Discussing Trump’s America Online: Digital Commenting in China, Mexico and Russia

This book offers a novel, grounded-theory approach to the study of online comments about Donald Trump and the USA in countries with a turbulent relation with America: China, Mexico and Russia. Slavtcheva-Petkova advocates for a departure from Jürgen Habermas’s public sphere and democratic deliberative framework, introducing instead the concept of post-deliberative public spheres. The book provides a qualitative thematic analysis via the constant comparison method, coupled with quantitate content analysis of more than 2200 social media comments posted from Trump’s election in 2016 until July 2020. Three empirical chapters are devoted to the countries under study, showing how it is possible to map the comments onto a spectrum of authoritarianism/censored media to democracy/free media. Slavtcheva-Petkova argues that existence and strength of an underpinning ideology and the scope that ideology leaves for constructive political discussions online is of key importance, exploring themes such as identity, patriotism and populism; democracy; power and responsibility. Timely and innovative, ‘Trump’s America Online’ astutely displays how post-deliberative public spheres are valuable spaces for political talk despite the challenges they face across the globe.