Araştırma Makalesi

Patterns of Responses to Abusive Ad Hominem Attacks: The Case of Facebook News-commenting

Cilt: 37 Sayı: 2 31 Aralık 2020
PDF İndir
TR EN

Patterns of Responses to Abusive Ad Hominem Attacks: The Case of Facebook News-commenting

Abstract

News-commenting in social media is a platform that offers an opportunity for online deliberation through argumentative discussion. Yet aggressive exchanges between commenters with clashing ideologies have become a prominent feature of online news-commenting. One example of the aggressive exchanges is the use of direct personal attacks among news-commenters, namely abusive ad hominem. In this paper, I aim to reveal the patterns of responses given to abusive ad hominem attacks by studying the comments to news items in Facebook. The reason is to shed light on how the discussion evolves after the ad hominem attack. The patterns that this paper illustrates are a summary of studying the responses to 20 ad hominem attacks that figure in the comments to news items topicalizing various social problems in Turkey. The examples were drawn from those that topicalise ‘violence against women in Turkey’. Three patterns were identified: (1) abusive ad hominem as a response to an abusive ad hominem attack; (2) refusing to carry on the discussion; and (3) critically evaluating the abusive ad hominem attack. These patterns show that the pragma-dialectical definition of the ad hominem fallacy proves to be functional in understanding its role in blocking the way to the resolution.

Keywords

abusive ad hominem , responses , Pragma-Dialectics , Facebook news-commenting

Kaynakça

  1. Ad hominem. n.d. In Student Sources of Department of Philosophy of Texas State University. Retrieved January 14, 2020, from https://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Ad-Hominem.html
  2. Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language use. Cambridge: CUP.
  3. BTK-30/11/2007 tarihli 26716 sayılı Resmi Gazetede yayımlanan İnternet Ortamında Yapılan Yayınların Düzenlenmesine Dair Usul ve Esaslar Hakkında Yönetmelik [The Regulation on the Principles and Procedures of Regulating the Publications on the Internet, dated 30/11/2007 and published on the Official Gazette issue number 26716]: https://www.btk.gov.tr/File/?path=ROOT%2F1%2FDocuments%2FCommunique%2FREGULATION%20ON%20THE%20PRINCIPLES%20AND%20PROCEDURES%20OF%20REGULATING%20THE%20PUBLICATIONS%20ON%20THE%20INTERNET.pdf
  4. Eemeren, F. H. van. (2010). Strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse: Extending the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
  5. Eemeren, F. H. van, Garssen, B., & Meuffels, B. (2009). Fallacies and judgments of reasonableness: Empirical research concerning the pragma-dialectical discussion rules. Dordrecht: Springer.
  6. Eemeren, F. H. van, Garssen, B., & Meuffels, B. (2012). The disguised abusive ad hominem empirically investigated: Strategic manoeuvring with direct personal attacks. Thinking & Reasoning, 18(3), 344-364.
  7. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst, R. (2004). A systematic theory of argumentation: The pragma-dialectical approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  8. Eemeren, F. H. van, Grootendorst, R., Jackson, S., & Jacobs, S. (1993). Reconstructing argumentative discourse. Tuscaloosa-London: The University of Alabama Press.
  9. Eemeren, F. H. van, Houtlosser, P., & Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2007). Dialectical profiles and indicators of argument moves. In H.V. Hansen, et. al. (Eds.), Dissensus and the search for common ground, CD-ROM (pp. 1-17). Windsor, ON: OSSA.
  10. Facebook commenting image was retrieved March 20, 2018 from http://www.prosar.com/inbound_marketing_blog/ bid/175896/NEW-Facebook-Updates-with-Reply-Button-and-Comment-Threads

Kaynak Göster

APA
Demir, Y. (2020). Patterns of Responses to Abusive Ad Hominem Attacks: The Case of Facebook News-commenting. Hacettepe Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 37(2), 290-303. https://doi.org/10.32600/huefd.631015