The linguistic construction of confirmation niches in online comment sequences

Abstract

This study starts from the consideration that new media are platforms where communication and language are re-negotiated to adapt new frames (e.g. new politeness, multimodal exchanges) and, in particular, that fora are participatory frameworks, that represent a mined engagement in writing practices (Stommel and Koole, 2010). Discussions are organised as multiparty conversations on several topics, written by participants (i.e website users accessing a parenting forum) at different levels of expertise about health issues (mostly earned through their experience of parenthood; Kata, 2010). the challenge in this paper is : 1) to study asynchronous forum as a talk-in -interaction venue, where sequences are constricted in conversation-like succession adapted to the medium; and 2) to study the exchange in light of the notion of confirmation niche, that is a virtual space in which very similar information are shared and accepted, reinforcing one's beliefs.