Abstract

This paper presents the results of an explorative pilot study of political debates among users on NYTimes.com, the online newspaper of The New York Times. The study shows how a number of insti-tutional and vernacular subject positions are constituted and challenged in the debates. This happens in a process characterized by a dialectic between, on the one hand, an institutional call in the technical framing and rhetorical initiation of the debates and, on the other hand, a vernacular response in the users’ com-ments. This process reflects a community deliberating not only collective action but also collective identity and, moreover, subtly indicates the community’s norms of rhetorical conduct in political debates and how they are negotiated.