This paper takes forward a new agenda for online deliberation research: the study of everyday political talk in non-political, online “third spaces”. Conducting research in third spaces raises difficult methodological questions. This paper uses an innovative, multi-method approach (Wright, UR) to overcome these issues. It will focus on “super-participants” (SPs): most studies of deliberation online have found dominant minorities. Surprisingly no detailed analysis of their behavior has been undertaken. This paper develops a typology of participation to categorize users. For example, SPs are defined as users who have made 2000+ posts, created more than 5% of messages, or started more than 5% of new threads. The paper focuses on one “third space”, www.moneysavingexpert.com, and explores two principal research questions: 1) What is the volume and nature of participation? 2) What motivates and drives SPs? First, a screen-scraping script will be used to collect and analyze posting patterns across the whole forum. This is adapted from Wright’s (2006) previous groundbreaking study that used live screen scraping to analyze (post) moderation practices on the Downing Street forum. Second, thirty SPs will be randomly selected and hand-coded content analysis used to determine whether they attempt to dominate or facilitate discussions. Finally, interviews will be conducted with SPs to explore how they perceive their posting behavior and why they participate. To summarize, the paper will make several contributions to the field. It will: provide the first detailed analysis of SPs; extend the new third space research agenda; and break new methodological ground.
