión”, focusing my attention on those which, because of their level of impoliteness, represent an attack on the image of both their interlocutor and the ideologicl group.