| dc.description.abstract | Comment spaces online have with the years turned into tools used by many on a daily basis. There are two factors that significant for online discussions – firstly, there is no need to be in the same place geographically; secondly, the immediacy of the conversation brings it closer to the real life discussions. The title of this master s thesis points out the possible correlation between comments posted on online newspapers and the process of deliberation within a society. Given that VG Nett is Norway s biggest online newspaper, it represents an online arena where people have the possibility to read and discuss the issues of the day. I have decided to conduct a critical evaluation of VG Nett as an online debate provider. In my qualitative study I have selected and examined nine online discussions on VG Nett. The discussions were studied according to the Raphaël Kies deliberative criteria, Habermas concept of the public sphere and the deliberative theory. First of all, my findings point at the exclusion of some people from this platform – those who do not have a Facebook account are deprived of the opportunity to participate in the discussions. Additionally, the results indicated a big amount of discussants, who only participated once, which worsens the empathic side of the debates. On the bright side, none of the participants seemed to drastically dominate any of the selected discussions. Finally, I did not find any traces of racist, threatening or hateful comments, which confronts the overall belief about online debates malign character. VG Nett s comment spaces have given their readers an opportunity to discuss the agenda and to be heard. However, my research has shown that participants themselves are not active enough – the criterions of reflection and justification had an overall low score in all of the studied debates. Based on this, I assume that VG may benefit from implementing concrete strategies for keeping their readers interested and willing to participate in discussions more than just once. | eng |