Abstract
An increase in users’ opportunities for commenting, expressing arguments, and reasoning regarding various subjects are considered as the main outcomes of the digital public sphere development. At the same time, the diversity of the shared cultural contents has led users to utilize this potential for giving feedback and critiquing the content. Hence, the current study aims to explain the most important values, goals, and argumentation styles of Iranian users in critiquing cultural phenomena. It also considers the most controversial aspects of this participatory culture from the viewpoint of the users. The topics discussed in the theoretical section take their root from three fields of “new cultural criticism”, “online participation”, and “popular public sphere”. To analyze data, a rhetorical analysis combined with qualitative content analysis was used. The data consist of one thousand comments related to five recent controversial topics in various cultural matters. The comments were selected purposefully from the Instagram public sphere. The results introduced the main cultural and rhetorical criticism types utilized by the users, and clarify their rational, emotional, and value-based nature in connection with various topics. In the conclusion section, the main pros and cons of the widespread new types of criticism in cyberspace are discussed. Moreover, suggestions for educational policy-makers are shared.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Commenting, Cultural Criticism, Public Sphere, Rhetorical Analysis, Instagram
