Conformation of ingroups and outgroups groups in the readers-commentator’s discourse in newpaper blogs

Abstract

Blogs have been highlighted as enablers of interaction among people. Its use by e-journals has allowed them to receive feedback from their audiences. Readers, apart from reading the content that is offered there, have the ability to react to these, either questioning or supplementing the information provided or expressing their opinion. As a way of interaction, frequently, commentators arrogate to themselves the representation of groups, antagonizing toward other groups. From this phenomenon, we proposed to study the conformations of these groups in the readers-commentator’s discourse with the aim to characterize these groups and describe their relationships. We worked on a corpus of 580 comments belonging to 39 opinion columns. The analysis was performed based on the Intergroup Relations Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and the Appraisal Theory (Martin & Rose, 2003; Martin & White, 2005). As a result, it is noted that the identity groups, with which commentators are identified, are configured using features such as nationality, economic or cultural status. The relationship expressed to those groups considered as adversaries (politicians, businessmen, church members, among others), is characterized by an asymmetric and hostile nature. Commentators are at a disadvantage in expressing their opinion regarding the role that adversary groups play in the society.