Top-down meets bottom-up

Abstract

With their new patterns of participation and interaction in political discourse, Opinion sections of online newspapers played an important role in the dissemination and critical public discussion of governmental crisis communication during the pandemic. Scrutinizing above-the-line and below-the-line commenting in the Opinion section of The Guardian online, the current study focuses on the complexities of the mediation and reception of politicians’ Covid-19 communication at the interface of institutionalized political and participatory online discourses. It carves out different, but interwoven dimensions of this mediation to detail the specific framing conditions of the reception process. Focusing on quotations as an important connecting link between these different discourse domains, it examines firstly, how a(bove) t(he) l(ine)-commenters use quotations to position themselves critically vis-à-vis governmental discourses; secondly, which overall verbal strategies are evident in governmental discourses that address the public indicated/targeted in the atl-comments? and thirdly, whether and how users respond to atl-quotations of politicians in their respective b(elow)t(he)l(ine)-comments.