The Roar in the Comment Section: How Journalists Mediate Public Opinion on the Danish online newspaper politiken.dk

This article was originally published in 2018 in Journalistica, a Danish journal of Scandinavian journalism studies. It showcases how the Copenhagen school of argumentation has been adopted and adapted to analyze how digital media affect the function, format, and form of public debate. The article presents a case study of an intense debate on the Danish online newspaper politiken.dk in 2012 triggered by a young university student’s op-ed piece about her tight economy. A rhetorical analysis reveals how the coverage of the debate in Danish media simplified the public opinion that manifested itself in the online newspaper’s comment section: The polyphonic choir of arguments uncovered in the analysis was in Danish media reduced to monophonic criticism of the student and her piece. The study shows how journalists’ role as privileged interpreters and mediators of public opinion may not only be sustained online, but amplified. In this sense, the study continues the Copenhagen school of argumentation’s tradition of combining analysis of public debate with constructive criticism of news media and journalists.