Social Conventions and Boundary Work in an Online Q&A: The Example of Vegetarianism and Veganism

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore the regulation of social conventions (more or less arbitrary norms of how one ought to act that are based on joint commitments) in online interaction. As the empirical case, the article scrutinises discussions about what it means to exercise vegetarianism or veganism. Drawing on ‘naturally occurring’ data from the question-and-answer platform Yahoo! Answers, conventions of vegetarianism and veganism are argued to be protected and upheld through symbolic boundaries, primarily in three forms: incompatibility, inauthenticity and noncommitment. Moreover, by utilising the platform’s system of thumbs-up and thumbs-down, it is argued that we are provided evidence of social approvals and sanctions in real time. The findings are suggested to have implications for continued theorising on conventions, studies of boundaries in the social sciences and analyses of social media as an arena for re-orientations of established sociological problems.