Third Space and Everyday Online Political Talk: Deliberation, Polarisation, Avoidance

This paper takes forward a new agenda for online deliberation - the study of everyday political talk in 'non-political' online ‘third spaces’ - online communities devoted to issues such as parenting, food or sports (author 2012a, b). Online deliberation research has identified a series of problems with online debate: it often polarises with like-minded people talking to each other; disagreement and/or difficult topics are avoided; and it lacks deliberative characteristics and is plagued by trolling, flaming and curbing. This paper hypothesises that political talk in third spaces will avoid these limitations. It empirically analyses the nature of debate about the 2016 Australian federal election, in a discussion forum devoted to parenting. It finds that debates are broadly rational, with limited negative discursive behaviours. While participants lean to the left, there is significant crosscutting political talk and disagreement and debates focus on 'sensitive’ topics such as immigration and marriage equality.