Facilitating on-line opinion dynamics by mining expressions of causation. The case of climate change debates on The Guardian

Abstract

News website comment sections are spaces where potentially conflicting opinions and beliefs are voiced. Addressing questions of how to study such cultural and societal conflicts through technological means, the present article critically examines possibilities and limitations of machine-guided exploration and potential facilitation of on-line opinion dynamics. These investigations are guided by a discussion of an experimental observatory for mining and analyzing opinions from climate change-related user comments on news articles from the TheGuardian.com. This observatory combines causal mapping methods with computational text analysis in order to mine beliefs and visualize opinion landscapes based on expressions of causation. By (1) introducing digital methods and open infrastructures for data exploration and analysis and (2) engaging in debates about the implications of such methods and infrastructures, notably in terms of the leap from opinion observation to debate facilitation, the article aims to make a practical and theoretical contribution to the study of opinion dynamics and conflict in new media environments.