Online journalism and the public sphere: A discourse analysis of three newpaper websites

The central interrogation is about the extent to which online journalism redefines and actualizes the concept of the public sphere as developed by Habermas. In order to examine such relationships, this thesis engages a discourse analysis of three newspaper websites---Le Monde, Guardian Unlimited and the New York Times---and their coverage of the 2003 World Social Forum.; The examination of three newspapers that have made the transition from print to online provides the ground for reassessment of the notion of the Internet as a democratic medium and shows there is a development of hybrid models that mix some of the characteristics of Internet-based communication with mass media communication.; The discourse analysis proceeds by analyzing the interplay between multiple levels of discourse---the textual level, the hypertextual level of internal and external links, and the interactive level of readers' participation. It is not only the discourses produced and the ideologies they carry that are analyzed, but also the ways in which those discourses embody the shifting relationships between journalists and audiences in the emerging online public sphere.; Not only do journalists define specific ideological representations of an event inscribed within the globalization/antiglobalization debate, they also use hyperlinks to both reinforce their discourses and to open them up to readers' scrutiny. As such, hypertext does not simply create multiple discourses, it also allows journalists to map the construction of their representations. The new relationships that are established with audiences through interactive debate point to the redefinition of the hierarchy between journalists and readers, with a gradation as to the extent to which readers can participate in building and interrogating the media representations. To conclude, this thesis suggests that the online public sphere could benefit from developing models of news communication that are more open to self-reflection about the representations they carry.