Counteracting homophobic discourse in internet comments: fuelling or mediating conflict?

Abstract

The present study aims to examine counterspeech used to respond to LGBTIQ-targeted hostility in the comments section on a Lithuanian news portal. The objectives are to analyse (1) the extent of homophobic and non-homophobic comments and (2) the discursive strategies used in the two types of comments. This research combines the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis and to some extent impoliteness theory. The data includes all the comments posted in reaction to a news article on a social event held to support LGBTIQ persons (1718 comments in total). The quantitative results show that counterspeaking is scarce and is more common only in the section of registered users. As the qualitative analysis has revealed, the argumentation used in counter-comments contains a high degree of hostility and often resembles that in homophobic comments, only that the target of the attacks is different. There are only a small number of comments where the argumentation aims at a constructive dialogue. The analysis also shows that counterspeakers tend to express their perspective through humour and irony, and a most common strategy of mitigation appears to be that of rhetorical questions.