Debate or Conversation? French and British Public Internet Discussion

Abstract

Having explored beliefs about culture’s manifestations online let us pursue the question of cultural and generic convention and their interactions with each other and with technology through the particular example of the mass-media public discussion forums introduced in Chapter 1. We present two snapshots of the forums, at particular points in their evolution to show, firstly, variation across cultures (this chapter) and variation over time, which does not, however, result in the erasure of cross-cultural difference (the following chapter).